A small fire broke out on the property of Bill and Hillary Clinton in Chappaqua, New York on Wednesday. It lasted for just over half an hour, according to the local Journal News, and was easily extinguished. Neither Clinton was in the vicinity of the fire when it happened, and it left no one injured.
Under normal circumstances, this would be a straightforward, relatively unremarkable news story. But given that the far-right hates Hillary Clinton and is desperate for a distraction from Donald Trump's ongoing scandals, it's fertile breeding ground for conspiracy theories among online conservatives.
Clinton Foundation records spontaneously combusted.
— Mike Cernovich 🇺🇸 (@Cernovich) January 3, 2018
"Oddly enough, this news comes just hours after the Clintons’ daughter Chelsea tweeted a Happy New Year’s message to the Church of Satan in a bizarre interaction," posted InfoWars, the conspiracy theory website run by far right-winger Alex Jones.
Meanwhile, The Gateway Pundit posted, "BREAKING: Fire Reported at Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Chappaqua Home — Burning the Evidence?"
Yournewswire continued the trend, claiming in its coverage that "a room full of servers and hard drives was destroyed in the Clinton house fire in Chappaqua, New York, on Wednesday, according to a Chappaqua Fire Department source, raising fears that incriminating evidence against the Clintons has been destroyed just days after a White House insider warned that Trump was preparing to prosecute their crimes."
In fact, the building which caught fire was a facility for the U.S. Secret Service, according to CNN. It was not connected to the Clintons' home and there is no evidence that it was used by the Clintons to store personal information.
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