Overview
"Pizzagate" is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police.
In March 2016, the personal email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, was hacked in a spear-phishing attack. WikiLeaks published his …
Origins
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 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 contain…
Harassment of restaurant owners and employees
As Pizzagate spread, Comet Ping Pong received hundreds of threats from 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."
Criminal responses
On December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, 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 surrendere…
Debunking
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 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 o…
Responses
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". Syndicated columnist Daniel Ruth wrote that the conspiracy theorists' assertions were "dangerous and damaging false allegations" and that they were "repeatedly de…
Merger with QAnon and global spread
Pizzagate became a pillar of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which emerged in 2017 and incorporated its beliefs. QAnon, which has been a 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 the sexual abuses are part of Satanic rituals and that the abusers murder the children to "harvest" the adrenochrome from …
See also
• Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections – 2016 United States election controversy
• Day-care sex-abuse hysteria – Moral panic and series of prosecutions
• Elm Guest House claims and controversy
Overview
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 84th United States Attorney General from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as United States Senator from Alabama from 1997 to 2017 before resigning that position to serve as attorney general in the administration of President Donald T…
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama (1981–1993)
Sessions was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama beginning in 1975. In 1981, President Reagan nominated him to be the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. The Senate confirmed him and he held that position for twelve years. In 1993, Sessions resigned his post after Democrat Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States.
Early life and early career
Sessions was born in Selma, Alabama, on December 24, 1946, the son of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, Jr., and the former Abbie Powe. Sessions, his father, and his grandfather were named after Jefferson Davis, a U.S. senator and president of the Confederate States of America, and P. G. T. Beauregard, a veteran of the Mexican-American War and a Confederate general who oversaw the Battle of Fort Sumter that commenced the American Civil War. His father owned a general st…
Failed nomination for federal trial court judgeship (1986)
In 1986, Reagan nominated Sessions to be a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. Sessions's judicial nomination was recommended and actively backed by Republican Alabama senator Jeremiah Denton. A substantial majority of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which rates nominees to the federal bench, rated Sessions "qualified", with a minority voting tha…
Alabama attorney general (1995–1997)
Sessions was elected Attorney General of Alabama in November 1994, unseating incumbent Democrat Jimmy Evans with 57% of the vote. The harsh criticism he had received from Senator Ted Kennedy, who called him a "throw-back to a shameful era" and a "disgrace", was considered to have won him the support of Alabama conservatives.
U.S. Senate (1997–2017)
In 1996, Sessions won the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, after a runoff, and then defeated Democrat Roger Bedford 53%–46% in the November general election. He succeeded Howell Heflin (a Democrat), who had retired after 18 years in the Senate, making his victory a Republican pickup in the Senate.
Following the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999, Sessions took pa…
Attorney General of the United States (2017–2018)
President-elect Trump announced on November 18, 2016, that he would nominate Sessions to be Attorney General of the United States. Trump would later state in an August 22, 2018, interview with Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt that the only reason he nominated Sessions was because Sessions was an original supporter during his presidential campaign. The nomination engendered supp…
U.S. Senate campaign (2020)
In October 2019, Sessions began exploring a potential candidacy for his old Senate seat in the 2020 election. On November 7, 2019, Sessions, the night before the deadline to file in the hyper-competitive Republican race, announced his candidacy. The winner of the Republican primary would challenge incumbent Democrat Doug Jones.
Popular Posts:
- 1. who won district attorney in new orleans
- 2. attorney general vs district attorney who prosecutes real estate crimes in california
- 3. how to file a complaint with the attorney general in new mexico
- 4. how to file chapter 7 without an attorney
- 5. how do you find a clients attorney
- 6. i have power of attorney for my mohter, how do i protect that?
- 7. what is a general trustee power of attorney
- 8. how to get rid of difficult client attorney
- 9. steinger here's what to ask your attorney after a wreck
- 10. how much is attorney fees for workers compensation michigan