Hillary and Bill Clinton bought dozens of pizzas from the D.C. restaurant that was at the center of the ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory last fall, which compelled one North Carolina man to show up at the shop with a gun.
‘People could have gotten killed,’ Clinton fretted Monday night as she spoke to Politics & Prose’s co-owner Lissa Muscatine onstage at D.C.’s Warner Theatre.
It was Muscatine who outed Clinton for her large pizza purchase – which she donated to charity – as Politics & Prose is several stores down from Comet Ping Pong, the pizza parlor featured in the false online stories that dealt with Clinton and her Campaign Chairman John Podesta.
Hillary Clinton waves to her audience at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., the first stop on her 15-city book tour
A crowd gathers in front of Warner Theatre in Washington for ‘An Evening with Hillary Clinton,’ the first official stop of her 15-city book tour
A protester dressed like ‘Lady MacDeath’ waved to people arriving at Hillary Clinton’s book talk Monday night at Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C.
At the book talk, Clinton walked the audience back through ‘Pizzagate.’
She reminded them how her Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s emails had been ‘stolen’ by the Russians – saying she hated the word ‘hacked’ – and then handed over to Wikileaks, in which they were selectively released.
She pointed out how Roger Stone, one of President Trump’s longtime political consultants, had hinted he knew Podesta was about to have his conversations made public.
And then pointed to the date in which it happened, the same day the ‘Hollywood Access’ – rather, the Access Hollywood – tape was released to the public through the Washington Post.
Podesta’s emails, Clinton said, weren’t all that interesting.
‘I think it’s a little embarrassing to admit they are a little anodyne, even boring,’ the ex-Democratic nominee said.
But the Russians and their allies, ‘Whoever they turn out to be,’ Clinton joked, were able to generate interest, by leading the press on a ‘wild goose chase’ and creating the ‘illusion of transparency.’
From there, the emails were ‘weaponized’ Clinton said, as a conspiracy theory popped up over an email where Podesta said he liked pizza.
‘He’s Italian and Greek and whatever,’ Clinton said. ‘His risotto recipe is still there if you want to see it,’ she added, joking about one particular Podesta email that had gone viral.
Clinton articulated what the conspiracy theory said: that she and Podesta operated a child sex ring out of Comet Ping Pong’s basement.
‘There is no basement,’ Muscatine and Clinton both noted.
‘You would think people would be laughing like crazy,’ she said.
Instead a man showed up at the restaurant’s doorstep, with an AR-15, telling police he was there to rescue the kids.
‘It was an active crime scene because of people who cared more about weaponizing information,’ she said.
So, according to Muscatine, Clinton and her husband quietly bought a lot of pizzas, to show their support for the Northwest D.C. pizza joint.
Muscatine pointed out that Vice President Mike Pence had briefly also lived down the street.
‘Did he once think about coming in, buying a slice of pizza?’ she mused.