I found this on pizzagate when searching for something else. Some have seen it, many have not.
On The Legitimacy Of This Investigation (with an important message to fellow journalists I know are lurking on this sub) (self.pizzagate)
Edit: this is a throw-away account, I will not be using it further nor answering any questions
Edit2: impossible to get such a piece passed my editor, so I'm leaving it here for people to distribute (send it to journos if you have the emails, it will silently resonate)
We are told the work on /r/Pizzagate (and other message boards) is illegitimate because people are rushing to conclusions, or because they are being paranoid, or partisan (despite so many of different political complexions provably working together). The subtitle here of course is that the State is solely legitimate to suspect and investigate crimes.
But what if the State itself is, in a systemic way, responsible for said crimes? It wouldn't be a first; after all, democide (death by government, a word surprisingly absent from conversations) was the first cause of non-natural deaths in the 20th century. Whether one is from the right, left, or center, one cannot deny government is the number one abuser, enslaver and serial-killer in History. We may honestly disagree on the ways to eradicate the phenomenon, or we may regret that fact, but we cannot deny it.
So, if the State itself is committing crimes, it is the people's sovereign and sacred duty to expose it. Those who understand this truth best tend to become journalists. At least, that's what drove me to the profession.
Now specifically on this work. First, there is context; institutional child abuse is already a common-knowledge phenomenon. From the Presidio affair to Jimmy Saville and the BBC, or from the Vatican's historic involvement in covering-up pedophilia to US legislators' documented trips on the "Lolita Express", from the questions still surrounding Dutroux to the Hampstead doubts, the scourge has been featured in the news, movies, documentaries, art work. There have also been many policymakers, prosecutors, investigators and victims denouncing the very phenomenon; see for example British MP John Mann passionate speech before Parliament on the subject last year, or the extensive report by former undercover Interpol agent (Bannon). Indeed it is a secret de Polichinelle. So the only possible disagreement can be on the scale and systemicity of the phenomenon.
To honestly decide whether that's what we are seeing in the Podesta emails, please have a look at this one example. Look at the invitation at the end of the thread. Ms Luzzatto is inviting people (among which are John and Mary Podesta) to a farm in Lovettsville. This is what she says:
We plan to heat the pool, so a swim is a possibility. Bonnie will be Uber Service to transport Ruby, Emerson, and Maeve Luzzatto (11, 9, and almost 7) so you’ll have some further entertainment, and they will be in that pool for sure.
Impossible, you say? They couldn't possibly be speaking about abusing the children! After all, what step-grandmother would offer three innocent children up for group abuse?
This is how invitee Drew Littman answers the invitation:
I've never had an affair, so I pass the Walter Jones test.
If you aren't aware, Walter B. Jones has for 20 years been the U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 3rd congressional district; in DC he's regarded as the absurd caricature of a do-gooder, i.e. he is a noble man indeed.
Agreed, if that example was the only one, one could dismiss it as baroque misinterpretation. But there's more, much more. Let's not even get into the handkerchiefs and codewords - even though "cheese pizza" is a known euphemism for "child porn" (and there are abundant examples in the Podesta emails where that term is used in very strange and out-of-context manners).