SAN FRANCISCO (LifeSiteNews) – For the last few days, the widely-reported attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has dominated news feeds with often conflicting, evolving depictions of what occurred, demonstrating how difficult it can be in the age of the internet to separate truth from partial truths and outright disinformation.
What we do know for certain is that the violent assault on Mr. Pelosi was a terrible thing, and Mr. Pelosi and family are deserving of our prayers.
And while we also know when and where the crime was committed – at the Pelosis’ Pacific Heights home in San Francisco around 2 a.m. Friday, October 28 – we still do not know answers to three remaining questions every legitimate, unbiased journalist seeks to supply for his or her readers: Who? What? and Why?
It’s as if that famous San Francisco fog has enshrouded the facts of the case, obscuring the motive behind the attack, inviting an already politically polarized public to become even more cynical about journalism, law enforcement, and the power to control the press wielded by powerful political figures.
Tucker Carlson: Bewilderment versus transparency
Tucker Carlson did an outstanding job of summing up the public’s view of the Pelosi drama when he began his opening monologue on Monday saying, “We’ve been watching this story all weekend with growing bewilderment.”
Carlson pointed out inconsistencies in the early reporting of the story by law enforcement officials, including the fact that reports seemed to indicate a third person was present when the 911 dispatcher received the call from the Pelosi residence and a few minutes later when police first arrived on the scene.
“You can’t blame people watching all of this at home for thinking that maybe there’s something weird going on here,” Carlson said. “Parts of the official account don’t seem to make any sense.” He continued:
The solution, obviously, is to release the police body cam footage from last Friday. That’s often done immediately in cases like this, cases that attract heavy public scrutiny. Transparency restores the public’s faith in the system. It is the only thing that does. In fact, that’s the whole point of body cams, to reassure people that they can really know what happened.
Transparency is the antidote to ‘misinformation.’ On the other hand, if you want people to fall headfirst into crazed conspiracy theories, then you would keep lying and hiding things and yet for some reason, the San Francisco Police Department is refusing to release Friday’s body cam video.
“We learned that today when we filed a records request. No chance, they said. So, until we see that tape, there is a lot that we cannot know,” Carlson added.
At the time of this writing, San Francisco police had yet to release the body cam footage.
Who? What? Why?
The easy answer to “why?” is that the altercation involved Paul Pelosi and an intruder, David DePape.
Some media outlets rushed to portray DePape as a crazed rightwing activist, triggered to violence against the Pelosi household by “QAnon” and embracing “other far-right, bigoted conspiracies,” including those involving “COVID-19 vaccines and the war in Ukraine.” At least that’s what the LA Times reported in the first few hours after the attack.
“DePape followed a number of conservative creators online, including Tim Pool, Glenn Beck, DailyWire+ and The Epoch Times,” according to the LA Times piece and that he “posted videos to Facebook by MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell saying that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, according to reports.”
DePape was reported by multiple sources as running two far-right websites prone to conspiracy theory promotion. Gateway Pundit (GP) quickly conducted an investigation and found that both sites seemed to have shown no content activity until Friday after the attack, and that within 24 hours both sites had been shut down.
GP concluded its report asking, “So who created these websites?”
Later, a much different picture of DePape emerged: A man who spent his entire adulthood as a “mentally ill, drug addicted illegal alien nudist who takes hallucinogens and lives in a hippie school bus in Berkeley with a BLM banner and a pride flag out front,” according to Tucker Carlson.
Not exactly a portrait of your typical red, white, and blue conservative activist.
DePape’s former female lover, now serving a prison sentence for child abuse, told Bay area affiliate ABC 7 that he was “constantly paranoid” and “mentally ill” for a long time.
Matt Walsh expressed the incredulity of many news consumers in a series of tweets:
I don’t know what the hell happened at Nancy Pelosi’s house and I suspect none of us will ever know for sure. But I do know that trying to paint a hippie nudist from Berkeley as some kind of militant right winger is absurd and will always be absurd.
Being that this is San Francisco, it seems perfectly plausible that some drugged out nut case broke into their home. Trying to turn this San Francisco crime story into an indictment of Republicans is what’s implausible and ridiculous.
Being that this is San Francisco, it seems perfectly plausible that some drugged out nut case broke into their home. Trying to turn this San Francisco crime story into an indictment of Republicans is what’s implausible and ridiculous.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) October 31, 2022
On the day after the attack on Paul Pelosi, Elon Musk tweeted a link to an article that questioned the immediate reporting by legacy media.
