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Today’s newsletter breaks major news about the new White House press secretary, based on a comprehensive analysis of nearly 2,700 of her posts on Truth Social — something that was not done by any other outlet.
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Katie Zacharia, who was appointed White House press secretary by President Trump on Friday, repeatedly promoted the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy on social media, accusing elites from the Democratic Party and Hollywood of sexually trafficking children and eating people.
Trump plucked Zacharia from relative obscurity. According to Zacharia’s LinkedIn profile, since graduating from Pepperdine Law School in 2011, she has held a variety of legal and media positions, including as a pundit on Newsmax and Fox News. Prior to her appointment, Zacharia’s most recent position was a senior communications advisor for Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform.
Zacharia did not just work for Truth Social; she was also a prolific poster. Since March 2022, Zacharia has posted 2,696 “Truths,” including 1,534 original posts and 1,162 “ReTruths” of posts from other users. While Zacharia’s deleted tweets have attracted some media coverage, her more unguarded use of Truth Social has been overlooked.
Zacharia repeatedly used Truth Social to promote Pizzagate and other fringe conspiracy theories. Pizzagate, which originated in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign, is the unfounded conspiracy that prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and her 2016 presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta, were involved in a child sex trafficking ring.
Pizzagate’s name comes from the baseless claim that Podesta and others held child sex slaves in the basement of Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., where they also performed satanic rituals. (The establishment does not have a basement.) Online commentators claimed they had uncovered Pizzagate by decoding hacked messages from Podesta’s email account. In December 2016, a man traveled from North Carolina to Comet Ping Pong and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle. Pizzagate formed the basis for the QAnon conspiracy, a more elaborate theory that contends Satan-worshiping Democrats and Hollywood elites ritually murder and cannibalize children.
“[W]hy doesn’t Fox News do a ‘feature’ on what a pedophile Podesta is,” Zacharia posted on her verified Truth Social account on September 7, 2022, tagging Trump and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
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This followed a similar post from Zacharia on September 4, 2022: “Pedo Podesta. #pedoPodesta.” (These posts were apparently in response to the news that Podesta was joining the Biden White House as an advisor on climate change.) On the same day, Zacharia posted, “The radical left Hollywood elitists are sick pedo cannibals. Change my mind.”
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The post was commenting on a story in Variety about the movie “Bones and All,” in which Timothée Chalamet plays a cannibal.
Zacharia continued her campaign for Pizzagate coverage in an October 17, 2022 post, tagging Hannity again and writing, “[W]here’s the feature on John Podesta?”
Several months earlier, on April 8, 2022, Zacharia posted a “ReTruth” from Ali Alexander, a far-right activist and conspiracy theorist: “Democrats want to mask and rape your children. That’s their satanic platfo