78-707: Thomas Davis Klingenstein (born 1954) is an American hedge fund manager, a leading donor to the US Republican Party, and chairman of the board of trustees of the Claremont Institute , a conservative think tank , since 2010. He is the son of John Klingenstein and Patricia Davis Klingenstein (1929–2023). Thomas has three siblings, Nancy Klingenstein Simpkins, Andy Klingenstein, and Sally Klingenstein Martell. His grandfather, Joseph Klingenstein ,
156-542: A pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner 's emails. Throughout October and November 2016, WikiLeaks had published John Podesta's emails . Proponents of the conspiracy theory read the emails and alleged they contained code words for pedophilia and human trafficking . Proponents also claimed that Comet Ping Pong , a pizzeria in Washington, D.C.,
234-607: A "satanic cabal of elites" of the New World Order operates international child sex trafficking rings. By June 2020, the conspiracy theory found renewed popularity on TikTok , where videos tagged #Pizzagate were reaching over 80 million views (see relevant section ). In Turkey , the allegations were reported by pro-government newspapers (i.e., those supportive of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ), such as Sabah , A Haber , Yeni Şafak , Akşam and Star . The story appeared on Turkey's Ekşi Sözlük website and on
312-414: A 28-year-old man from Salisbury, North Carolina , arrived at Comet Ping Pong and fired three shots from an AR-15 style rifle that struck the restaurant's walls, a desk, and a door. Welch later told police that he had planned to "self-investigate" the conspiracy theory. Welch saw himself as the potential hero of the story—a rescuer of children. He surrendered after officers surrounded the restaurant and
390-516: A 52-year-old man from Shreveport, Louisiana , pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to making a threatening phone call to Besta Pizza, another pizzeria on the same block as Comet Ping Pong, three days after Welch's attack. He said he threatened Besta to "save the kids", and "finish what the other guy didn't". In 2018, the city of Portsmouth, England experienced its own version of Pizzagate when
468-687: A conspiracy theory, including: The New York Observer , The Washington Post , The Independent , The Huffington Post , The Washington Times , the Los Angeles Times , Fox News , CNN , and the Miami Herald . The Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia characterized the matter as "fictitious". 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 it supported
546-474: A constitutional crisis and also in a revolutionary moment... We must embrace the spirit of the American Revolution to stop this communist revolution." In early January 2021, along with Trump and other advisors, Eastman unsuccessfully attempted to persuade then-vice president Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 presidential election results . He also spoke at Trump's rally on January 6, 2021, before
624-402: A correction on its website and Jones said, "I want our viewers and listeners to know that we regret any negative impact our commentaries may have had on Mr. Alefantis, Comet Ping Pong, or its employees. We apologize to the extent our commentaries could be construed as negative statements about Mr. Alefantis or Comet Ping Pong, and we hope that anyone else involved in commenting on Pizzagate will do
702-528: A founding board member of SACR, continuing into 2024. The Guardian described SACR as an "exclusive, men-only fraternal order which aims to replace the US government with an authoritarian 'aligned regime', and which experts say is rooted in extreme Christian nationalism and religious autocracy. In 2021, Claremont senior fellow Glenn Ellmers wrote a controversial essay in The American Mind , arguing that
780-546: A headline claiming the Federal Bureau of Investigation had confirmed the conspiracy theory. According to the BBC , the allegations spread to "the mainstream internet" several days before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, after a Reddit user posted a Pizzagate "evidence" document. The original Reddit post, removed some time between November 4 and 21, alleged the involvement of Comet Ping Pong: Everyone associated with
858-498: A letter demanding an apology and retraction. Under Texas law, Jones was given a month to comply or be subject to a libel suit. In March 2017, Alex Jones apologized to Alefantis for promulgating the conspiracy theory, saying: "To my knowledge today, neither Mr. Alefantis, nor his restaurant Comet Ping Pong, were involved in any human trafficking as was part of the theories about Pizzagate that were being written about in many media outlets and which we commented upon." InfoWars also issued
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#1732775665173936-619: A link between the Clinton Foundation and human trafficking in Haiti. It speculated she had been murdered in connection with her investigation. According to the activist's former employer, family and friends, her death was in fact a suicide and she was not investigating the Clinton Foundation. By December 14, Infowars had removed two of its three Pizzagate-related videos. In February 2017, Alefantis' lawyers sent Jones
1014-415: A member of Trump's transition team, 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." On December 6, 2016, Flynn Jr. was forced out of Trump's transition team . Spokesman Jason Miller did not identify the reason for his dismissal, however, The New York Times reported that other officials had confirmed it
