New White House press secretary is a Pizzagate conspiracy theorist

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.

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.”

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 platform.”

On November 18, 2022, Zacharia honored conspiracy theorist Robert David Steele, who had died of COVID. Steele, a regular guest on Alex Jones’ show, claimed that “there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride.” The Mars colony, Steele asserted, was connected to an elaborate pedophilia ring.

“He was exposing the pedo rings of the elite cabal,” Zacharia posted. “May he Rest In Peace and the work of his hands not have been in vain.”

Zacharia also posted openly about QAnon, the related conspiracy that contends Trump is secretly fighting a Satanic, cannibalistic, child-abusing cabal made up of elites in the Democratic Party, Hollywood, and “the deep state.” The details of all of this, according to QAnon adherents, are revealed through online postings through an anonymous account known as Q and coded signals from Trump himself.

On November 16, 2022, a Truth Social user, “mistercho,” posted, “Did you notice Trump drinking bottled water last night during his announcement. He drank at least 2-3 times. I have not seen him do that at his speeches or rallies. It reminds me of Q posts 765, 767, and 847. Or was it a signal for something else; by land or by sea.” Zacharia responded “I was wondering the same thing…”

Zacharia also posted about her beliefs on “devolution,” the QAnon theory that, after leaving office in 2021, Trump retained control over the military. In response to an April 3, 2022 post asking for evidence of devolution from “patelpatriot,” Zacharia suggested the military signaled that Biden wasn’t really in charge by not giving him a real 21-gun salute on Inauguration Day. “On Biden’s inaugural day, he received a 3 cannon, ~ 9 shot every 8-9 second gun salute versus a true presidential 21 gun salute,” Zacharia wrote.

Four days later, Zacharia posted a “ReTruth” of the same account suggesting that Trump would have been “derelict in his duties” had he not retained control of the military after leaving office.

In response to a request for comment, the White House Press Office referred Popular Information “to the President’s TRUTH on Katie.” In his post, Trump called Zacharia “outstanding” and praised her as “a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning.”