Musk’s now-deleted Tweet suggested, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
The Santa Monica Observer article promoted by Musk made wild accusations about the nature of the event at the Pelosi home, accusations that were not implausible based on the scant information provided by law enforcement, and given national media’s tendency to provide cover for liberal politicians.
“The Awful Truth: Paul Pelosi Was Drunk Again, And In a Dispute With a Male Prostitute Early Friday Morning,” blared the headline.
“It doesn’t add up: Some People on Social Media Are Questioning Attack on Paul Pelosi,” the article began. “As [San Francisco’s] gay bars closed at 2 am, two gay men met in a bar and went home together. Except one of these two men was married to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”
That article launched a thousand social media memes, all of which are too sexually explicit for LifeSiteNews to share with its readers.
An untrustworthy national media
“The biggest problem with the Pelosi story is those involved in the investigation helping you spin this as a MAGA assassination attempt is that not a single one can be trusted,” wrote conservative journalist Julie Kelly.
“SF DA Brooke Jenkins, a Democrat, wants all relevant evidence under seal so there’s no way to corroborate the claims made in her pretrial detention motion about his motives and political commentary,” Kelly continued. “Jenkins said Monday she didn’t know who opened the door. On Tuesday, she said it was Mr. Pelosi.”
corroborate the claims made in her pretrial detention motion about his motives and political commentary.
Jenkins said Monday she didn’t know who opened the door. On Tuesday, she said it was Mr. Pelosihttps://t.co/uiRZBPvjZl
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) November 2, 2022
“Journalism is dead. Twenty years ago, every major publication would have had boots on the ground chasing the facts in the Paul Pelosi story — questioning the narrative, interviewing everyone even tangentially connected, demanding transparency and the release of calls and footage,” tweeted Jeremy Boreing, co-founder and co-CEO of the Daily Wire. He continued:
Questioning the powerful was the media’s raison d’être. Sure, they were biased to the left, but they had some self-respect and took their role in society seriously more often than not. And they didn’t believe that role was to be agents of social change.”
Now the press — aided by Big Tech — has embraced their new role as agents of social change. Now they both actively and through indifference run cover for the left.
They aren’t interested at all in what happened to Paul Pelosi. Any new detail could challenge the left’s narrative, so there will be no new details.
Maybe it all happened about like they say, but they’re certainly afraid it didn’t. So best not to look into it. Move along.
“The consequence of this betrayal is clear. The people will become more and more paranoid and conspiratorial, and the media will run more and more stories about how the people are the real threat to democracy,” Boreing concluded.
The official narrative
At the moment, the most reliable source we have to gain an understanding of what actually happened at the Pelosi home in the early morning hours of Friday, October 28 is the charging document filed against DePape in California Superior Court on Tuesday.
The “statement of facts” supplied in the document describes in detail what transpired, filling in some of the missing puzzle pieces left out in early reporting, inviting confusion and cynicism.
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Here is the most salient portion of District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’ argument to the court to detain DePape until he is brought to trial:
In the middle of the night, Defendant smashed through a window in a back door of the Pelosi home in search of the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. But Speaker Pelosi was not home, only her 82-year-old husband, Paul, who slept upstairs in his pajama top and boxer shorts.
Standing over Mr. Pelosi’s bedside just after 2:00 a.m., Defendant startled Mr. Pelosi awake by asking “Are you Paul Pelosi?” Defendant carried a large hammer in his right hand and several white, plastic zip ties in his left hand. Defendant then repeated, “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?” Still groggy from being suddenly awoken, Mr. Pelosi responded, “She’s not here.” Defendant then demanded, “Well, when is she going to be back?” “She’s in Washington, she’s not going to be back for a couple of days.” Defendant responded, “Okay, well, I’m going to tie you up.”
Mr. Pelosi stood up and tried to leave by the elevator near the bedroom, but Defendant held the door, preventing Mr. Pelosi from escaping. Mr. Pelosi then returned to the bedroom, sat on the bed, and asked Defendant why he wanted to see or talk to Nancy. “Well, she’s number two in line for the presidency, right?” When Mr. Pelosi agreed, Defendant responded that they are all corrupt and “we’ve got to take them all out.” When Mr. Pelosi asked if he could call anyone for Defendant, Defendant ominously responded that it was the end of the road for Mr. Pelosi.