1092-427: A statement afterwards, saying, "We don't want witchhunts on our site". After the ban on Reddit, the discussion was moved to the v/pizzagate sub on Voat , a now-defunct Reddit clone dedicated to far-right content. Some of Pizzagate's proponents, including David Seaman and Michael G. Flynn ( Michael Flynn 's son), evolved the conspiracy into a broader government conspiracy called "Pedogate". According to this theory,
1170-578: Is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle, falsely claiming that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had discovered a pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner 's emails. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police . In March 2016,
1248-590: Is an American conservative think tank based in Upland, California , founded in 1979 by four students of Harry V. Jaffa . It produces the Claremont Review of Books , The American Mind , and other publications. The institute was an early defender of Donald Trump . After Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election and Trump refused to concede, Claremont Institute senior fellow John Eastman aided Trump in his failed attempts to overturn
1326-581: Is executive editor. The publication has featured essays by Newt Gingrich , Todd Young , Marco Rubio , Jim Banks , and Tom Cotton . The fiscal year for the organization is from the beginning of July to the end of June of the following calendar year. Finances for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021 (the latest available), consist of: revenue of $ 9,466,224; expenses of $ 8,071,035; and donations of $ 8,392,413. 34°6′27.2″N 117°40′24.6″W / 34.107556°N 117.673500°W / 34.107556; -117.673500 Pizzagate " Pizzagate "
1404-555: The 2016 presidential election with passengers not charging the cockpit of the United Airlines aircraft hijacked by Al-Qaeda in 2001. The article went viral and received widespread coverage across the political spectrum. Rush Limbaugh devoted a day of his radio series to reading the entire essay. Anton would go on to serve under President Trump as spokesman for the National Security Council , holding
1482-468: The Claremont Colleges . Under Jaffa and Larry P. Arnn , the institute became a leading Straussian-influenced conservative think tank, publishing on topics such as statesmanship, Lincoln scholarship, and modern conservative issues. Arnn served as its president from 1985 until 2000, when he became the twelfth president of Hillsdale College . Thomas Klingenstein has been the chairman of
1560-538: The Czech Republic , Cyprus , and Vietnam , and that some of the most frequent retweeters were bots . Members of the Reddit community /r/The_Donald created the /r/pizzagate subreddit to further develop the conspiracy theory. The sub was banned on November 23, 2016, for violating Reddit's anti- doxing policy after users posted personal details of people connected to the alleged conspiracy. Reddit released
1638-599: The Gamergate harassment campaign. 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 cafe; bookstore Politics and Prose ; and French bistro, Terasol. These businesses received a high volume of threatening and menacing telephone calls, including death threats , and also experienced online harassment. The co-owners of Little Red Fox and Terasol filed police reports. Brooklyn restaurant Roberta's
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#17327756651731716-462: The Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election . The Claremont Institute publishes the Claremont Review of Books , edited by Charles R. Kesler , which features regular columns by Martha Bayles , Mark Helprin , Michael Anton, and Spencer Klavan. The institute also publishes The American Mind . Claremont Vice President of Education Matt Peterson serves as editor, and James Poulos
1794-429: The grand jury returning an indictment charging him with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. On March 24, 2017, following a plea agreement with prosecutors, Welch pleaded guilty to the federal charge of interstate transport of firearms and the local District of Columbia charge of assault with a dangerous weapon. Welch also agreed to pay $ 5,744.33 for damages to
1872-513: The right such as Laura Ingraham , Ben Shapiro , Mark Levin , Mary Kissel , and Charles C. Johnson . The institute caused controversy by granting a fellowship in 2019 to the Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec . National Review columnist Mona Charen wrote that "Claremont stands out for beclowning itself with this embrace of the smarmy underside of American politics." In 2020, Mark Joseph Stern of Slate magazine called
1950-517: The ritual murder of a child. Pizzagate resurged in 2020, mainly due to QAnon. While initially it was spread by only the far-right , it has since been spread by teens on TikTok "who don't otherwise fit a right-wing conspiracy theorist mold: the biggest Pizzagate spreaders on TikTok appear to otherwise be mostly interested in topics of viral dance moves and Black Lives Matter ". The conspiracy theory has developed and become less partisan and political in nature, with less emphasis on Clinton and more on
2028-489: The '#pizzagate' conspiracy theory involving Comet Ping Pong". 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 sometime during December 12–13, 2016. After the shooting incident at Comet Ping Pong, Michael Flynn Jr., Michael T. Flynn's son and also
