Pizzagate is a debunked^[1] conspiracy theory that emerged during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle, alleging that John Podesta's emails, which were leaked by WikiLeaks, contain coded messages referring to human trafficking, and connecting a number of pizzerias in Washington, D.C. and members of the Democratic Party to a child-sex ring. The theory has been discredited by a wide array of sources across the political spectrum, described as a "fictitious conspiracy theory" by the District of Columbia Police Department^[2][3] and determined to be false by multiple organizations including Snopes.com,^[4] The New York Times,^[5] and Fox News.^[6]

Reports of this conspiracy theory emerged during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle, with BuzzFeed News tracing its origin to a tweet written by a "reputed white supremacist" on October 30, 2016, which claimed that emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop revealed the existence of a pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party.^[7][8] Internet users reading John Podesta's emails released by Wikileaks in early November 2016 speculated that some words in Podesta's emails were code words for pedophilia and human trafficking.^[9][10] The theory also proposed that the ring was a meeting ground for satanic ritual abuse.^[11] Other claims that the theory proposed include the use of handkerchief codes (interpreted from a widely-cited email with a "Pizza-related" handkerchief), the alleged use of pedophile symbols in the logos of various organizations, and John Podesta and his brother Tony Podesta's alleged connection to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.^[10]

The theory was then posted on the message board, Godlike Productions, and the following day, Sean Adl-Tabatabai (a former associate of professional conspiracy theorist David Icke), repeated the story on YourNewsWire, citing a 4chan post from earlier that year.^[8] Adl-Tabatabai's story was then spread by and elaborated on by other fake news websites, including SubjectPolitics, which falsely claimed the New York Police Department had raided Hillary Clinton's property.^[7] The website Conservative Daily Post ran a headline falsely stating that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had "confirmed" this story.^[12]

Around this time, Twitter and 4chan users started searching the leaked emails of John Podesta for food-related "code words" that supposedly revealed the existence of a sex trafficking operation.^[7] For example, The New York Times reported that the phrase "cheese pizza" was thought by a poster to 4chan to be a code word for child pornography since they had the same initials.^[10] The allegations spread to "the mainstream internet" following a post on the website Reddit several days before the 2016 United States presidential election.^[13] The post, since removed by the site, alleged the involvement of Washington, D.C. business Comet Ping Pong:

Everyone associated with the business is making semi-overt, semi-tongue-in-cheek, and semi-sarcastic inferences towards sex with minors. The artists that work for and with the business also generate nothing but cultish imagery of disembodiment, blood, beheadings, sex, and of course pizza.^[4]

The story was picked up by fake news^[14] websites such as Infowars.com,^[a] Planet Free Will^[5] and the Vigilant Citizen,^[18][19] and has been promoted by alt-right activists such as Mike Cernovich and Brittany Pettibone.^[13]

Redditors from /r/The Donald created the /r/pizzagate subreddit to further develop the conspiracy theory.^[5] This subreddit was banned on November 23, 2016 for violating Reddit's policy against doxing, as users had posted personal details of people connected to the alleged conspiracy.^[20]

A message displayed to users who attempted to access the subreddit read:

This subreddit was banned due to violation of our content policy. Specifically, the proliferation of personal and confidential information. We don't want witchhunts on our site.^[13]

After the ban on Reddit, the discussion was moved to the v/pizzagate sub on Voat, a website similar to Reddit, where discussion continues.^[21]

In Turkey, the allegations were reported by mainstream newspapers and media organizations supportive of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, such as Sabah, A Haber, Yeni Şafak, Akşam and Star. The story appeared on Turkey's Ekşi Sözlük (a Reddit-like site) and on the viral news network HaberSelf, where anyone can post content. These forums reposted images and allegations directly from the since-deleted subreddit, which were reprinted in full on the state-controlled press. A columnist in the The Daily Dot suggested government sources were pushing this story, after a recent child sexual abuse scandal, in order to distract attraction from controversial pending legislation on child marriage.^[22]

As Pizzagate spread, Comet Ping Pong "received hundreds of threatening messages and phone calls from people who believed the story to be true".^[23] The restaurant's owner, James Alefantis, told The New York Times: "From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, we've come under constant assault. I've done nothing for days but try to clean this up and protect my staff and friends from being terrorized."^[5]

Some adherents identified the Instagram account of Alefantis, and used some of the posted photos to "prove" their conspiracy. Many of the images shown were friends and family who had liked Comet Ping Pong's page on Facebook. In some cases, imagery was taken from random unrelated websites and claimed to be Alefantis' own.^[4] The restaurant's owners and staff were harassed, threatened on social media websites, and the owner received death threats.^[5] The restaurant's Yelp page was locked by the operators of the site citing reviews that were "motivated more by the news coverage itself than the reviewer's personal consumer experience".^[4] Several bands who had performed at the pizzeria also faced harassment. For example, Amanda Kleinman of Heavy Breathing deleted her Twitter account after receiving negative comments connecting her and her band to the conspiracy theory.^[5] Another band, Sex Stains, had closed the comments of their YouTube videos and addressed the controversy in the description of their videos.^[24]

Pizzagate-related harassment of businesses extended beyond Comet Ping Pong to include other nearby D.C. businesses, such as Besta Pizza three doors down from Comet; Little Red Fox; the popular bookstore Politics and Prose; and the French bistro Terasol.^[25][26] The businesses received a high volume of threatening and menacing telephone calls (some of which included death threats) and also experienced online harassment.^[26] The co-owners of Little Red Fox and Terasol filed police reports.^[26]

