Despite Fake News Ridicule, Pizzagate Research Advances Far Beyond Logos & Strange Artwork

Originally published February 2017

If you’re new to Pizzagate, this will make very little sense, and it references things that are covered in earlier posts. To get up to speed on where Pizzagate came from and what it is, read Part One here and Part Deux here. You can also click here to learn more about media coverage of Pizzagate as a debunked fake news phenomenon.)

The fundamental thesis of Pizzagate is that pedophilia, sex trafficking, and other crimes against children are endemic to the power structure in Washington and internationally, both on the left and the right sides of the political spectrum. Given that basic theory, it’s getting harder and harder to relegate Pizzagate to being nothing more but confirmation bias and clustering illusion gone awry. With each discovery, there is a new rebuke to the misconception that Pizzagate is based primarily on thematically-disturbing artwork and logos that allegedly resemble pedophile symbols.

As I noted in Pizzagate Part Deux, the body of independent research collectively known as “Pizzagate” is facing ongoing challenges. From widespread ridicule as “fake news,” a gunman incident at Comet Ping Pong, and a dilution of quality research due to the fact that anyone with a web connection can contribute, it has become harder than ever for strong research to find a foothold through all the noise.

But remarkably, the more serious and discerning contributors have still managed to make strange findings.

“My Favorite Pedo”

Instagram account werkinonmahnightcheese belongs to Jeff Smith, a contractor who works with Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis. Smith rose to notoriety amongst Pizzagate researchers after it was discovered that he commented “#killroom” on an Alefantis Instagram post of a walk-in freezer.

An Instagram friend of Smith’s also commented “#killroom” on an image from the wekinonmahnightcheese account, on an image of a room in his art studio in a PA retail center called The Pajama Factory. No one is quite sure what the killroom hashtag means, but as you might imagine, some of the theories are macabre:

Another of Smith’s Instagram connections is his brother Blair, who has an image on his now-deleted Instagram page where he refers to a friend as “My favorite pedo”:

However, as we’ll demonstrate below, Pizzagate is based on far more than just unsavory Instagram posts and allegedly strange logos. While these have certainly piqued researchers’ interest, the strangest things that have been uncovered continue to go quite a bit deeper.

The first one we’ll get into is in regard to a series of real estate transactions involving a house sold by James Alefantis.

Real Estate Hot Potato

In 2007, while Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis was romantically involved with Correct the Record head David Brock, they purchased a Washington, D.C. home. They sold it in 2013 for $2.25 million. Real estate records connect James Alefantis to the purchase of over a dozen properties (an extensive roster of properties for anyone, much less the owner of a hipster-ish pizza and ping pong joint).

A real estate database shows a convoluted sales history in the years leading up to when Brock and Alefantis bought and sold the home, with the ownership of the property seemingly being passed around within a small group of people and organizations, including a trust called L’Enfant, for over a decade. (Also worth noting, and added by a commenter, is that a company named Priap sold the house as well — its name an apparent reference to Priapus, a lustful Greek god of sex and male genitalia, known for raping the Goddess Hestia and often depicted with a cartoonishly enormous erect phallus). Some parties even re-purchased the house multiple times:

The last purchase on record was the Alefantis sale in 2012 to a Luis and Scott Driscoll. I mention this only because one Pizzagate researcher claimed that Scott Driscoll was mysteriously deceased when he somehow allegedly purchased the home. If there is a mystery here, that detail is not part of it: I have found no evidence directly linking the deceased Scott Driscoll to the property, but was able to find another listing linking a living Scott Driscoll to a Luz Lopez, indicating this to be the Scott Driscoll in the sales records.

Several of these sales are confirmed on other real estate websites, such as Zillow. One of the former listing agents is Cynthia Howar, a former employee of the Clinton administration who went on to co-found a lobbying firm called Potomac Strategies International. Why did a rising lobbyist abandon the D.C. machine for the bustle of real estate sales?

Whatever the reason, it’s difficult to make sense of the sales history. Why has the house been sold so many times in the past ten or so years? It has raised eyebrows among some that the house is potentially being bought and sold as a way to launder money, as the selling history appears to fit an overall pattern that points toward this as a possibility. The political connections of the listing agent when Alefantis purchased the home only add further cause for question. The fact that we live in a political landscape where the CIA hires real estate agents causes one to have to regard Washington, D.C. as a kind of alternate reality where all kinds of questions that seem absurd elsewhere suddenly become reasonable to ask.