2106-690: The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic , the institute received between $ 350,000 and $ 1 million in federally backed small-business loans from Chain Bridge Bank as part of the Paycheck Protection Program . The institute stated this would allow it to retain 29 jobs. According to a November 2021 Vice article, the actions of pro-Trump Claremont Institute leaders—senior fellows John Eastman , Brian Kennedy, Angelo Codevilla , and Michael Anton, as well as Ryan P. Williams (the institute's president), and Thomas D. Klingenstein (chairman of
2184-713: The 2024 election cycle. On 6 July 1986, Klingenstein married Nancy Deborah Perlman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Perlman of Tucson, Arizona, in Greenwich, Connecticut. They had two daughters together. Nancy died in 2018. Klingenstein is now married to Robin D. Weaver, a lawyer, and they live in New York. Claremont Institute Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other The Claremont Institute
2262-645: The Claremont Institute, as well as the institute's magazine American Mind and other publications, comprised the "substantial intellectual infrastructure that has buoyed the Trumpist right and its willingness to rupture moral codes and to discard traditional norms". An anonymous former fellow said Eastman's ideas are based on the doctrine of natural rights, which has been a key element of the institute's politics for many years. He said, "That's how Claremont goes from this quirky intellectual outfit to one of
2340-489: The German edition of The Epoch Times , a far-right Falun Gong -associated newspaper. On December 30, as Bogut recovered from a knee injury, members of /r/The Donald community on Reddit promoted a false theory that his injury was connected to his support for Pizzagate. Jonathan Albright, an assistant professor of media analytics at Elon University , said that a disproportionate number of tweets about Pizzagate came from
2418-747: The January 6 attacks as an "electoral justice protest" and wrote about his desire to lead as a "warlord" of an "armed patronage network" following the collapse of the United States. Haywood founded an organisation, the Society for American Civic Renewal , to which Claremont has donated $ 26,248. Claremont's president Ryan Williams acknowledged that Claremont "acted as a fiscal sponsor to help the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR) establish itself as an incorporated 501(c)(10)"; he also acknowledged being
Thomas Klingenstein - Misplaced Pages Continue
2496-549: The Scottish owner of a vaping business was targeted in what the Sunday Times called a "xenophobic campaign". This lasted six months. The main culprit — a man called Oliver Redmond — was prosecuted and sentenced to five months in prison. Judge William Mousley QC also imposed a three-year restraining order and was quoted as follows: "Mr Cheape said he saw 15 to 20 screenshots a day regarding him, his partner, and his business. It
2574-450: The United States had been destroyed by internal enemies and that a "counter-revolution" was necessary to defeat the majority of the people who "can no longer be considered fellow citizens". According to Ellmers, "Most people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term." Williams, the institute's president, said its mission is to "save Western civilization", particularly from
2652-650: The alleged Bieber association until the #PizzaGate hashtag was banned by the company. The New York Times said in June 2020 that posts on the platform with the #PizzaGate hashtag were "viewed more than 82 million times in recent months", and Google searches for the term also increased in that time. They also reported that "In the first week of June, comments, likes and shares of PizzaGate also spiked to more than 800,000 on Facebook and nearly 600,000 on Instagram, according to data from CrowdTangle ... That compares with 512,000 interactions on Facebook and 93,000 on Instagram during
2730-460: The alleged worldwide elite of child sex-traffickers. Rumors stirring in the NYPD that Huma 's emails point to a pedophila ring and @HillaryClinton is at the center. #GoHillary #PodestaEmails23 On October 30, 2016, a Twitter account posting white supremacist material which said it was run by a Jewish New York lawyer falsely claimed that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had discovered
2808-614: The attack on the Capitol. The details of Eastman's attempt, described in a book by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa , made national headlines in September 2021. Shortly afterward, the American Political Science Association canceled panels involving Eastman and Claremont at its 2021 conference. In April 2022, Thomas B. Edsall of The New York Times wrote in a guest essay that
2886-571: The blaze and nobody was injured. The perpetrator escaped, but was arrested a few days later while climbing a fence at the Washington Monument and tied to the arson via security footage. He had posted a video referencing QAnon prior to the arson. The conspiracy theory has been widely discredited and debunked. It has been judged to be false after detailed investigation by the fact-checking website Snopes.com and The New York Times . Numerous news organizations have debunked it as
