On Monday, the Washington Post reported on the origins of the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory, the baseless claim that a Washington, D.C., restaurant is the site of a child sex ring led by Hillary Clinton and other Democratic officials, after an armed man entered and fired shots inside the pizzeria in hopes of freeing the child sex prisoners.
The Post noted that one of the main proponents of this theory was Alex Jones, the far-right radio host beloved by President-elect Donald Trump. (The shooter told The New York Times that he is a Jones listener).
The notion quickly moved to other social-media platforms, including 4chan and Reddit, mostly through anonymous or pseudonymous posts. On the far-right site Infowars, talk-show host Alex Jones repeatedly suggested that Clinton was involved in a child sex ring and that her campaign chairman, John Podesta, indulged in satanic rituals.
“When I think about all the children Hillary Clinton has personally murdered and chopped up and raped, I have zero fear standing up against her,” Jones said in a YouTube video posted on Nov. 4. “Yeah, you heard me right. Hillary Clinton has personally murdered children. I just can’t hold back the truth anymore.” Jones eventually tied his comments about Clinton to U.S. policy in Syria.
According to YouTube, that video has been viewed more than 427,000 times.
The Jones video has since “been removed by the user” from YouTube.
We were, however, able to uncover the audio of Jones saying on his radio program that Clinton, “one of the most vicious serial killers the planet’s ever seen,” has personally raped and killed children and is secretly directing ISIS and Al Qaeda:
Jones is now trying to back away from his role in spreading the "Pizzagate" smear, which isn’t too surprising since he has a record of lying about some of his most egregious claims.
When Hillary Clinton noted that Jones had alleged that the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre were actually child actors, Jones denied every saying it and accused Clinton of lying. But the record shows that Jones had said just that:
Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. I couldn’t believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids. And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors.
Not that any of this will matter to Trump, who Jones said called him after the election to thank him for his support and to promise to return to his show.
