WASHINGTON — Within hours of the brutal assault final month on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the House, activists and media retailers on the appropriate started circulating groundless claims — almost all of them sinister, and lots of homophobic — casting doubt on what had occurred.
Some Republican officers rapidly joined in, speeding to counsel that the bludgeoning of an octogenarian by a suspect obsessive about right-wing conspiracy theories was one thing else altogether, dismissing it as an inside job, a lover’s quarrel or worse.
The misinformation got here from all ranges of Republican politics. A U.S. senator circulated the view that “none of us will ever know” what actually occurred on the Pelosis’ San Francisco house. A senior Republican congressman referred to the attacker as a “nudist hippie male prostitute,” baselessly asserting that the suspect had a private relationship with Mr. Pelosi. Former President Donald J. Trump questioned whether or not the assault might need been staged.
The world’s richest man helped amplify the tales. But none of it was true.
Here are 21 of the elected officers, candidates and different distinguished figures who unfold misinformation or forged doubt on the assault.
In tweets, podcasts and TV appearances, these figures questioned whether or not the general public was being informed the complete story of what occurred and in some instances unfold theories that have been unfounded.
Elected officers and candidates
Senator Ted Cruz
Republican of Texas
Amplified doubts that every one details have been being disclosed.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene
Republican of Georgia
Suggested Mr. Pelosi knew his attacker.
Representative Clay Higgins
Republican of Louisiana
Suggested the assault concerned male prostitution.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson
Republican of North Carolina
Raised doubts in regards to the particulars of the assault.
Mary Williams Benefield
Republican statehouse candidate, Georgia
Suggested the assault might need been staged.
Royce White
Republican statehouse candidate, Minnesota
Claimed the assault concerned an extramarital homosexual affair.
State Senator Wendy Rogers
Republican of Arizona
Suggested the assault might need been staged.
State Representative Anthony Sabatini
Republican of Florida
Suggested that the Pelosis are hiding important data.
Representative Claudia Tenney
Republican of New York
Amplified a conspiracy idea about an extramarital homosexual affair.
Prominent figures
Glenn Beck
Conservative commentator
Raised doubts in regards to the particulars of the assault.
Tucker Carlson
Fox News host
Raised doubts in regards to the particulars of the assault.
Dinesh D’Souza
Conservative commentator
Claimed the assault concerned an extramarital homosexual affair.
Ryan Fournier
Founder, Students for Trump
Claimed particulars in regards to the attacker have been fabricated.
Sebastian Gorka
Former Trump adviser and podcast host
Raised doubts in regards to the particulars of the assault.
Pete Hegseth
Fox News host
Raised doubts that every one details have been being disclosed.
Megyn Kelly
Talk present host
Raised doubts that every one details have been being disclosed.
Elon Musk
Chief government of Twitter and Tesla
Amplified a conspiracy idea about male prostitution.
Devin Nunes
Former consultant of California
Repeated a false report that the attacker was in his underwear.
Michael Savage
Talk present host
Raised doubts that every one details have been being disclosed.
Roger Stone
Trump affiliate
Suggested the assault was staged.
Donald J. Trump
Former president
Suggested the assault was staged.
The flood of falsehoods confirmed how ingrained misinformation has turn into contained in the G.O.P., the place the reflexive response of the rank and file — and even a number of distinguished figures — to something which may forged a damaging mild on the appropriate is to deflect with extra fictional claims, making a vicious cycle that muddies details, shifts blame and minimizes violence.
It occurred after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, which was impressed by Mr. Trump’s lie of a stolen election, and in flip gave rise to extra falsehoods, as Republicans and their right-wing allies tried to play down, deny or invent a special story for what occurred, together with groundlessly blaming the F.B.I. and antifa. Mr. Pelosi’s attacker is claimed to have believed a few of these tales.
“This is the dynamic as it plays out,” stated Brian Hughes, a professor at American University who research radicalism and extremism. “The conspiracy theory prompts an act of violence; that act of violence needs to be disavowed, and it can only be disavowed by more conspiracy theories, which prompts more violence.”