2964-653: The board of trustees since approximately 2010. Michael Pack was president from 2015 to 2017. Ryan P. Williams assumed the post in 2017. The Claremont Institute publishes The Claremont Review of Books , The American Mind , The American Story Podcast , and Claremont Books. A Washington, D.C., branch of the Claremont Institute, called the Center for the American Way of Life, opened in February 2021. Claremont Institute fellowships have gone to prominent figures on
3042-455: The board)—culminated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol . Williams has stated that the institute's mission "is to save western civilization". Vice asserted that Codevilla, who frequently denounced the "ruling class", coined the term "cold civil war" in 2017. On January 5, 2021, using the hashtag #HoldTheLine, Claremont president emeritus Brian Kennedy tweeted from Capitol Hill : "We are in
3120-706: 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. The story was picked up by other fake news websites like InfoWars , Planet Free Will , and The Vigilant Citizen , and was promoted by alt-right activists such as Mike Cernovich , Brittany Pettibone , and Jack Posobiec . Other promoters included: David Seaman , former writer for TheStreet.com , CBS46 anchor Ben Swann , basketball player Andrew Bogut , and Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson , as well as
3198-517: The claims were still circulating internationally within QAnon groups two years later in 2020. In 2020, as the broader QAnon movement became an international phenomenon, Pizzagate also gained new traction and became less U.S.-centric in nature, with videos and posts on the topic in Italy, Brazil, Turkey and other countries worldwide each gaining millions of views. This new iteration is less partisan ;
Thomas Klingenstein - Misplaced Pages Continue
3276-469: The conspiracy and fired a rifle inside the restaurant to break the lock on a door to a storage room during his search. Also, the restaurant's owner and staff received death threats from conspiracy theorists. Pizzagate is generally considered a predecessor to the QAnon conspiracy theory. It also generated another offshoot conspiracy theory, called Frazzledrip , which involved Hillary Clinton participating in
3354-459: The conspiracy on Planet Free Will , was subsequently reported by the Toronto Star as saying, "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". On December 8, 2016, Hillary Clinton responded to
3432-604: The conspiracy theory as "an insanely complicated, made-up, fictional lie-based story" and a "coordinated political attack". Syndicated columnist Daniel Ruth wrote that the conspiracy theorists' assertions were "dangerous and damaging fake allegations" and that they were "repeatedly debunked, disproved and dismissed". 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. Stefanie MacWilliams, who wrote an article promoting
3510-399: 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". A poll conducted by Public Policy Polling on December 6–7, 2016, asked 1,224 U.S. registered voters if they thought Hillary Clinton
3588-480: The conspiracy. 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. On December 10, 2016, The New York Times published an article that analyzed the theory's claims. They emphasized that: No alleged victims have come forward and no physical evidence has been found. In an interview with NPR on November 27, 2016, Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis referred to
3666-446: The 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 unrelated websites and purported to be Alefantis' own. The restaurant's owners and staff were harassed and threatened on social media websites, and the owner received death threats. The restaurant's Yelp page was locked by the site's operators citing reviews that were "motivated more by
3744-452: The controversy in the description of their videos. The artist Arrington de Dionyso, who once had painted a mural at the pizzeria that had been painted over several years before the controversy, described the campaign of harassment against him in detail, and said of the attacks in general, "I think it's a very deliberate assault, which will eventually be a coordinated assault on all forms of free expression." The affair has drawn comparisons with
3822-486: The election results. The institute's publications have in recent years frequently published alt-right and far-right opinion pieces. The Claremont Institute was founded in 1979 by four students of Straussian political theorist Harry V. Jaffa , a professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College and the Claremont Graduate University , although the institute has no affiliation with any of
3900-505: The establishments allegedly involved was the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C. Members of the alt-right , conservative journalists, and others who had urged Clinton's prosecution over her use of an unrelated private email server spread the conspiracy theory on social media outlets such as 4chan , 8chan , Reddit and Twitter . In response, a man from North Carolina traveled to Comet Ping Pong to investigate
3978-469: The first week of December 2016. From the start of 2017 through January of 2020, the average number of weekly PizzaGate mentions, likes and shares on Facebook and Instagram was under 20,000". In August 2020, Facebook temporarily suspended use of the "#savethechildren" hashtag, when used to promote elements of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and QAnon. The improper use of the hashtag caused protests from
