CNN’s Jake Tapper tore into former Lt. General Mike Flynn’s son for spreading the Pizzagate hoax on Twitter.
Flynn Sr. had tweeted in November a link to some sort of rumored “sex crimes with children” revealed in “new Hillary emails. Some had thought that he had tweeted about Pizzagate, but he hadn’t. That didn’t stop Flynn the younger from defending his father by tweeting: “Until #Pizzagate proven to be false, it’ll remain a story. The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and the many ‘coincidences’ tied to it.”
This irked Tapper, who sent Flynn, Jr. a series of direct messages on Twitter excoriating him for promoting the hoax:, via Mediaite:
I have the highest regard for your father and have only treated him in that manner,” Tapper wrote. “And I have respect for you as well, but I am mystified as to why you’re pushing this theory… especially after the incident today that could’ve ended with bloodshed.”
“Michael, the police called [Pizzagate] a fictitious conspiracy theory tonight. Does someone have to die before you take that shit seriously? Spreading this nonsense is dangerous,” he continued. “It is not the site of the satanic pedophilia cult. It is a fucking pizzeria.”
“Your tweet is wildly irresponsible. Listen to me. You are going to get someone killed,” Tapper warned. “Maybe an innocent child. For what????”
Flynn, Jr. didn’t take Tapper’s messages seriously, as he took a screenshot of it and tweeted out: “Want evidence??? I must’ve really hit a nerve.”
Vice-president elect Mike Pence has denied that Flynn, Jr. was ever involved in the transition team, but he did reportedly have an email address affiliated with the transition team; Jason Miller, Trump’s communications director, told reporters in a conference call that Flynn, Jr. was helping his father with some of the transition efforts, per Talking Points Memo.
As the Daily Wire has explained here, Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory that the Clinton team was involved in a child sex-ring through the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant. There is no evidence for this, but the conspiracy theory had grown to the point where a gunman claiming he was investigating the matter entered the restaurant and fired a rifle. The gunman surrendered when he didn’t find any evidence in the restaurant.