196 GQ.COM.AU SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
enough – though perhaps less so
in the US, where there were at
least 150 mass shootings in the
first half of this year. But
the reasoning behind Welch’s
attack – that he was trying to stop
“something nefarious” happening
inside the restaurant – makes it all
the more extraordinary. Stanger
still, Welch was hardly alone in
his belief.
On October 30, 2016, a Twitter
account belonging to someone
calling themselves David
Goldberg, mentioned “rumours
stirring in the NYPD” about
a paedophile ring in Washington
DC. The tip-off, Goldberg
suggested, had been uncovered
during a search of disgraced
congressman Anthony Weiner’s
computer and allegedly revealed
that not only were high-ranking
Democrats involved, but that
Hillary Clinton was at the
centre of it.
Users on Twitter and Reddit
soon turned their attention to the
Wikileaks dump of some 20,000
pages of emails, taken from
the personal Gmail account
of Hillary Clinton’s 2016
presidential campaign chairman,
John Podesta. They began
combing them for clues of the
alleged crimes, arriving at
the conclusion Podesta and his
brother were responsible for
abducting missing British toddler
Madeleine McCann.
They also theorised that some
of the emails had been written in
code, and that certain food-
related terms were in fact veiled
references to an underground
child-sex operation. ‘Cheese
pizza’, a user on internet forum
4Chan suggested, was actually
code for ‘child pornography’,
since the words shared the same
initials. Soon, amateur detectives
were scouring the DC area for
a corresponding venue where
Democrat leaders were supposedly
detaining and sexually abusing
young children, even sacrificing
some in the name of Satan.Focus was then put on an FBI
document, also published by
Wikileaks, which listed clandestine
symbols that paedophiles often
use to identify their sexual
preferences. The term ‘child
lover’, for instance, was
represented by a butterfly whose
wings approximated love hearts.
The would-be sleuths compared
this with logos of local businesses,
noticing that it bore a semblance
to one on the menu for a local
pizzeria – a pair of criss-crossed
Ping Pong bats on the website for
Comet Ping Pong.
The so-called ‘Pizzagate’
rumour began to gather pace. It
was referenced in a tweet by
Michael Flynn Jnr, the son of the
Trump administration’s short-
lived national security advisor and
himself part of Trump’s transition
team. It was also promoted on
sites including InfoWars – best
known for claiming the
September 11 attacks were an
“inside job” and that the 2012
Sandy Hook Elementary School
gun massacre, in which 20 young
children and six adults were
murdered, was “completely fake”.
Last November, Australian
NBA player Andrew Bogut
tweeted to his 300,000-plus
followers that “if only 1 per cent
of this #pizzagate scandal is true,
all people involved deserve life in
prison (or worse)”. The following
month, a poll of over 1200 voters
found 14 per cent of Trump
supporters believed Clinton was
connected to a child sex ring run
from the pizzeria, while a further
32 per cent said they were “not
sure”. One person who was in no
doubt was Welch, who is now
serving a four-year prison sentence.
It wasn’t until March this year
that InfoWars founder Alex Jones
finally admitted he had been
wrong about the whole thing.
“Neither Mr Alefantis, nor his
restaurant Comet Ping Pong,
were involved in any human
trafficking,” he announced in
a statement on March 24. “I wantCOMET PING PONG IS
A SMALL, FAMILY-
FRIENDLY PIZZERIA IN
WASHINGTON DC. LOCALS
KNOW IT SIMPLY AS
COMET, THOUGH ITS FULL
NAME REFERS TO THE
FACT IT OFFERS BOTH
CLASSIC, THIN-CRUST
PIZZAS AND A BACKROOM
CONTAINING COMMUNAL
PING-PONGPING-PONG TABLES.PING-PONG TABLES.TAB LE S.
Founded in 2006 by chef James
Alefantis, it quickly became
something of a local institution,
appearing in the pages of the
Washington Post, New York magazine
and US GQ. It was also featured in
a 2013 episode of popular Food
Net work show, Diners, Drive-Ins
and Dives whose peroxide-tipped
host, Guy Fieri, singled out its
calzones for special praise.
If ever there was a time when
the self-described “hipster-heavy
pizza parlour” had an opportunity
to gain international attention,
it would be natural to assume it
had come and gone with Fieri’s
visit. But that would be wrong.
Because on December 4, last year,
28-year-old Edgar Maddison
Welch entered the pizzeria with
three guns, including an AR-15
assault rifle – a semi-automatic
version of the weapon used by the
US military – and opened fire.
“I just wanted to do some good,”
Welch told the New York Times
following his arrest, “and went
about it the wrong way”.
That a pizzeria would become
the target of a shooting is unlikely