Still trying to escape from Defendant, Mr. Pelosi asked to use the bathroom; Defendant allowed him to do so. Mr. Pelosi stood up and walked to the bathroom where his phone was charging. Standing in the bathroom, Mr. Pelosi grabbed his phone, turned it on, called 911, and put the phone on speaker. Watching Mr. Pelosi, Defendant stood about three feet away, still holding the large hammer and the zip ties. During the 911 call itself, Mr. Pelosi said that there was a gentleman there waiting for his wife — Nancy Pelosi to come back. But Mr. Pelosi said they would have to wait because his wife would not be coming back for about a day. Mr. Pelosi could see Defendant gesturing and heard Defendant tell him to get off the phone. To diffuse the situation, Mr. Pelosi told the dispatcher that he did not need police, fire, or medical assistance. Trying to be calm and discreet while also trying to help dispatch to understand the situation, Mr. Pelosi then asked for the Capitol Police because they are usually at the house protecting his wife. The dispatcher clarified that Mr. Pelosi was calling San Francisco police; Mr. Pelosi said that he understood and then asked someone, “I don’t know, what do you think?” Another man responded, “Everything’s good.” Mr. Pelosi then stated, “Uh, he thinks everything’s good. Uh, I’ve got a problem, but he thinks everything’s good.”
When the dispatcher told Mr. Pelosi to call back if he changed his mind, Mr. Pelosi quickly responded, “No, no, no, this gentleman just uh came into the house uh and he wants to wait for my wife to come home[.]” The dispatcher then asked Mr. Pelosi if he knew the person and Mr. Pelosi said that he did not. Mr. Pelosi then said that the man was telling him not to do anything. The dispatcher then asked Mr. Pelosi for his name and address and Mr. Pelosi gave the dispatcher both. Mr. Pelosi then said that the man told him to put the phone down and just do what he says. The dispatcher then asked for the man’s name and the man responded, “My name is David.” When the dispatcher asked who David is, Mr. Pelosi said, “I don’t know,” but David said, “I’m a friend of theirs.” Mr. Pelosi then confirmed with the Dispatcher that he did not know the man. “He’s telling me I am being very lazy, so I’ve gotta to stop talking to you, okay?” When the dispatcher offered to stay on the line with Mr. Pelosi to make sure everything is okay, Mr. Pelosi said, “No, he wants me to get the hell off the phone.” The call ended. Based on her training and what she heard, dispatcher Heather Grives issued an “A” priority well-being check.
After the call, Defendant said that he was tired and needed to sleep; he also told Mr. Pelosi that he had a backpack downstairs with a whole bunch of stuff inside. They proceeded downstairs with Defendant walking behind Mr. Pelosi still holding the large hammer and the zip ties. Turning on the lights, Mr. Pelosi could see where Defendant entered the house; Defendant commented that he had to bash the window several times to break through and enter. Defendant also said that the police would be there any minute; Mr. Pelosi tried to calm Defendant by saying that they would not. But Defendant responded, “I can take you out.” Defendant came around to Mr. Pelosi’s right with the large hammer up right in his hand. Afraid that Defendant would strike him with that hammer, Mr. Pelosi reached out and put his hand on the handle of the hammer.
Shortly after the initial call, Officers Kolby Wilmes and Kyle Cagney responded to the residence. When Off. Wilmes rang the doorbell, Defendant directed Mr. Pelosi not to open the door. But Mr. Pelosi opened the door with his left hand. As the door opened, the two men stood in the dimly lit foyer facing the officers. Mr. Pelosi nervously but calmly greeted them. When the officer asked what was going on, Defendant smiled and said, “everything’s good” and pulled his hands toward his body. When an officer turned on his flashlight, Defendant could be seen holding the bottom handle of the hammer with one hand and Mr. Pelosi’s right arm with the other. Mr. Pelosi had his hand on the top of the handle near the hammer itself. One officer ordered, “Drop the hammer!” At the same time, Defendant raised the hammer and said, “um, nope.” Defendant tried to pull the hammer away from Mr. Pelosi, which twisted Mr. Pelosi’s arm back. Simultaneously, Mr. Pelosi pleaded, “hey, hey, hey!” The officer asked again, “what is going on here?” But Mr. Pelosi could not maintain his grip on the hammer. A second later, Defendant wrenched the hammer away from Mr. Pelosi, immediately stepped back, and lunged at Mr. Pelosi, striking Mr. Pelosi in the head at full force with the hammer, which knocked Mr. Pelosi unconscious. The officers rushed into the house, tackled Defendant, and disarmed him. Mr. Pelosi remained unresponsive for about three minutes, waking up in a pool of his own blood.
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