Alex Jones Apologizes For Promoting Bogus 'Pizzagate' Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones apologized for promoting the baseless "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory that claimed there was a child sex-abuse ring in the basement of the popular Washington D.C.-area pizzeria Comet Ping Pong.

The conspiracy theory, which was not rooted in any hard evidence and largely originated based on a series of vague connections made through information from former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's hacked emails that were made public by WikiLeaks.

Because of the promotion of the conspiracy theory by some Reddit users and people like Jones, the owner of the pizzeria, James Alefantis, and many of the joint's employees received death threats and were harassed online. The situation escalated when a gunman who allegedly took it upon himself to investigate the child sex abuse sting walked into the pizzeria and fired a single gunshot. The man, Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, pleaded guilty on Friday, the same day Jones issued his statement.

In a lengthy statement posted to his website Infowars, Jones said, "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."

The part of the statement apologizing to Alefantis comes after about five paragraphs explaining the context behind Pizzagate.

• See the full statement here.

NPR notes that Infowars' corrections section has only two corrections, one of which is the Pizzagate apology. Alefantis had threatened legal action against Jones, sending him a letter in January asking for several retractions.

Other conspiracy theories that Jones has promoted include saying 9/11 was an inside job and that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax.

Image Credit: Elizabeth Murphy via Flickr Creative Commons