Pizzagate is #FakeNews,says veteran investigative journalist
December 5-6, 2016 -- When "Fake News" turns
deadly
By WAYNE MADSEN
Edgar Welch, a 28-year old resident of North Carolina,
entered the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in northwest
Washington, DC's Cleveland Park on a quiet Sunday
afternoon claiming to be some sort of citizen journalist who
was "self-investigating" a bogus story floating around the
Internet. The story, which has no merit, was amplified by
social media during the recent presidential campaign. The
story claimed that the pizza restaurant was some sort of
nexus for a shadowy pedophile ring reaching into the inner
circle of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Welch decided that part of his investigation of the "story" was
to fire an assault rifle into the restaurant, which, on
weekends, is crowded with families with young children who
live in the surrounding Chevy Chase/Cleveland Park
neighborhood. Restaurant employees and customers fled the
restaurant, all escaping injury. Nearby businesses along
Connecticut Avenue that also attract large numbers of
weekend customers were put in lock down mode. They
included an Indian restaurant, a coffee shop, and a bar and
grille, as well as the iconic Politics & Prose bookstore, which
often features book talks by prominent authors. Ironically, a
book event featuring Mark Shriver, the nephew of John F.
Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, both felled by assassins'
bullets, was being held at the time the bookstore was placed
into lock down.
The so-called "Pizzagate" story had problems from the outset
of its genesis on a few dubious websites. The vacuous story
falsely claimed that the pizzeria was engaged in a pedophile
operation with John Podesta, Mrs. Clinton's campaign
manager and former White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton
and Barack Obama. There were baseless allegations that
Podesta and his brother Tony, a prominent DC lobbyist, were
the subjects of a Portuguese police sketch of two major
suspects in the 2007 kidnapping of 3-year old Madeleine
McCann from her family's vacation apartment in Portugal.
There were links to the kidnapping to the highest ranks of
the British government, including the late Liberal MP,
broadcaster, and humorist Sir Clement Freud, the grandson
of psychopathology sex expert Dr. Sigmund Freud.
However,
after multiple painstaking investigations by some of Britain's
top media outlets, there has never even been a hint of the
involvement of the Podestas in the still-unsolved crime.
The false story has its roots in an unconfirmed series of
reports that child pornography was discovered on the laptop
computer of former Representative Anthony Weiner. The
former congressman and husband of Hillary Clinton aide
Huma Abedin was under criminal investigation by the New
York Police Department and FBI for "sexting" messages with
a 15-year old North Carolina female. That story was
combined by conspiracy fanatics with the disclosure of John
Podesta's leaked emails. There were unfounded allegations
that the word "pizza," which often appeared in Podesta's
emails, was code for young girls.
It did not help that the son of retired General Michael Flynn,
president-elect Donald Trump's choice for national security
adviser, re-tweeted stories regarding "Pizzagate."
Podesta, who this editor has casually known for 30 years, is a
veteran of a number of political and social cause campaigns.
For the unindoctrinated, campaign workers, both paid and
volunteer, almost exclusively subsist on pizzas during long
working hours. Podesta's fondness for pizza is apparently
well-known to many of his colleagues in Washington.
The Pizzagate fable resulted in anonymous death threats
against restaurant owner
James Alefantis, his employees, as well as the owners and
employees of nearby businesses, including the Little Red Fox
café, which is next door to the pizzeria. The café received as
many as 40 death threats. An NGO located in an office space
across Connecticut Avenue, Beyond Borders, was falsely
implicated in the fable merely because it works to assist
Haitian orphans. Even the Washington Post reporters who
wrote about the Welch shooting received death threats from
conspiracy true believers.
According to the Post story, after firing his assault rifle into
the restaurant, Welch entered the kitchen and asked about
the "underground tunnels" where children were allegedly
held prisoner and tortured. This is another area where the
fake story loses any ounce of credibility. The only tunnel in
the area is the Metro's Red Line. There were also elements of
the bogus story that alleged that torture occurred in an
"abandoned" subway line. There are no abandoned subway
lines in the Washington Metro subway system.
