In the deposition he clarifies this out-of-context (it is not the full sentence and not even a correct quote) statement and puts it into context. At that time, he did not think the whole thing was staged, but that the way the media handled it, used it against gun owners, was synthetic. He says some reports about the incidents were covered up. He says he thinks there was a cover-up of some of the negligence in the town and of the school. He did think there was some cover-up, but it was not that the whole thing was staged. Specific areas were faked, not in a totality. He believes school shootings happen, and now believes that Sandy Hook happened.

Even if, it is a far cry from promoting harassment of victims.

Edit: I did that edit not in response to you (I had not read your response yet, just like I made this post without reading your edit), but because people cite news stories, instead of Alex Jones. I am sure you can find news stories stating that Alex Jones instigated harassment of victims, as it was one of the big justifications for deplatforming, but I never saw Alex Jones say anything to that effect. The direct quotes are just not there... Even for your "quote" that is attributed to Alex Jones, it is not a correct quote, nor is it the full sentence, it seems to be Chinese whispered from a reddit thread. I myself got tricked by taking news stories about Alex Jones as factual, but when I saw the actual direct quote/news clip, I saw how what was presented as fact, was the journalists' biased interpretation. I read a news article stating Alex Jones was transphobic and promoting transphobia, but then I saw he was talking about this: https://mediadc.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/1179838/2147... and saying it looked demonic to him, and that he did not want this normalized. It was very much in the style of: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/forget-mr-rogers-drag-que...

About moving the goal post: The lawsuits are about making misleading statements, not about instigating harassment of the victims. Alex Jones did not instigate or promote harassing the victims of Sandy Hook. Some of his deluded followers took that upon themselves. You can find direct quotes where he says they should not do that and that it is wrong.