The pizzeria's owner is James Alefantis, a former boyfriend of Clinton crony and Democratic Party operative David Brock of Media Matters. Though a mere pizza restaurateur, GQ magazine in 2012 had Alefantis as 49th among the 50 most powerful people in Washington, D.C. — along with such political luminaries as Hillary Clinton (no. 5), Gen. David Petraeus (no. 7), Rep. Paul Ryan (no. 21), Democrat lobbyist Tony Podesta (no. 23), Jake Sullivan, Director of Policy Planning and member of the 7th Floor Group in the State Department (no. 33), and Sen. Marco Rubio (no. 43).

For a "mere" pizzeria owner, James Alefantis visited the Obama White House four times. One visit was an overnighter in which Alefantis' group of four included a male porn star.

Comet Ping Pong is also the rotten heart of Pizzagate — the term given to speculations and assertions that there is a pedophile network of Democratic Party élites in D.C., who communicate with each other via email with pedophile code words such as "pizza" and other food items ("hotdogs"; "pasta"; "tempting" "cheeses"; "yummy" "sauces"). Those code words are found in a collection of emails sent by and to John Podesta, a longtime Democratic Party operative who was White House chief of staff in Bill Clinton's administration, White House counselor in the Obama administration and, most recently, chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.