Nonsense conspiracy tale has harmed a number of
Connecticut Avenue small businesses
Numerous posts on Reddit and websites of questionable
veracity claimed that Comet Ping Pong was linked
underground by tunnels to other area businesses all engaged
in child exploitation and torture. These included Besto Pizza,
which used in its advertising a stylized symbol of two pizza
slices with melted mozzarella cheese extending from their
edges. For the crazy conspiracists, this symbol was the same
one cited by the FBI as that used for man-boy love.
Crazed Pizzagate conspiracists have been watching too many
Dan Brown movies
Another aspect of the fake story was that the Podestas had in
their possession art work depicting child pornography. WMR
was informed by a knowledgeable source that Tony Podesta's
home in the Lake Barcroft sub-division in Fairfax County,
Virginia, at one time featured as part of its art exhibition a
few nude images of 18 to 21 year olds. According to an
official of the sub-division's home owners' association, the
images have since been transferred to a private collector.
While the artwork might be in bad taste for some, there is
nothing illegal in its display or transfer.
The Pizzagate story does a great disservice to those reporters
and others who have been investigating actual criminal
conspiracies involving pedophiles. These include the extent of
the pedophilia network cover-ups in Pennsylvania that
resulted in the political prosecution of former Attorney
General Kathleen Kane and Delaware that involved
prosecutorial foot-dragging by that state's Attorney General,
the late Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden.
As for Welch and other like-minded so-called "citizen
journalists," real investigative journalism does not involve
assault rifles and believing everything found on the Internet.
Nor does "media" include someone sitting in their mom's
basement with a computer, web camera, Internet connection,
and YouTube account.
There is a stark lesson in the so-called Pizzagate for amateur
journalists. The unfounded allegations against John Podesta
and the owners of businesses along Connecticut Avenue are
legal textbook definitions of what constitutes libel. In the
United States, libel constitutes allegations made without
proof that have the desired effect of causing harm to another
person, natural or legal. In this case, real damage to the
reputations of individuals and businesses has resulted from
the phony Pizzagate story and those affected have a very
good case in seeking damages from those who engaged in
fallacious conspiracy-mongering.
December 5-6, 2016 -- When "Fake News" turns
deadly
By WAYNE MADSEN
Edgar Welch, a 28-year old resident of North Carolina,
entered the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in northwest
Washington, DC's Cleveland Park on a quiet Sunday
afternoon claiming to be some sort of citizen journalist who
was "self-investigating" a bogus story floating around the
Internet. The story, which has no merit, was amplified by
social media during the recent presidential campaign. The
story claimed that the pizza restaurant was some sort of
nexus for a shadowy pedophile ring reaching into the inner
circle of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Welch decided that part of his investigation of the "story" was
to fire an assault rifle into the restaurant, which, on
weekends, is crowded with families with young children who
live in the surrounding Chevy Chase/Cleveland Park
neighborhood. Restaurant employees and customers fled the
restaurant, all escaping injury. Nearby businesses along
Connecticut Avenue that also attract large numbers of
weekend customers were put in lock down mode. They
included an Indian restaurant, a coffee shop, and a bar and
grille, as well as the iconic Politics & Prose bookstore, which
often features book talks by prominent authors. Ironically, a
book event featuring Mark Shriver, the nephew of John F.
Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, both felled by assassins'
bullets, was being held at the time the bookstore was placed
into lock down.
The so-called "Pizzagate" story had problems from the outset
of its genesis on a few dubious websites. The vacuous story
falsely claimed that the pizzeria was engaged in a pedophile
operation with John Podesta, Mrs. Clinton's campaign
manager and former White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton
and Barack Obama. There were baseless allegations that
Podesta and his brother Tony, a prominent DC lobbyist, were
the subjects of a Portuguese police sketch of two major
suspects in the 2007 kidnapping of 3-year old Madeleine
McCann from her family's vacation apartment in Portugal.
There were links to the kidnapping to the highest ranks of
the British government, including the late Liberal MP,
broadcaster, and humorist Sir Clement Freud, the grandson
of psychopathology sex expert Dr. Sigmund Freud.
