A conspiracist luminary, Posobiec rose to fame on the far right in 2016 by championing #Pizzagate, the internet rumor that alleged Hillary Clinton and a cabal of top-ranking Democrats were running a child sex-trafficking ring from the basement of Comet Ping Pong, a trendy pizza joint in Washington, D.C. Posobiec was no casual participant in #Pizzagate; he personally visited the restaurant to investigate, surreptitiously livestreaming footage of what he later described on Alex Jones’s Infowars channel as “demonic artwork” and “a secret door” that seemed suspicious, given the presence of so many “little kids.” The video exploded on social media after being uploaded to YouTube. Two weeks later, a man drove to D.C. from North Carolina, walked into Comet Ping Pong, and opened fire with his AR-15 rifle. (The man told police that he’d come to save the children, only to realize the restaurant had no basement; thankfully, nobody was hurt.) Posobiec never apologized for his starring role in fomenting what law enforcement agencies declared to be a brazen, dangerous falsehood. Indeed, he was just getting started.
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