The Justice Department moved swiftly to carry legal expenses in opposition to the suspect within the assault, David DePape, 42, who prosecutors stated broke into the Pelosi house desiring to kidnap Ms. Pelosi and shatter her kneecaps, and assaulted her husband with a hammer, leaving him with a cracked cranium. The San Francisco district lawyer stated it was crucial for prosecutors to current the details to the general public, given the misinformation circulating extensively in regards to the case.
But by then, it was far too late. In a sample that has turn into commonplace, a parade of Republicans — helped alongside by right-wing media personalities together with the Fox New host Tucker Carlson, and distinguished individuals together with the newly put in Twitter proprietor Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man — had already abetted the viral unfold of lies in regards to the assault, distorting the account of what occurred earlier than details may get in the way in which. Finding life on far-right web sites and the so-called darkish internet, conspiracy theories and falsehoods leaped from the fringes to the mainstream.
Fringe Websites and Mainstream Figures
Thousands of posts containing conspiracy theories in regards to the assault have been shared on message boards, social media and in feedback sections of well-liked far-right websites, in keeping with information from Pyrra, an organization that tracks fringe social media. As the chatter picked up, a number of elected officers and mainstream right-wing influencers additionally shared their doubts in regards to the assault.
Comments from fringe web sites mentioning …
“Prostitute” or related phrases
Other sex-related conspiracy theories
Doubts in regards to the official account
12:23 p.m. A Fox affiliate in San Francisco
experiences that the attacker was present in his
underwear. The error was later corrected.
A conspiracy idea circulates extensively
that the assault was the outcome
of a sexual affair.
8:15 a.m. Elon Musk, the brand new proprietor of
Twitter, tweets a hyperlink to a conspiracy web site
that baselessly claims that Mr. Pelosi was
attacked by a male prostitute.
Comments mentioning “prostitute” and
related phrases flood websites, reigniting
curiosity within the false idea.
5:06 p.m. On “The Big Sunday Show,”
a Fox News program, hosts increase doubts
in regards to the official account.
10:04 a.m. Representative Marjorie Taylor
Greene, Republican of Georgia, repeats the
conspiracy idea circulated by Mr. Musk
and calls the media the “supply
of misinformation.”
7:06 p.m. Jesse Waters, the Fox News host,
raises doubts in regards to the official account of the
assault, saying that tumbler seems to be damaged
from inside the home.
8:43 p.m. Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host,
repeats the conspiracy idea shared by
Mr. Musk, joking {that a} distinguished liberal
influencer would declare that “Paul Pelosi
could not be homosexual, not that it’s a unhealthy factor.”
Comments from fringe web sites mentioning …
“Prostitute” or related phrases
Other sex-related conspiracy theories
Doubts in regards to the official account
12:23 p.m.
A Fox affiliate in San
Francisco experiences that
the attacker was present in
his underwear. The error
was corrected a
few hours later.
saturday, oct. 29
at 9 p.m.
A conspiracy idea
circulates extensively that
the assault was the outcome
of a sexual affair.
8:15 AM
Elon Musk, the brand new
proprietor of Twitter, tweets
a hyperlink to a conspiracy
web site that baselessly
claims that Mr. Pelosi
was attacked by
a male prostitute.
5:06 p.m.
On “The Big Sunday
Show,” a Fox News
program, hosts
increase doubts about
the official account.
10:04 a.m.
Representative Marjorie
Taylor Greene, a Republican
of Georgia, repeats the
conspiracy idea
circulated by Mr. Musk
and calls the media
the “supply of
misinformation.”
7:06 p.m.
Jesse Waters,the
Fox News host, raises
doubts in regards to the official
account of the assault,
saying that tumbler seems
to be damaged from
inside the home.
tuesday, nov. 1 AT 6 A.M.
8:43 p.m.
