Conspiracy Theorists Target Comet Ping Pong on Trump’s Last Night in Office

The Trump era in DC ends in a very similar fashion to the way it began

KEK [They] are SCARED! PANIC IN DC!

In a fitting finale to the Trump years in hometown DC, a group of homophobic conspiracy theorists gathered to shout slogans outside Chevy Chase’s Comet Ping Pong restaurant—only to leave after the eatery drowned out their bullhorn with loud music, to the delight of a large crowd that had gathered to dance in the street.

A group of about 20 people gathered outside the restaurant early  Tuesday evening, waving signs about abortion and hell, some of which bear the URL of a group called “Official Street Preachers.” Asked why they were bringing this message to a pizza place in leafy Chevy Chase DC, one protester told Washingtonian, “Pedophilia. They serve up little boys on pizza over there.”

Comet’s harasser is referring to a bogus conspiracy theory about Comet that sprung into view in DC just before the 2016 election, as memelords who supported Donald Trump began a campaign of harassing Comet based on warped online “detective” work that sprang from stolen Hillary Clinton campaign emails. The half-baked idea, a precursor of QAnon, was called “Pizzagate”: a theory that the neighborhood eatery was somehow the center of a vast pedophilia ring among Washington elites. It would almost be funny had it not led to Comet and businesses up and down its block getting harassed and, eventually, a gunman walking into the restaurant a little more than four years ago carrying a loaded rifle with the idea he would “investigate” its basement dungeon. (There is no basement at Comet.)

https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/01/19/conspiracy-theorists-target-comet-ping-pong-on-trumps-last-night-in-office/