Donald Trump speaks as he welcomes the Florida Gators, the 2025 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Champions, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 21, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
President Donald Trump has, through his bungling of disclosing the Jeffrey Epstein files, managed to keep alive a discredited conspiracy theory involving child sex abuse — namely, the Pizzagate scandal.
The Pizzagate scandal is the disproved claim that Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign was a child sex trafficking ring that used the Washington DC pizzeria Comet Ping Pong to perform its activities. After Comet Ping Pong was attacked by a gunman (no one was hurt), it seemed the conspiracy theory was too taboo to reenter the American mainstream. Yet according to a conspiracy theory expert, Trump's refusal to fully release the Epstein files has added fuel to the Pizzagate fire.
"That is because reality has continued to give Pizzagate more material," journalist, author and conspiracy theory expert Anna Merlan wrote for The New York Times on Sunday. "The #MeToo movement came less than a year after the shooting at Comet, and soon stories of the elite and powerful engaging in unchecked sexual abuse were seemingly everywhere. No one exemplified this culture of impunity better than Mr. Epstein. In 2008 he pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution in a sweetheart deal that helped him avoid federal prosecution. He spent the next decade cavorting with top businessmen, academics, entertainers and politicians who shamelessly pursued his money and social clout while evidence and allegations of his sexual abuse grew."
Merlan continued, "The flight logs for Mr. Epstein’s private jet — Mr. Clinton, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then-Prince Andrew, Kevin Spacey, Mr. Trump — seemed to confirm the “deep state” that conspiracists saw everywhere. Bill Gates flew on another of his private jets and had conversations with him from 2011 to 2014, well after Mr. Epstein’s conviction. The social associations between Mr. Epstein and people in the upper echelons of power were confirmation of one piece of the Pizzagate worldview: that the elite know and protect one another."
As recently as last year, Republicans fending off inquiries into the Epstein files have tried to deflect by bringing up Pizzagate.
Per The Huffington Post's Yashar Ali, in December Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) reposted a video from "a conspiracy theorist who regularly spreads neo-Nazi propaganda." The conspiracy theorist, Ian Carroll, wrote that "the 'Pizzagate' conspiracy came out way before the Epstein revelations came out." He then elaborated, "Am I, like, way out of line to say that Epstein is pretty solid evidence that there might be some child trafficking going on with elites? Right? Like, is that too far out there?"
Reposting the video, Lee added, "What comes to mind first when you hear that mainstream-news media sources have 'debunked' a particular 'conspiracy theory'? I don’t know this guy, but he asks some legitimate questions. Watch the video and see for yourself."
