Are "pedophilia code words" contained within a conversation about Joe Biden that took place between Kamala Harris and Barack Obama? No, that's not true: The alleged coded language is based on a fake FBI document. Lead Stories tracked down the real bulletin, which makes no mention of code words.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on Instagram on September 16, 2020. Text beside the post read "In plain sight...", while another message atop and below the video read:
LISTEN OUT FOR THE PEDOPHILIA CODE WORDS
This is what users saw on social media:
This is what users heard:
HARRIS: So tell me about Joe and your relationship with Joe and what do I need to know? Like what's the thing about the ice cream? He loves ice cream. Tell me about that.
OBAMA: Ice cream is big. Pasta with red sauce. He can go deep on that.
Next, the video flashed what looked to be an FBI document, identifying "ice cream" as code for a male prostitute, "sauce" as code for orgy and "pasta" as code for little boy. The document looked like this:
The problem is that it's not real. It's a fake document. It combines edited versions of two things: an actual FBI bulletin from 2007 and an anonymous post on a discussion board that cites a WikiLeaks page. Here are the true versions of both those items:
As can be seen, the FBI document discusses symbols and logos used by pedophiles, but makes no mention of code words. That claim comes from the anonymous post, which speculates on the existence of such coded language based on references in the emails of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.
His emails, which were published by WikiLeaks, help to form the basis of Pizzagate, a conspiracy theory that Lead Stories has reported on previously. See here for our latest coverage.
