image source,EPA
San Francisco police and the FBI are investigating the Pelosi home attack at the same time, and have charged the suspects separately.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Nancy Pelosi; Pelosi, Polosi) at her San Francisco (San Francisco) residence as the U.S. midterm elections approachAttacked in the early morning of October 28Pelosi was in the capital Washington at the time, and her 82-year-old husband Paul Pelosi (Paul Pelosi) was injured by the suspect armed with a hammer.
He also faces separate indictments from the FBI for “assaulting an immediate family member of a federal official” and “attempting to kidnap a federal official.”
A few hours after the incident, a series of baseless claims that contradicted the official police announcement of the case emerged in fringe right-wing circles, which were quickly retweeted by Elon Musk, the new helm of Twitter, and several conservative internet celebrities. diffusion. BBC Monitoring’s Shayan Sardarizadeh examines the background and authenticity of some of the rumors.
‘Gay extramarital affairs’ claimed
A popular false claim that Mr. Pelosi was in a homosexual relationship with his attacker, DePapp, was in a drunken fight. A series of unfounded and unofficial assumptions are used to support this narrative.
The theory hit the U.S. trending list on Sunday (Oct. 30) after Musk retweeted an article on a website talking about similar claims to his 112 million Twitter account followers. He deleted the tweet hours later without giving any explanation.
Musk responded to a tweet from former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, saying: “This story has a little chance to make a lot of sense.”
image source,TWITTER
One of the claims circulating on the Internet is that DePapp and Mr. Pelosi were both wearing only their underwear when the police arrived.
image source,TWITTER
According to the FBI complaint, Paul Pelosi did not know DePape. Mr. Pelosi called 911 from the bathroom, using a code to call the police. A senior operator deciphered the content and knew what was going on in the other party’s home.
Another rumor that supports the theory that the two know each other is that the glass door of the mansion burst from the inside out, indicating that Mr. Pelosi or a third party let DePapp in.
The FBI complaint quoted DePapp as saying that he “breaks into the mansion through a glass door, which is very troublesome and requires a hammer”; there is no evidence in the police records that there is a third party in the mansion, or a third party involved. attack.
image source,Reuters
There are claims that the glass door of Pelosi’s mansion was broken from the inside out, but there is no evidence for the allegations.
‘Suicide Mission’ for America’s No. 3 Man
image source,Reuters
Speaker Pelosi (left) has the power to act as president of the United States.
As President of the U.S. Senate, Mrs. Pelosi is the second-in-line president of the United States. She has been married to her husband of the same age since 1963. Mr. Pelosi works in venture capital (venture capital).
Court documents show that the defendant told the police that he would carry out a “suicide mission” that day, hijacking Nancy Pelosi and breaking “her kneecap” as long as she “lies” to herself.
The U.S. Department of Justice revealed that DePapp yelled, “Where’s Nancy?” after breaking into Pelosi’s mansion.
The defendants face 13 years in prison if convicted in state courts and up to 50 years in prison if convicted on federal charges.
Hours after the attack, the U.S. government alerted law enforcement across the country, warning of an “increased threat” by local violent extremists against candidates and election workers who could be motivated by “ideological grievances.”
Alleging someone fabricated DePap’s blog post
After police released the suspect’s name after the attack, two personal blogs and a Facebook account with his name were discovered. These accounts were subsequently deleted.
Articles read by the BBC showed he was radicalised by far-right conspiracy theories.
His posts cover a wide range of topics, including unprovoked theories about the theft of the 2020 election, riots on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, harmful COVID-19 vaccines, and support for the QAnon conspiracy theory , and racist and anti-Semitic posts.
Some netizens posted that the blogs were fake and were created on the day of the attack to support his claim that he believed in far-right conspiracy theories.
image source,TWITTER
Others claimed that the attack was not politically motivated and had nothing to do with DePapp’s thinking.
However, the police complaint clarifies that this was not a random attack. The attack was likely “politically motivated,” according to San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins.
DePape described Nancy Pelosi as “the one who leads the Democratic Party with a lot of lies” and said he wanted to “smash her kneecap” during police questioning.
Unsubstantiated allegations against Marjorie Taylor Green
The groundless accusations that have emerged since the attack are not just against the right.
Some liberal influencers took aim at a tweet from Congressman Marjorie Taylor Green the day before the crime, which read: “Just wait until tomorrow.”