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#17327756651734056-604: The impact of Pizzagate to the Satanic panic of the 1980s: at the time, hundreds of daycare workers were falsely accused of abusing children. After the Comet Ping Pong shooting, Alex Jones of InfoWars backed off from the idea that the D.C. pizzeria was the center of the conspiracy. On December 4, InfoWars uploaded a YouTube video that linked Pizzagate to the November 13 death of a sex-worker-rights activist. The video falsely claimed that she had been investigating
4134-441: The institute "a racist fever swamp with deep connections to the conspiratorial alt-right ", citing Posobiec's fellowship and the publication of a 2020 essay by senior fellow John Eastman that questioned Kamala Harris 's eligibility for the vice presidency. In 2022, The American Mind published an editorial by Raw Egg Nationalist, an author affiliated with neo-Nazi publishing house Antelope Hill . The Claremont Institute
4212-410: The main intellectual architects of trying to overthrow the republic." Senior fellow Charles Kesler , who believes Eastman's advice was wrong, said the institute is split between "some who continue to believe that the election was stolen and some who have denied that from the beginning". The Claremont Institute has hosted Charles Haywood on their podcast. Haywood, a far-right extremist, has described
4290-536: The majority of the (mostly teenage) promoters of the #PizzaGate hashtag on TikTok were not right-wing, and support the Black Lives Matter movement. It focuses on an alleged global elite of child sex-traffickers, ranging from politicians to powerful businesspeople and celebrities such as Bill Gates , Tom Hanks , Ellen DeGeneres , Oprah Winfrey and Chrissy Teigen . Justin Bieber 's 2020 song "Yummy"
4368-408: The news coverage itself than the reviewer's personal consumer experience". 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. Another band, Sex Stains , had closed the comments of their YouTube videos and addressed
4446-426: The personal email account of John Podesta , Hillary Clinton 's campaign chair , was hacked in a spear phishing attack. WikiLeaks published his emails in November 2016. Proponents of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory falsely claimed the emails contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials and U.S. restaurants with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring . One of
4524-469: The position from 2017 to 2018. The institute became a significant player in the Trump administration, adding a Washington office and contributing ideas and personnel to the administration. In 2019, Trump awarded the Claremont Institute with a National Humanities Medal . In June 2020, former Claremont Institute president Michael Pack became head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media under Trump. During
4602-409: The restaurant. U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (future Supreme Court Justice ) sentenced Welch to four years in prison on June 22, 2017; at the sentencing hearing, Welch apologized for his conduct and said he had been "foolish and reckless". On March 3, 2020, Welch was transferred to a Community Corrections Center (CCC); he was released on May 28. On January 12, 2017, Yusif Lee Jones,
4680-470: The same thing." In the days leading up to the 2016 election, Michael Flynn , then a top surrogate for Trump and later Trump's National Security Advisor , posted multiple tweets on Twitter containing conspiratorial material regarding Hillary Clinton and her staff. They alleged that John Podesta drank the blood and bodily fluids of other humans in Satanic rituals, which Politico says "soon morphed into
4758-418: The sexual abuses are part of Satanic rituals and that the abusers murder the children to "harvest" the adrenochrome from their blood, which they then use as a drug or as an elixir to remain youthful . A related conspiracy theory known as "Frazzledrip" (sometimes spelled "Frazzled.rip") emerged in 2018, claiming that an "extreme snuff film " was recovered from Anthony Weiner ' s stolen laptop and
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#17327756651734836-447: The shooting was a staged attempt to discredit their investigations . 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 ). 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. He was subsequently charged with two additional offenses, with
4914-461: The theory also believe that Bieber gave a coded signal admitting as such in a later Instagram Live video, where he touched his hat after being asked to do so in the chat if he was a victim of Pizzagate (however, there is no indication that Bieber saw this comment). In April 2020, a documentary promoting Pizzagate, Out of Shadows , was made by a former Hollywood stuntman and released on YouTube. TikTok users began promoting both Out of Shadows and
4992-473: The theory's believers. 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." Some adherents identified the Instagram account of Alefantis and pointed to some of the photos posted there as evidence of
5070-561: The threat he said is posed by the progressive movement . In 2023, the Claremont Institute hired Boise State University professor Scott Yenor as its inaugural senior director of state coalitions. Claremont is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025 , a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the US federal government and consolidate executive power should
