‘Pizzagate’ protest stakes out in front of the White House

Multiple Pizzagate theorists addressed the crowd in Lafayette Park, standing on a wooden stage decked out with banners with statements including, “We Demand a Criminal Investigation Now!” and “Terms of Surrender: Release All Children.” Many of the attendees, some of whom were entire families with kids, carried signs and wore shirts bearing former Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s face and messages that claim the Pizzagate conspiracy theory is “not ‘fake news.'”

“I don’t have any doubt that Pizzagate is real,” said Kori Hayes, an attendee from Middleburg, Fla., according to the Washington Post. “But nothing is being said about it.” Hayes and her family were the ones wearing the Pizzagate shirts.

The restaurant at the center of the conspiracy theory, Comet Ping Pong, became tied to Pizzagate after some social media users became suspicious of the multiple mentions of pizza and other suspicious words in the WikiLeaks dumps of Podesta’s emails.

Saturday’s rally happened happened one day after Edgar Madison Welch, 28, pleaded guilty to two weapons charges for the December incident in which he walked into Comet Ping Pong and fired a rifle as he looked for evidence supporting a part of the conspiracy theory claiming there were underground tunnels through which children were trafficked. On the same day, Infowars apologized to the owner of the restaurant, James Alefantis, for its role in perpetuating the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory.

President Trump was in town when the rally took place. He spent several hours at his golf club in Virginia before returning to the White House in the middle of the afternoon.