The gunman who fired an assault rifle inside the Washington DC restaurant at the heart of false allegations of a VIP child-sex ring has said he now regrets his actions.

“I just wanted to do some good and went about it the wrong way,” Edgar Welch, 28, told a reporter from the New York Times, adding: “I regret how I handled the situation.”

Welch was arrested on Sunday at the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, which became the subject of lurid conspiracy theories after it was mentioned in the personal emails of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, published by WikiLeaks.

The controversy, which has been labelled Pizzagate, centres on references in the emails to Comet Ping Pong and to various types of food and other objects that online researchers have claimed are codewords for child sexual abuse.

Further investigations have thrown up a number of circumstantial links that self-appointed online detectives say indicate the existence of a network of powerful paedophiles. Accusations have been levelled against a number of senior Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill, the former president.

Those involved in the controversy deny all allegations of wrongdoing, and the speculation – which has taken place to a large extent on Twitter, YouTube and online forums such as Reddit – has widely been dismissed as another example of the so-called “fake news” phenomenon.

Meanwhile, a New York restaurant has become the latest target of conspiracy theorists. Roberta’s, a Brooklyn restaurant known for its wood-fired pizza, received telephone calls threatening its employees, police confirmed on Wednesday. There have been no arrests.

It was after reading online reports of the Pizzagate controversy that Welch, a father of two from Salisbury, North Carolina, woke up on Sunday, told his family he had some things to do, and got in his car for the 350-mile drive to Washington DC, the New York Times reported.

According to the paper’s interview Welch said he had wanted to give Comet Ping Pong a “closer look” to “shed some light” on the rumours before returning home.



Welch found no children held captive at the restaurant when he stormed in with his AR-15 rifle. However, although he admitted that “the intel on this wasn’t 100%”, Welch refused to disavow the claims he had read online.

He also said he did not like the term “fake news”, which he saw as a pejorative term that attempted to denigrate reports carried by alternative media.



On Thursday, a judge delayed a preliminary hearing for Welch at the request of his public defender, who said she needed more time to investigate the case. One of Welch’s friends has told the Washington Post she did not think he intended to shoot anyone.

“He most likely really believes the conspiracy theory,” said Kathy Sue Holtorf, who lives in California and works as a film producer. “He’s a good guy with the best of intentions. He probably saw himself as more on a hero mission to save children than anything else.”

