In the investigation that helped spark new charges against rich pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, there’s been a lot that one wouldn’t expect.
A Saudi passport. Connections among politicians and influential businessmen. And a bizarre timeline that could suggest extortion.
Amid all that, the people who brought you Pizzagate and other members of the alt-right have used the scandal to spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Far-right conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich appears to have entered the Epstein imbroglio via a lawsuit related to Pizzagate.
After Epstein entered into a 2008 plea deal that was widely seen as too lenient, a number of his victims sued the financier. It was then that a bizarre cast of characters seized upon the scandal, looking for possible vindication or clarity in court filings that were sealed from the original Epstein investigation.
In January 2017, Cernovich intervened in a lawsuit demanding that judicial records associated with Epstein’s plea deal be unsealed. For Cernovich, it came as part of an attempt to capitalize on the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which claimed the Wikileaks-released Podesta emails exposed an elaborate code for a pedophile ring in the Democratic Party, run out of the basement of a D.C. pizza shop.
Cernovich told Politico at the time that he intervened in the lawsuit because “a lot of Trump supporters, including me, do believe there is some shady shit going on as far as child trafficking.”
After Epstein’s arrest last week, Cernovich went on a victory lap in an appearance with alt-right blogger Stefan Molyneux. He published an article on his website claiming credit for the SDNY charges, while telling the same to Molyneux.
“You got him!” Molyneux told Cernovich.
Molyneux shifted towards associating Epstein with his ancestry in a fit of anti-semitic innuendo.
It would seem not.
If Epstein only targeted 100+ Gentile children, aren’t those all hate crimes? https://t.co/WrxBtkVNJ4
— Stefan Molyneux (@StefanMolyneux) July 11, 2019
Other members of the alt-right, some of the same who pushed Pizzagate, have also jumped on the bandwagon, describing the Epstein case — in the context of his Jewish heritage — as a revelation about a hidden, global, financial and political cabal.
Alt-right members have claimed that Epstein’s sexual assaults and political ties make him part of a Jewish conspiracy to entrap leading politicians and financiers.
Take it from prominent neo-nazi Richard Spencer:
The source for this analysis is a bit dubious. That said, Acosta has stated he was told Epstein was in "intelligence" (which country's, we can only guess…) Put simply, there is reason to believe Epstein was an Israeli operative engaged in much more than providing massages. https://t.co/21pfVwfaAA
— Richard ☀️ Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) July 12, 2019
On 8Chan, an online home of the alt-right that became notorious during the 2016 campaign for originating an anti-semitic image of Hillary Clinton that Trump tweeted, alt-righters began propagating similar anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in a thread responding to Epstein’s arrest, positing the same theory.
Mark Collett, a British alt-right Youtuber who collaborates with American white nationalists, released a video after Epstein’s arrest that drove to the same conclusion. That featured Patrick Slattery, a David Duke associate who runs a neo-Nazi website called Buglewatch.
Infowars host Alex Jones, another Pizzagate promoter who was eventually forced to apologize for it, screamed on a recent broadcast that “the Achilles heel of the deep state is child molestation.”
Jones drew an explicit link from Pizzagate to a supposed global conspiracy that supposedly underpins the Epstein scandal. He accused Epstein of being a node in a “world government set up at our expense.”
“All we did was believe in a good future, believe in promoting free market and family and 2nd amendment and Jesus Christ, over world government, and Hollywood, and communism, and pedophilia, and rich bankers,” he added.
