The Podesta Emails were Never "Debunked," Despite what the Media Claims
The Podesta Emails were Never "Debunked," Despite what the Media Claims
The Insane and Inane Conspiracies Were Debunked, but Not the Central Premise of an Elite Pedo Network
With Jeffrey Epstein back in the news thanks to a document dump that exposed dozens of perverts associated with Epstein,1 some of them new names2 and many of them already known,3 the question of to what extent those in the DC Swamp were in the orbit of his pedo network4 has returned. Particularly, the question of whether the infamous Podesta emails5 that spawned the “Pizzagate” conspiracy are real, or if they were debunked along with most of the other “Pizzagate” claims has resurfaced.
The media would have you believe that it was all just made up. That it was all the insane delusions of far-right mouthbreathers.6 The truth, however, is far more complicated, as this article will discuss. As always, it will rely on the most mainstream sources available to show it is true rather than just a conspiracy theory.
NOTE: This is one of many articles we’ve done on Epstein. Check out our previous articles on Ghislaine Maxwell’s creepy charity, Epstein’s shocking connections to Bill Barr and his father, the plot of land Biden’s brother owned close to Epstein Island, how Trump stood up to Epstein, Bill Gates’ relationship with Epstein, and which intelligence service was likely backing Epstein, and Bill Clinton and Epstein. Relatedly, check out our article on the pedophiles America supported in Afghanistan.
The Podesta Emails: How The Public Got to Read Them and What They Said
In March of 2016, John Podesta was the chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. He was also hacked, with most outlets reporting that the hack was effected by a group of Russian hackers known as Fancy Bear, APT28, or Sofacy.7 Those hacked emails soon found their way to WikiLeaks,8 which published them in the fall of 2016, likely helping Trump win the 2016 presidential contest. The emails appear to be genuine.9
Most of the emails showed what one would expect from the Democratic Party apparatchik. Some, for example, revealed how close Clinton was to the financiers on Wall Street.10 Others revealed Podesta was trying to start a “revolution” in the Catholic Church and push it far to the left.11 Also revealed was that the Clinton Campaign had been collaborating with Donna Brazile before the DNC primary debates.12 Still another revealed that John Podesta was collecting $ 7,000 a month from a Clinton donor.13
Other emails were a bit out of the ordinary, however. Namely, many of them mentioned “pizza,” Italian food, and sauces.14
In one email exchange from November of 2014, for example, John Podesta got an email from Susan Sandler, who asked, “The realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related. Is it yours? They can send it if you want. I know you’re busy, so feel free not to respond if it’s not yours or you don’t want it.” Podesta, in response, said, “It's mine, but not worth worrying about.”15
In another exchange with the subject line “Walnut Sauce?” Podesta was asked, “Hey John, We know you're a true master of cuisine and we have appreciated that for years … But walnut sauce for the pasta? Mary, plz tell us the straight story, was the sauce actually very tasty?” Podesta, in response, said, “It's an amazing Ligurian dish made with crushed walnuts made into a paste. So stop being so California.”16
In still another email, Podesta got email from Comet Ping Pong pizza shop owner James Alefantis, who said, “Hello. Some young lawyer type friends of mine are hosting an Obama Fundraiser at Comet Ping Pong on Thursday Night and then watching the debate. Should be about 150 people and they are raising between 25 and 35 thousand dollars. Would you be willing to stop by around 8 o'clock or so and make a little speech. They (and I) would be thrilled to have you of course. I understand if you are not available. Also, I saw that you are reading at Politics & Prose soon. What can we do afterward? Would you like to have a dinner at my places?!? Big or small. What do you think?”17
Numerous other Podesta emails included bizarre, often out of place or otherwise seemingly illogical references to cheese pizza and other foods.18
In another email released by WikiLeaks (though one not sent to or by Podesta), Fred Burton, an employee of Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence company, said, “I think Obama spent about $65,000 of the tax-payers money flying in pizza/dogs from Chicago for a private party at the White House not long ago, assume we are using the same channels?”19
Another Podesta email reveals that he received a personal invitation from Marina Abramovic to a “Spirit Cooking” dinner event.20 Here’s what one of Abramovic’s dinners looked like:
There were numerous other emails, but those are representative selections. There were odd comments about pizza, weird numbers given, and the Abramovic invitation. So, what was going on there? Well, perhaps they were just ordering a massive amount of pizza and hot dogs. That’s always a possibility. But the other possibility, one many on the internet accepted with gusto, is that the emails were using common code words for degenerate activities. “Cheese pizza” is a codeword for child p**nography, “hotdog” means “boy” in that context, “sauce” means orgy, “walnut” means person of color, etc.21
And while the media attempted to quash those claims at the time by arguing that they were just speculative interpretations of the odd remarks in the emails,22 it’s important to remember that the MSM has admitted quite recently that “cheese pizza” is a codeword used by pedophiles to communicate. For example, a breathtaking Wall Street Journal report revealed that pedophiles were using the term to communicate and network on Instagram.23
That interpretation soon took hold of the minds of many online, leading to speculation that John Podesta and other members of the DC Swamp, particularly the Clinton Campaign and Obama Administration, were members of a vast pedophile network that the Podesta email leak had inadvertently revealed. Such a network would not be dissimilar to the Epstein network,24 and the sickening “art” depicting child abuse at Tony Podesta’s house,25 along with the involvement of political figures like Bill Clinton with Epstein,26 indicates that something certainly could have been afoot.
But, the internet being the internet, that reasonable speculation and investigation soon led to the better-known “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, most of which was based on incorrect information, outright lies, and utter nonsense.27 That then led to a media debunking campaign that obscured the central question of the matter, which was “is there a pedophile network among America’s elites?” The media claimed to have “debunked” the claims of those who dug into the emails, but whether it really did so is what we will discuss next.