However,
after multiple painstaking investigations by some of Britain's
top media outlets, there has never even been a hint of the
involvement of the Podestas in the still-unsolved crime.
The false story has its roots in an unconfirmed series of
reports that child pornography was discovered on the laptop
computer of former Representative Anthony Weiner. The
former congressman and husband of Hillary Clinton aide
Huma Abedin was under criminal investigation by the New
York Police Department and FBI for "sexting" messages with
a 15-year old North Carolina female. That story was
combined by conspiracy fanatics with the disclosure of John
Podesta's leaked emails. There were unfounded allegations
that the word "pizza," which often appeared in Podesta's
emails, was code for young girls.
It did not help that the son of retired General Michael Flynn,
president-elect Donald Trump's choice for national security
adviser, re-tweeted stories regarding "Pizzagate."
Podesta, who this editor has casually known for 30 years, is a
veteran of a number of political and social cause campaigns.
For the unindoctrinated, campaign workers, both paid and
volunteer, almost exclusively subsist on pizzas during long
working hours. Podesta's fondness for pizza is apparently
well-known to many of his colleagues in Washington.
The Pizzagate fable resulted in anonymous death threats
against restaurant owner
James Alefantis, his employees, as well as the owners and
employees of nearby businesses, including the Little Red Fox
café, which is next door to the pizzeria. The café received as
many as 40 death threats. An NGO located in an office space
across Connecticut Avenue, Beyond Borders, was falsely
implicated in the fable merely because it works to assist
Haitian orphans. Even the Washington Post reporters who
wrote about the Welch shooting received death threats from
conspiracy true believers.
According to the Post story, after firing his assault rifle into
the restaurant, Welch entered the kitchen and asked about
the "underground tunnels" where children were allegedly
held prisoner and tortured. This is another area where the
fake story loses any ounce of credibility. The only tunnel in
the area is the Metro's Red Line. There were also elements of
the bogus story that alleged that torture occurred in an
"abandoned" subway line. There are no abandoned subway
lines in the Washington Metro subway system.
Nonsense conspiracy tale has harmed a number of
Connecticut Avenue small businesses
Numerous posts on Reddit and websites of questionable
veracity claimed that Comet Ping Pong was linked
underground by tunnels to other area businesses all engaged
in child exploitation and torture. These included Besto Pizza,
which used in its advertising a stylized symbol of two pizza
slices with melted mozzarella cheese extending from their
edges. For the crazy conspiracists, this symbol was the same
one cited by the FBI as that used for man-boy love.
Crazed Pizzagate conspiracists have been watching too many
Dan Brown movies
Another aspect of the fake story was that the Podestas had in
their possession art work depicting child pornography. WMR
was informed by a knowledgeable source that Tony Podesta's
home in the Lake Barcroft sub-division in Fairfax County,
Virginia, at one time featured as part of its art exhibition a
few nude images of 18 to 21 year olds. According to an
official of the sub-division's home owners' association, the
images have since been transferred to a private collector.
While the artwork might be in bad taste for some, there is
nothing illegal in its display or transfer.
The Pizzagate story does a great disservice to those reporters
and others who have been investigating actual criminal
conspiracies involving pedophiles. These include the extent of
the pedophilia network cover-ups in Pennsylvania that
resulted in the political prosecution of former Attorney
General Kathleen Kane and Delaware that involved
prosecutorial foot-dragging by that state's Attorney General,
the late Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden.
As for Welch and other like-minded so-called "citizen
journalists," real investigative journalism does not involve
assault rifles and believing everything found on the Internet.
Nor does "media" include someone sitting in their mom's
basement with a computer, web camera, Internet connection,
and YouTube account.
There is a stark lesson in the so-called Pizzagate for amateur
journalists. The unfounded allegations against John Podesta
and the owners of businesses along Connecticut Avenue are
legal textbook definitions of what constitutes libel. In the
United States, libel constitutes allegations made without
proof that have the desired effect of causing harm to another
person, natural or legal. In this case, real damage to the
reputations of individuals and businesses has resulted from
the phony Pizzagate story and those affected have a very
good case in seeking damages from those who engaged in
fallacious conspiracy-mongering.