Tucker Carlson, the Fox
News host, repeats the
conspiracy idea shared
by Mr. Musk, joking that
a distinguished liberal
influencer would declare
that “Paul Pelosi couldn’t
be homosexual, not that it’s
a foul factor.”
Note: Roughly 9,500 feedback that talked about “Paul Pelosi” have been analyzed from 16 web sites and a service that gives commenting expertise for on-line platforms. Key phrases, equivalent to ”prostitute,” have been grouped into the classes proven.
While many Republican leaders denounced the violence and a few, together with former Vice President Mike Pence, expressed sympathy for the Pelosis, none of them publicly condemned the falsehoods their colleagues have been elevating or did something to push again on the false narrative. That left others to fill the void.
“Just produce the police body cam, — why is that so hard?” Mr. Carlson demanded on his present on Wednesday evening. Addressing these criticizing the conspiracy theorizing, he added: “We’re not the crazy people; you’re the liars. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, period.”
The disinformation surrounding the assault on Mr. Pelosi offered lots of the commonplace components of alt-right conspiracy theories, which relish a tradition of “do your own research,” casting skepticism on official accounts, and have a tendency to give attention to lurid sexual actions or points associated to youngsters, typically pushed by a worry of society turning into immoral.
Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation knowledgeable, stated no quantity of proof — be it police physique digicam footage or anything — may get in the way in which of such falsehoods within the eyes of those that don’t need to consider details.
“It doesn’t matter when there are documents or sworn testimony claiming something is, in fact, not the case,” Ms. Jankowicz stated. “There will be an elaborate reframing effort. If the footage was released, people would claim it was fabricated. There’s no bottom.”
Many of the Republicans who amplified the fiction couched their feedback as jokes, successfully pre-empting any criticism by suggesting they may not be critical. Hours after the assault, Donald Trump Jr., the previous president’s son, shared on-line a viral picture of a fancy dress that included an outsized pair of males’s briefs and a hammer, remarking “the internet remains undefeated.”
A spokesman for Mr. Trump stated he “simply posted a joke meme and has always rejected political violence in all forms.”
Representative Claudia Tenney, Republican of New York, circulated {a photograph} on Twitter that confirmed a gaggle of younger, white males holding outsized hammers beside a homosexual Pride flag, commenting merely: “LOL.”
Ms. Tenney didn’t reply to a request for remark.
It isn’t clear whether or not the elected officers and media personalities who’ve trafficked in falsehoods consider the conspiracy theories they’re elevating, or just need to be rewarded by their right-wing base. According to public polling, as many as 70 % of Republicans nonetheless consider that Mr. Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election.
Mary Williams Benefield, a Republican working for a seat in Georgia’s statehouse, stated she had responded on-line to a tweet suggesting the assault was staged as a result of “the official narrative is unwilling to present all the facts.”
“Maybe their daughter has a film crew shooting a documentary on this too,” wrote the mom of three and former music instructor at a church faculty, making a reference to newly surfaced footage from a documentary Ms. Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra was filming that confirmed the speaker in a safe location in the course of the Jan. 6 riot.
In an interview, Ms. Benefield introduced up a report that the police have debunked, which wrongly asserted that the intruder was dressed solely in his underwear. The Fox News affiliate that initially reported the element issued a correction saying the article had beforehand “misstated what clothing the suspect was wearing.”
That did nothing to vary Ms. Benefield’s thoughts.
“There’s a lot of questions that need to be asked before there’s any legitimacy,” she stated.
According to federal charging paperwork, Mr. DePape was enthralled by the conspiracy theories which have portrayed Ms. Pelosi as an enemy of the nation. His on-line actions present him ranting in regards to the 2020 election being stolen, seeming to disclaim the gassing of Jews at Auschwitz and claiming that schoolteachers have been grooming youngsters to be transgender.
His lawyer has stated he deliberate to argue that Mr. DePape was so influenced by disinformation that it needs to be thought of a mitigating circumstance.