That seems superbly unlikely. If that were true, what would he stand to gain from that? What did he have against these people?
I can't imagine he was just sitting there chuckling maniacally "yes yes I'm going to hurt these people who just lost their children". That's an imagined cartoon
He makes a living of spreading fabulous and wild lies designed to spread fear and anger. In this case, and in the context of all those other anger fueling claims, he lied and said that the shooting was a false flag, that no one died, and that the parents were crises actors who faked the death of their loved ones because the state was going to use it as an excuse for gun control, and he continued to claim it, even after the parents were harassed, even after they initially sued him, and even went so far as to make accusations about the parents and judge on TV during the trial.
What do you believe his goal was? And do you believe those claims don't meet the requirement for defamation? Again I ask how you'd feel in my proposed scenario, if I accused you of being a child rapist on TV, even if I didn't say you needed to be stopped, but that you were raping children for satan. Would you think that's just fine because no one rational would believe it?
It also bears mentioning that the gulf between "it's going to rain" and "the parents of murdered children are actually 'deep-state' actors aiding a conspiracy to take away your rights" is vast.
And again, the grey areas here seem like the kind of thing that a jury is able to decide. Alex wasn't found guilty by executive order from the president.
If it were one ordinary person making those accusations to a small group of their friends and acquaintances who also knew you and could see for themselves that those accusations were false, that'd be one thing.
When the person making those accusations is a celebrity, broadcasting those accusations to an audience of millions who know nothing else about you, that's quite another matter.
I think you’d probably find that harder to shrug off.
I've had to counter that argument from many of my high school classmates on facebook. They repeat these statements like sheep from Animal Farm.
He professionally cultivates an army of nitwits for profit, and then weaponizes them just to keep engaged in his product.
Did he actually encourage people to harass them? I haven't heard anything of that, because that changes the story if true.
Frankly I agree with you, but there are a lot of unreasonable folks–and every InfoWars consumer falls into that category.