In what appears to be only the second correction on the popular conspiracy theorist’s website, infowars.com, Alex Jones has publically apologized for pushing the Pizzagate scandal.
The Pizzagate scandal, as it infamously became known, surfaced after leaked emails from one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides, John Podesta, were taken out of context to convince people that a child sex ring was being operated out of Comet Ping Post restaurant in D.C. The restaurant is a popular neighborhood pizza joint owned by James Alefantis, a Clinton supporter, which gave far-right conspiracy theorists all the more reason to believe the rumors.
The restaurant came under the limelight last year, when a gunman allegedly barged into the pizzeria with an armed rifle, in search of children, who he believed were locked in the basement. The suspect had come to the conclusion, through his own investigations and unsubstantiated claims from far-right news outlets, that Clinton and her campaign chairman, Podesta, were indeed running a child trafficking ring from the pizza joint.
Even though a number of media outlets snubbed the news as false, Alex Jones, owner of Infowars.com, pushed the story through his own website, videos, and articles. While he is not the originator of the story, he certainly helped spread the news through social media and his own website, among far-right and conservative believers.
After the debunking of the claims, Jones went on record to apologize for the mistake. “In our commentary about what had become known as Pizzagate, I made comments about Mr. Alefantis that, in hindsight, I regret, and for which I apologize to him,” Jones said in a video.
He continued, “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. ”
He went on to admit that he had relied on reporters who were no longer employed by his company and all videos regarding the Pizzagate scandal had been removed from his website. He also reportedly invited James Alefantis to his show to talk about the incident in detail.
Alex Jones is a reputed conspiracy theorist, who, according to his website, believes in “seeking truth and exposing the scientifically engineered lies of the globalists and their ultimate goal of enslaving humanity.” He has also previously argued that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax and that it was a distraction from something the government wanted to cover up.
