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Editorial Notebook

Fake News Brings a Gunman to Washington

Police shut down Connecticut Avenue outside Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant that was the subject of a fake news story.Credit...Jim Lo Scalzo/European Pressphoto Agency

On Sunday afternoon, as families ate a late lunch at Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C., a man armed with a rifle walked in, aiming to “self-investigate” fake stories that the small pizzeria was a front for a child sex ring led by Hillary Clinton.

No one was hurt, but a shot was fired, families and staff fled and a swath of the quiet neighborhood was locked down for hours. The suspect, 28-year-old Edgar Welch of Salisbury, N.C., referenced what’s known online as “Pizzagate,” a fabricated story on dozens of fake news websites, which puts Comet Ping Pong at the center of bizarre, debunked charges of child trafficking. The hoax has been shared millions of times by Donald Trump supporters on social media including Reddit, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

That an insane online conspiracy theory brought violence to a neighborhood business five miles from the White House is mind-boggling. Even worse is that similar fake stories involving Mrs. Clinton and pedophilia have been promoted by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President-elect Trump’s choice for national security adviser. A conspiracy-minded Islamophobe forced out as chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency in part for his lack of judgment, General Flynn lent credibility to the provably false charge by tweeting links to fake conspiracy stories cited by Pizzagate trolls. Mike Flynn Jr., Mr. Flynn’s son and adviser, and a member of the Trump transition team, was still spreading the Pizzagate lie after Sunday’s incident in the capital.

In the days before the election, General Flynn’s Twitter account bristled with all-caps exclamations about bizarre Clinton conspiracy theories. On Nov. 2, General Flynn tweeted: “U decide — NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes w Children, etc...MUST READ!” He included a link to a fake story on a website called “True Pundit.” Two days later, he tweeted a link to another false story, accusing John Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chief, of participating in satanic rituals. This, from the man who would guide the United States’ first response to global threats?

On Sunday night, after the gunfire at Comet, General Flynn’s son tweeted, “Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it’ll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many ‘coincidences’ tied to it.” Then, in a flurry of retweets, he spread the latest mutation of the Pizzagate hoax, that the gunman was “planted” to discredit fake news websites.

Comet is owned by James Alefantis, an artist and restaurateur who has never met Hillary Clinton. Mr. Alefantis was once in a relationship with David Brock, a Clinton ally, that ended five years ago. Pizzagate appears to have roots in the WikiLeaks release of Mr. Podesta’s emails, one of which referred to plans for a Clinton fund-raiser that involved Mr. Alefantis.

For a month, Comet’s owner, 40 employees, even musicians who have performed there have been receiving phone calls and online messages by people threatening to kill them and burn down the business. Photos of the children of Comet customers have been lifted from social media pages and used in made-up stories of child abuse and trafficking.

Comet is a favorite of families: Its pizza has gotten national plaudits, and it has crafts projects for antsy kids to work on. It has Ping-Pong tables and a small concert stage in the back. It’s located in a leafy neighborhood that’s home to government types and members of Congress, who frequent Comet, too. Until now, about the only controversy surrounding Comet were gripes about loud music, or Ping-Pong balls rolling into Connecticut Avenue during warm summer nights when the tables were set up on the sidewalk outside.

Recently the police ejected a person who was videotaping Comet patrons and workers during dinner. Last week, Mr. Alefantis announced that police and security guards would patrol the concerts. He tried to reassure patrons that the threats against him and his business were just an online phenomenon. Now, thanks in part to Mr. Trump’s advisers, fake news just got real.

Mr. Trump says he disavows hate campaigns by his supporters. Now that we’re seeing the real-world impact of phony theories spread by General Flynn, does “disavow” mean reconsidering his choice of the general as national security adviser?

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