James Alefantis, Laura Silsby, & the CIA

Remember that blackmail suit where Alefantis and boyfriend David Brock paid someone $850,000 in hush money? Their lawyer was Max Maccoby, then-board member and director for Friends of the Orphans, the same organization Laura Silsby was representing in Haiti where she was arrested for attempting to traffic 33 children out of the country with sleazy lawyer Jorge Puello, wanted in at least four countries for child sex trafficking and other charges. With over 700 orphanages in Haiti, it seems odd that Alefantis’ attorney would be the head of the same orphanage connecting accused child traffickers Laura Silsby and Jorge Puello with Hillary Clinton.

Laura Silsby

Enlisting Maccoby as their lawyer for the blackmail case wasn’t some random coincidence, as Alefantis had been friends with the Maccobys for years. This is indicated by a 2008 fiasco during which Alefantis was trying to convince his local Neighborhood Commission in D.C. to allow Comet Ping Pong to stay open after-hours, particularly for live music. Commission member Frank Winstead was known for extreme opposition to the idea, with the Washington Post reporting on his bizarre declaration that it would turn a “quiet stretch of Connecticut Avenue in Forest Hills into a haven for rape and murder.”

Support for the measure was equally vehement, as can be heard in a hectic recording of the Commission meeting. At about 31:40, someone identifying themselves as Max Maccoby can be heard declaring, “I will personally seek to remove the individuals who attempt to stop this.” From the address he gives, which matches the address listed on the Maccoby Group website, we can conclude definitively that this is the same Max Maccoby who ran Friends of the Orphans, and the attorney Alefantis and Brock retained for their blackmail case.

If that weren’t odd enough, Friends of the Orphans, operating under the banner of orphan and abandoned child charity NPH, includes a “secret NPH task force for special operations.” Formed by Mary Sue and Vern Conaway and their son Thomas, these “agents” undertook “special operations with a wide range of activity.” Meanwhile, a leak of diplomatic and intelligence cables lists a Mary Sue Conaway as someone alleged by foreign authorities to be an active CIA operative.

What’s more, she was working as Consular General at the embassy in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, at the same time Laura Silsby was attempting to bring Haitian children to an unregistered orphanage there. Conaway’s job would have included managing visa issuance for anyone attempting entry into the country — such as, for example, visas for the 33 Haitian children taken by Silsby.

In summation, accused child trafficker Laura Silsby and organization Friends of the Orphans are both connected with accused CIA agent Mary Sue Conaway, and James Alefantis himself. Given the network being uncovered, his designation as one of Washington D.C.’s 50 most influential people begins making more and more sense even as new questions emerge.

Billionaire Child Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein Returns: Dyncorp’s Sex Trafficking & Epstein’s Aircraft

Along with other numbers, the tail code on an aircraft is used to identify it, much like a license plate on a car. Jeffrey Epstein, convicted billionaire pedophile, owns a variety of aircraft, and one of them — a Bell Long Ranger 206L3 helicopter — shared its tail number with a OV-10D Bronco registered to the U.S. State Department. This Bronco was subcontracted to Dyncorp for “counter-insurgency” and “counter-narcotics” operations. For those who don’t know, Dyncorp is a private military contractor often hired by the U.S. for everything from renditions and weapon transfers to rescues after natural disasters.

It also so happens that Dyncorp employees were accused of owning and trafficking child sex slaves in Bosnia in the late 1990s; a scandal big enough that a Hollywood film called The Whistleblower was released, based on the story. Epstein, known from his court cases to have had a predilection for teenage sex slaves trafficked from Eastern Europe, shared this tail number on his helicopter during the same period when both he and Dyncorp employees were trafficking pre-teen and teen girls from the Balkan region.

Indeed, Epstein’s best-known sex slave and former “personal assistant” was someone named Nadia Marcinkova; a Yugoslavian girl purchased from her parents when she was 14, at the same time both he and Dyncorp stand accused of actively trafficking girls in the region. Is there a link between Epstein and Dyncorp that allowed him to take advantage of their operations to obtain underage girls trafficked by, or for, himself and other VIPs?

In another row, Dyncorp employees paid teenage boys to perform strip shows in Afghanistan. Authorities later tried to “quash” the accusations and ensure the story was contained. Described as an “error in judgment” by Hillary Clinton lawyer Cheryl Mills, one must wonder if there is something to this disturbing pattern at Dyncorp and what, if anything, Epstein has to do with all of it.

Terry Bean: Democratic Bundler with Multiple Sex Crime Allegations

I’ll start this paragraph with a statement that I believe that what happens between consenting adults should be their own business — nothing here is meant an indictment of any aspect of the gay community. I say that because the subject of this section, Terry Bean, co-founded one of the country’s largest gay advocacy organizations: the Human Rights Campaign. Bean was also one of America’s top gay porn producers, which is all well and good — again, consenting adults — but faced allegations that he had sex with a minor, and hid a camera in his bedroom smoke detector to surreptitiously record sex with over a dozen individuals. The minor was a 15-year old boy he and his boyfriend solicited on gay hookup app Grindr and had sex with at a hotel.