5148-409: The video circulated to back these claims: according to Snopes , some of these images came from a YouTube video originally posted on April Fools' Day 2018, and a photo which was said to show Huma Abedin wearing a mask had been taken from the website of a Washington D.C. Indian restaurant and portrayed the owner of that establishment. Hundreds of videos on YouTube promoted these false statements, and
5226-517: 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 in the state-controlled press. Efe Sozeri, a columnist for The Daily Dot , suggested Turkish government sources were pushing this story to distract attention from a child abuse scandal there in March 2016. As Pizzagate spread, Comet Ping Pong received hundreds of threats from
5304-738: Was "connected to a child sex ring being run out of a pizzeria in Washington DC". Nine percent of respondents said they believed she was connected, 72% said they did not, and 19% were not sure. A poll of voters conducted on December 17–20 by The Economist / YouGov asked voters if they believed that "Leaked e-mails from the Clinton campaign talked about pedophilia and human trafficking - 'Pizzagate'." The results showed that 17% of Clinton voters responded "true" while 82% responded "not true"; and 46% of Trump voters responded "true" while 53% responded "not true". Academic Roger Lancaster likened
5382-512: Was a meeting ground for Satanic ritual abuse . Deriving its name from the Watergate scandal , the story was later posted on fake news websites , starting with Your News Wire , which cited a 4chan post from earlier that year. The Your News Wire article was subsequently spread by pro-Trump websites, including SubjectPolitics.com, which added the claim that the NYPD had raided Hillary Clinton 's property. The Conservative Daily Post ran
5460-490: Was alleged to be about the conspiracy theory, and rekindled support for the theory during the year. The conspiracy theory gained traction when Venezuelan YouTuber , Dross Rotzank , made a video about Bieber's music video and its alleged references to Pizzagate. Rotzank's video gained 3 million views in two days and led "Pizzagate" to become a trending topic on the Spanish-language Twitter . Adherents of
5538-590: 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". The restaurant became involved after a since-removed YouTube video used images from their social media accounts to imply they were part of the hoax sex ring. Others then spread the accusations on social media, claiming the " Clinton family loves Roberta's". East Side Pies, in Austin , Texas, saw one of its delivery trucks vandalized with an epithet, and
5616-431: Was an early defender of Donald Trump . The Daily Beast stated Claremont "arguably has done more than any other group to build a philosophical case for Trump's brand of conservatism". In September 2016, the institute's Claremont Review of Books published Michael Anton 's "The Flight 93 Election" editorial. Written under a pseudonym, it compared the prospect of conservatives letting Trump lose to Hillary Clinton in
5694-511: Was an investment banker, and co-founded Wertheim & Co. , an investment firm. He was educated at Williams College . Klingenstein is a partner in Cohen Klingenstein, a Wall Street hedge fund investment firm that administers a portfolio worth more than US$ 2.3 billion, as of 2023. Cohen Klingenstein was founded in 1981, and is principally owned by George M. Cohen and Klingenstein. Klingenstein has donated more than $ 10 million in
5772-506: Was arrested without incident; no one was injured. 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. In an interview with The New York Times , Welch later said that he regretted how he had handled the situation but did not dismiss the conspiracy theory, and rejected the description of it as "fake news". Some conspiracy theorists speculated
5850-481: Was circulating on the dark web . According to that story, the file named "Frazzled.rip" was hidden in a folder called "life insurance" in Weiner's computer: the video contained in that file was said to show Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin raping and murdering a young girl, drinking her adrenochrome -rich blood in a Satanic ritual, and "tak[ing] turns wearing the little girl's face like a mask". Purported frames from
5928-445: Was described as a paedophile grooming operation, and the suggestion was made that the children were in the basement of the store, and he described that you were passing information on to his suppliers that he was a paedophile and that there was an international investigation involving Mr Cheape." On January 25, 2019, Comet Ping Pong suffered an arson attack when a fire was started in one of its backrooms. Employees quickly extinguished
6006-399: Was related to the tweet. Pizzagate became a pillar of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which emerged in 2017 and incorporated its beliefs. QAnon, which has been likened in the media to "Pizzagate on steroids", and a "big-budget sequel" to Pizzagate, linked the child trafficking ring to a nefarious worldwide conspiracy. It also developed Pizzagate's claims by adding the concepts that
6084-537: Was the target of online harassment related to their supposed involvement in Pizzagate, alleged connections to the Central Intelligence Agency , and the Illuminati . The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated Pizzagate-related threats in March 2017 as part of a probe into possible Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections . On December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch,
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