Brooklyn restaurant Roberta's was also pulled into the hoax, receiving harassing phone calls, including a call from an unidentified person telling an employee that she was "going to bleed and be tortured".^[21][27] The restaurant became involved after a since-removed YouTube video used images from their social media accounts to imply they were a part of the hoax sex ring. Others then spread the accusations on social media, claiming the "Clinton family loves Roberta's".^[28]

East Side Pies, in Austin, Texas saw one of its delivery trucks vandalized with an epithet, and was the target of online harassment related to their supposed involvement in Pizzagate, theorized connections to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Illuminati.^[29][30]

On December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, a 28-year-old Salisbury, North Carolina man, allegedly fired three shots in the restaurant with an AR-15-style rifle, striking walls, a desk, and a door.^[31][32] Welch later told police that he had planned to "self-investigate" the conspiracy theory.^[3] He surrendered after he "found no evidence that underage children were being harbored in the restaurant", was arrested without incident and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.^[33] No one was injured.^[34]

Welch told police he had "read online that the Comet restaurant was harboring child sex slaves and that he wanted to see for himself if they were there".^[21] In an interview with The New York Times, Welch said that he regretted how he handled the situation but did not dismiss the conspiracy theory, and rejected the description of it as "fake news".^[35][36][37]

On December 13, 2016, Welch was charged with one count of "interstate transportation of a firearm with intent to commit an offense", a federal crime.^[38] According to court documents, Welch attempted to recruit friends three days before the attack by urging them to watch a YouTube video about the conspiracy.^[39] He was subsequently charged with two additional offenses, with the grand jury returning an indictment charging Welch with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, each charge carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.^[40][41] Welch has pleaded not guilty to all of these charges.^[42]

The conspiracy theory has been widely discredited and debunked.^{[2][6][31][43]} It has been described as false by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, fact-checking website snopes.com and The New York Times, among others.^[34][44][45] The police characterized the matter as a "fictitious conspiracy theory".^[2]

Much of the purported evidence cited by the conspiracy theory's proponents had been taken from entirely different sources and made to appear as if they supported the conspiracy.^[4] Images of children of family and friends of the pizzeria's staff were taken from social media sites such as Instagram and claimed to be photos of victims.^[44] The Charlotte Observer noted the diverse group of sources that had debunked the conspiracy theory, pointing out this included the Fox News Channel in addition to The New York Times.^[31] On December 10, 2016, The New York Times published an article that analyzed the claims that the theory proposed.^[10]

No alleged victims have come forward, nor has any physical evidence been found.^[46]

Community messages in front of Comet Ping Pong following the shooting

In an interview with NPR on November 27, 2016, Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis referred to the conspiracy theory as "an insanely complicated, made-up, fictional lie-based story" and a "coordinated political attack".^[47] The Seattle Times wrote that the conspiracy theorists' assertions were "dangerous and damaging false allegations" and that they were "repeatedly debunked, disproved and dismissed".^[43] Despite the conspiracy theory being debunked, it continued to spread on social media, with over one million messages using hashtag #Pizzagate on Twitter in November 2016.^[31] Stefanie MacWilliams, contributor for Planet Free Will who wrote an article about Pizzagate, was reported in the Toronto Star as saying, after the Comet Ping Pong shooting, that "I really have no regrets and it's honestly really grown our audience". Pizzagate, she said, is "two worlds clashing. People don't trust the mainstream media anymore, but it's true that people shouldn't take the alternative media as truth, either."^[48]

On December 4, 2016, Infowars.com posted a video to Youtube linking Pizzagate to the November 13 death of a sex-worker-rights activist. The video falsely claimed that she had been investigating a link between the Clinton Foundation and human trafficking in Haiti and it speculated that she had been murdered in connection with her investigation. According to the activist's former employer, her family and her friends, her death was in fact a suicide and she was not investigating the Clinton Foundation.^[49] By December 14 Infowars had removed two out of three of its videos related to Pizzagate.^[50]

On December 8, 2016, Hillary Clinton responded to the conspiracy theory, speaking about the dangers of fake news websites. She said "The epidemic of malicious fake news and fake propaganda that flooded social media over the past year, it's now clear that so-called fake news can have real-world consequences".^[51]

A poll conducted by Public Policy Polling on December 6–7, 2016 asked 1,224 U.S. registered voters if they thought Hillary Clinton was "connected to a child sex ring being run out of a pizzeria in Washington DC?" The poll showed that 9% said that did believe she was connected, 72% said they did not, and 19% weren't sure.^[52][53] The full results, according to voter preference in the 2016 presidential election were as follows:

After the shooting incident at Comet Ping Pong, Michael Flynn Jr., a member of President-Elect Donald Trump's transition team and the son of Michael T. Flynn, Trump's designate for National Security Advisor, tweeted:

Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many 'coincidences' tied to it.^[54][55][56]

On December 6, 2016, Flynn Jr. was forced out of Trump's transition team.^[57] Spokesman Jason Miller did not identify the reason for Flynn Jr.'s dismissal; however, The New York Times reported that other officials had confirmed it was related to the tweet.^[58]

Flynn Jr.'s father had previously posted similarly conspiratorial material regarding Hillary Clinton alleging that Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta, drank the blood and bodily fluids of other humans in Satanic rituals, which Politico says "soon morphed into the '#pizzagate' conspiracy theory involving Comet Ping Pong".^[59] On November 2, 2016, Flynn tweeted a link to a story with unfounded accusations and wrote, "U decide - NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc...MUST READ!" The tweet was shared by over 9,000 people, but was deleted from Flynn's account some time between December 12–13, 2016.^[50]

Informational notes

Citations

• Media related to Pizzagate at Wikimedia Commons