Aside being a gay rights activist and porn producer, Bean was a major bundler, or “super fundraiser,” for Obama — a position also held by Tony Podesta. A bundler is someone who solicits, collects, and consolidates donations for political candidates. They’re a critical tool for candidates to finance their campaigns, and according to NPR, “rank high in the power structure of American politics.” In another source, Bean himself is referred to as “indispensable to players at the highest level of politics.” Below he can be seen posing with Barack and Michelle Obama, and then with Obama and others aboard Air Force One:

Following the hidden camera allegations, there were reports of blackmail and hush money being thrown around to keep Bean’s “alleged illicit sexual activities” quiet. Interestingly, when it came time to go to court, Bean’s alleged teenage victim “disappeared,” his attorney later issuing a statement that he had chosen not to testify. Prosecutors lobbied for the right to refile charges if the boy ever changed his mind, but the case was eventually dismissed for good after Bean paid out a $225,000 settlement.

All Under One Roof: The Abedin Family, a Terrorist Fundraiser, &…a Pizza Joint

The Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs publishes a journal at which Saleha Mahmood and Hassan Abedin are the managing editors. These are the mother and brother, respectively, of longtime Clinton confidant Huma Abedin, who grew up in Saudi Arabia. Seems normal enough, until you discover that the journal of the IMMA shares the exact same addess with a Saudi NGO called the Muslim World League, an organization credited with promoting Saudi Arabia’s brand of extremist Wahabbi Islam. The former director of the MWL is Abdullah Omar Naseef, a figure in Saudi American politics accused by the U.S. State Department of funding terrorism through organizations like his Rabita Trust. Rabita is an alleged charity front for funneling money to Islamic extremist groups including Hamas, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Both the journal for the IMMA, managed by the Abedins, and the MWL, can be found at 46 Goodge Street, London, W1T 4LU, United Kingdom. Not even a different suite, floor, or office number is listed for either; the addresses listed are identical. But as if that weren’t odd enough, the third organization sharing that address is a pizza joint called Icco Italian Pizzeria.

I’m sure there is a potentially logical explanation for this address being shared by these three entities. After all, Icco is clearly a real, functioning pizza restaurant. But in addition to all of this, of course, Abedin’s ex-husband Anthony Weiner is facing child pornography charges, adding even more fuel to Pizzagate researchers’ fire. So the question is, at what point to the coincidences and connections with people involved with pedophilia and child trafficking become significant enough to warrant closer scrutiny as a systemic issue?

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by a Saudi connection — after all, Tony Podesta, brother of Clinton insider John Podesta, is listed as an official foreign agent for the Saudi government, and John Podesta obtained thousands in Saudi cash in support of the 2016 Clinton campaign.

So what do these connections mean as they relate to the U.S. government’s alliance with Saudi Arabia; one of the world’s most repressive religious dictatorships, a known hub for human trafficking and a major funder and exporter of Islamic terrorism? And as one of the world’s largest Clinton Foundation donors along with other Middle Eastern dictatorships, what exactly did the Saudi regime expect in return for their generosity to the Clinton Foundation?

Whether or not U.S. and Clinton have ties with Saudi Arabiathat  relate directly to human trafficking remains to be seen. But even if they don’t, there is still more than enough reason to be uncomfortable with the relationship.

Further Conclusions

I have a final note on Pizzagate, at least until I post further research. Early on, there was much talk that figureheads in the Pizzagate and “alternative news” community would be sued for slander, libel, and/or defamation by James Alefantis, John Podesta, and possibly others for their role in spreading the “fake news” hoax that Pizzagate is accused of representing. Former Huffington Post columnist David Seaman comes to mind as a potentially easy target for such lawsuits. However, I predicted in November 2016 that there would be no lawsuits whatsoever arising from the Pizzagate allegations.

Podesta hasn’t made any statement at all on the content of the Wikileaks email releases or any other aspect of Pizzagate. And Alefantis, when asked, has said correctly that a lawsuit would probably be arduous, and unlikely to solve his problem now that the conspiracy theory has taken on a life of its own.

I propose an entirely different reason for the lack of legal action: I believe there is at least some truth to the allegations, and that those involved have enough skeletons in the closet to be totally unwilling to face the depositions, summonses, and other scrutiny that a legal action would bring. That’s why I believed from early on that no lawsuit would ever be filed against anyone for conducting, promoting, or spreading Pizzagate-related research. We’ll see if my prediction stands the test of time.