The Podesta Emails “Debunking” that Wasn’t
As could be expected of speculation about anyone close to the left’s then-sacred cow, Hillary Clinton, the leftist MSM quickly jumped into action to “debunk” the claims of the Pizzagate crowd. The New York Times, for instance, published a breathless article titled “Dissecting the #PizzaGate Conspiracy Theories” and used this convoluted graphic as the featured image:28
Similarly, BBC News ran an article titled “The saga of 'Pizzagate': The fake story that shows how conspiracy theories spread,”29 BuzzFeed News ran a debunking article titled “How The Bizarre Conspiracy Theory Behind "Pizzagate" Was Spread,”30 and PolitiFact’s fact-check of the conspiracy claimed “Four years later, there’s still no evidence to support Pizzagate theory.”31
But did those articles actually debunk the claim that there might be something like what we now know the Epstein network to be operating in elite circles? No. They debunked many of the insane Pizzagate claims, but not the emails or central premise.
The New York Times article, for example, noted that one of the “A participant on 4chan connected the phrase “cheese pizza” to pedophiles,” but then went on to focus on the other, patently false Pizzagate claims, such as there being a basement in Comet Ping Pong pizza, a picture of Obama playing ping pong at the restaurant, and that the Podesta brothers kidnapped a child in 2007, among other patently false claims.32 The only rebuttal the NYT had to the claim that the emails were using coded language is that “The Podesta brothers were famous in Washington circles for their Italian cooking and big salon and fund-raising dinners, often cooked by their mother.”33 How that disproves the idea that the terms could be coded language was never shown, other than that it introduces some context for the email about walnut sauce.
Similarly, PolitiFact addressed the claims by saying, “There is no evidence to support the allegation that Clinton and Podesta were involved in sex-trafficking children, or that there’s a child sex-trafficking ring.” Providing justification, it argued, “We’ve looked into claims that the FBI confirmed evidence of a "huge underground Clinton sex network," that Clinton was on trial for allegedly torturing and killing a 10-year-old girl on camera, that an explosion in Beirut over the summer was linked to human trafficking by Clinton — they’re all false.” But, upon closer inspection, those links are not at all dispositive. In fact, all are about insane, obviously false claims that were tangentially related to the Podesta emails, not evidence that the Podesta emails contained no coded language, much less that there is no “child sex-trafficking ring.” In fact, the very existence of the Epstein network refutes PolitiFact’s claim that there was no “child sex-trafficking” ring at all, and the PolitiFact article leaves what the emails meant unaddressed. That doesn’t mean, of course, that the emails were about child sexual abuse instead of just pizza and hotdogs. But it does mean that PolitiFact didn’t debunk it.
Much the same is true of the Daily Beast's “debunking” of the Podesta emails. It begins by claiming, “‘Pizzagate’ claims that Democratic operatives placing orders at Comet Ping Pong were actually using code to talk about underage prostitutes. This strange and convoluted conspiracy theory, which also involves allegations of occult rituals, has its origins in false accusations about the Clintons that began spreading in late October. The original theory claimed that the Clintons and other government figures were involved in a global human trafficking and pedophilia ring.”34 But then, instead of debunking the emails wholesale, the article goes on to debunk a tweet and articles based on it, never once addressing the actual emails or Epstein network. And, though invectives are thrown its way, the idea of there being a network of pedophilic elites, such as the one just revealed in the Epstein documents,35 is never debunked.
Joining the trend, the BBC News report claimed the emails proved nothing, then went on to “debunk” claims about them by addressing certain rumors and claims about Alefantis and Comet Ping Pong, not what the emails might have been about.36
The closest thing to an actual debunking of the claim that the emails indicate something untoward could have been going on comes from USA Today, which ran an article titled, “Fact check: Barack Obama did not spend $65K on prostitutes, code-named 'pizza' and 'hotdogs.'"37 But then, other than noting that the $65k number is outlandish, it provides no evidence for its headline. In fact, its “conclusion” that the email was “FALSE” provides only that the email’s claims are “unsubstantiated,” saying “We rate this claim FALSE because it was not supported by our research. The initial claim was based on a leaked email chain between employees of a private company, but the statement referencing $65,000 for pizza and hot dogs is unsubstantiated.” As with the other articles, that doesn’t mean that Obama was using code words with “pizza” and “hotdogs.” But the supposed debunking is thin, at best. “Unsubstantiated” means “not proven,” after all, not “proven false.”
Pizzagate was Made Up, But the Emails were Never “Debunked”
As the NYT and others made sure to not, many of the inane claims that followed the the Podesta emails leak were certainly false. There was no basement in Comet Ping Pong, much less some underground dungeon. Many of the photos that purportedly showed elites being involved were either fake or didn’t show what conspiracy theorists claimed they showed. Those claims were successfully debunked, with the media outlets providing real evidence to show they were false and what the truth was.
But the same isn’t true of the original suspicion that followed from the emails, which is that there is an elite pedo network and that many of the elites involved in the emails could have been involved with it. To be clear, that does not mean that such a network existed (though Epstein’s network38 shows that such a network certainly was possible), nor does it mean that the Podestas were involved in such a network if one existed. But the emails were odd, particularly when considered in light of other details, such as the obscene, disturbing art owned by Tony Podesta.39 That makes the emails and to what they might have been referring worthy of consideration, not the blithe and unsubstantiated dismissal they received from the MSM. When the “debunking” articles were published, the full depth and horror of the Epstein network40 was yet to be revealed and a dismissal of the concept was more defensible. Now, we’ve caught a glimpse of its scope and know for a fact that it existed. At the very least, that means an actual investigation would be prudent, and the public needs to know what it reveals.