Pizzagate
all over again
The strangest part of this whole era is how hard Republicans worked to convince the country that Democrats were running secret child-trafficking rings in pizza shops with no basements. They pushed the Pizzagate fantasy so aggressively that a gunman showed up at Comet Ping Pong, rifle in hand, ready to rescue imaginary children from an imaginary dungeon. He found nothing but a confused staff and a building that never had a basement to begin with.
And after all the smoke and rage and Fox News breathlessness, look where the bodies keep turning up. Not on the left. Not in some liberal cabal of coastal elites. The men charged, arrested, indicted, and slipping into plea deals are wearing red ties. Sheriffs. Legislators. Operatives. Pastors. MAGA die-hards posting "save the children" in the morning and preying on them at night. It's not irony. It's pattern.
The louder they screamed that Democrats were the threat, the more obvious it became what they were really doing: building a smokescreen. A diversion. Accuse the other side of your own sins and watch the public chase phantoms while you scatter the evidence behind the curtain.
But the curtain keeps slipping.
Look at the Epstein files. Look at who flew, who called, who visited, who kept coming back. The names aren't a surprise, not to anyone paying attention. The same men who sermonize about "family values" while voting to cut food aid to actual families. The same men who built entire careers on moral purity while behaving like the filthiest operators in the room. They told their base that Democrats were drinking children's blood while they were boarding private jets with a known child rapist.
And here's the uglier truth: the base doesn't care. Not really. They care about the story, the performance, the identity. They care about feeling righteous. If the facts point the wrong direction, they just spin the compass until north becomes wherever Trump is standing.
But outside that bubble, the picture isn't so forgiving. When you strip the hype away, the record shows who kept ending up in handcuffs. Who got caught with the photos. Who got caught in the sting operations. Who kept appearing on Epstein's logs and in his orbit long after the rest of the world understood what he was.
Republicans built a moral panic out of nothing. And all the while, the real predators were walking among them, protected by the same outrage machine that claimed it was saving children.
It's not the hypocrisy that shocks anymore. It's the certainty. The way they project their rot onto everyone else and expect the country to applaud. The way they light their own house on fire, point at the neighbor's smoking grill, and insist it's the same thing.
The records don't lie. The victims don't lie. They can shout slogans until their throats give out. The evidence isn't going anywhere.
Note: Sexual abuse occurs across all parties and institutions. The point here is not that Republicans have a monopoly on predators—they don't. The point is that the party that built a moral panic around "Pizzagate"—accusing Democrats of running child trafficking rings with zero evidence—has produced a longer and more recent trail of its own members convicted and credibly accused of exactly those crimes. The projection is the pattern.
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Appendix: The Record
Politicians convicted or credibly accused of sex crimes involving minors. This list is not exhaustive.
Republicans — Convicted
Dennis Hastert (Republican) — Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1999–2007). Pleaded guilty in 2016 to financial crimes related to hush money payments covering up his sexual abuse of teenage boys he coached in the 1960s and '70s. The judge called him a "serial child molester." Sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. The highest-ranking U.S. politician ever to serve a prison sentence.
Tim Nolan (Republican) — Former Kentucky district judge and Campbell County chairman of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Pleaded guilty in 2018 to 21 felony counts including human trafficking of minors, rape, and sodomy involving 19 victims—seven of them children. Sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Ralph Shortey (Republican) — Oklahoma State Senator and Oklahoma state campaign chair for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Pleaded guilty in 2017 to child sex trafficking after police found him in a motel room with a 17-year-old boy. Sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
Mark Foley (Republican) — U.S. Representative from Florida (1995–2006). Resigned in 2006 after revelations he sent sexually explicit messages to teenage male congressional pages. Investigations closed without charges due to statute of limitations and lack of cooperation from Congress and Foley.
Bo Michael Dresner (Republican) — Former precinct chair and sergeant-at-arms for the Hays County (Texas) Republican Party. Pleaded guilty in 2024 to 65 counts including continuous sexual abuse of multiple children and possession of child sexual abuse material with intent to promote. Sentenced to 410 years in prison.
Strom Thurmond (Republican) — U.S. Senator from South Carolina (1954–2003). Fathered a child with a 15- or 16-year-old Black household employee in 1925, acknowledged by his family after his death in 2003.
Republicans — Credibly Accused or Investigated
Matt Gaetz (Republican) — U.S. Representative from Florida. Subject of a DOJ sex trafficking investigation (2021–2023) involving allegations he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. No federal charges filed. The House Ethics Committee released a report in December 2024 finding "substantial evidence" he had sex with a then-17-year-old at least twice, paid women over $90,000 for sex, and used illegal drugs. Gaetz resigned from Congress in November 2024 after being nominated for Attorney General; he withdrew his nomination amid the allegations.
Roy Moore (Republican) — Former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and 2017 U.S. Senate candidate. Nine women accused him of inappropriate sexual conduct when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. Three alleged sexual assault, including one who was 14 at the time. Moore denied the allegations but acknowledged he may have dated teenagers. Lost the Senate race to Democrat Doug Jones in deep-red Alabama.
Donald Trump (Republican) — 45th and 47th President of the United States. Appeared in Jeffrey Epstein's contact book and flight logs. In July 2025, reports confirmed that Attorney General Pam Bondi had briefed Trump in May 2025 that his name appeared multiple times in the Epstein files. Trump has denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
Democrats — Convicted
Anthony Weiner (Democrat) — Former U.S. Representative from New York. Pleaded guilty in 2017 to sexting a 15-year-old girl. Sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. His case triggered the reopening of the FBI's Clinton email investigation days before the 2016 election.
Mel Reynolds (Democrat) — U.S. Representative from Illinois. Convicted in 1995 of statutory rape and solicitation of child pornography involving a 16-year-old campaign volunteer. Sentenced to 5 years in prison. Resigned from Congress.
Democrats — Censured
Gerry Studds (Democrat) — U.S. Representative from Massachusetts. Censured by the House in 1983 for a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male congressional page. Unlike Republican Dan Crane, who was also censured in the same scandal and lost re-election, Studds was re-elected six more times.
The Epstein Connection
Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted child sex trafficker who maintained relationships with powerful figures across politics, business, and entertainment—Democrats and Republicans alike. His associate Joel Greenberg—a Florida Republican tax collector—pleaded guilty to sex trafficking a minor and admitted to introducing her to other "adult men" who also had sex with her while underage. Greenberg received an 11-year sentence in 2022.
The Count
Republicans
Convicted or resigned in scandal: 6
Credibly accused or investigated: 3
Total: 9
Democrats
Convicted: 2
Censured: 1
Total: 3
Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, House Ethics Committee, The Washington Post, NPR, CNN, ABC News, Wikipedia, court records.
