OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story misstated what clothing Paul Pelosi and his attacker were wearing when police found them. The U.S. Department of Justice detailed in its criminal complaint that DePape was wearing shorts and was not in his underwear. We have corrected our reporting.
An ABC 7 reporter traveled to the Berkeley commune where David DePape, the suspected attacker of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi, was reported to have recently lived. A neighbor interviewed by ABC 7 and national media outlets blew a massive hole in the mainstream media’s narrative that he was a “far right extremist.”
“Our vehicle was out of commission,” she said. “I was walking past and Gypsy’s son was with a small little girl and he was on the bus, and the little girl and Gypsy’s son were walking away from the bus and the guy remained on the bus. And that’s when I recognized his face. That’s the only time I ever saw his face was within like, the last month or so. Or a couple weeks.”
“Do you know… how long he stayed during that?” a reporter asked.
“A couple months ago? No, no,” she said. “We try to just avoid them at all cost. Okay. Until they, you know, bother us.”
“Okay,” the reporter said. “But so the last time you saw him was a couple weeks ago?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“And he was here for a few days?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” the reporter added. “Anything strange about him or anything that stood out?”
“There’s something strange about the whole household.,” she said. “The entire household is very, very strange.”
“How about him?” the reporter inquired.
“He is birds of a feather with — akin to them,” she said. “So they are just, you know, nudists, drug abusers and that’s who gravitates toward them.”
“And the children, I’m sorry, the children who live there seem to be underage or under 18?” the reporter asked.
“I’m not sure how old they are,” she said.
“Okay. And Trish, again, what’s the, what do you say their politics are?” the reporter asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I would imagine that they’re more left-leaning because of their support for the gay community. and for I’m sorry for other people, but it is now I’m not sure what way they lean because… they have the flag, the LGBT flag with the plot,” she said.
“So, any signs of antisemitism?” the reporter asked.
“You know, they are completely unhinged,” she continued. “So I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be surprised at all… nothing that they believe in aligns with their actions. So they’ll say that they are, you know, pro-black lives and then they’ll call the police on black people. And so they don’t stand by their actions don’t stand by their words.”
“So some paranoid behavior it sounds like,” the reporter commented.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Trish replied.
“And some psychotic behavior too,” the reporter said.
“Yes,” she responded.
She also shared her belief that DePape was abusing the children who lived with him, but she did not know if they were his own.
The woman would only give her name as “Trish” because she did not want her full name out there.
Michael Shellenberger, in his blog (note: for paid subscribers), gives excellent context for the mainstream media’s rush to judgment on the Paul Pelosi story:
Leading politicians yesterday blamed the political Right for the brutal attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul. “This is despicable,” said President Biden. He noted that the alleged attacker, David DePape, 42, shouted the same line, “Where’s Nancy?” as the supporters of Donald Trump, who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. “And what makes us think that one party can talk about stolen elections?” said Biden. “COVID being a hoax? It’s all a bunch of lies.”
California political leaders agreed. “This heinous assault is yet another example of the dangerous consequences of the divisive and hateful rhetoric that is putting lives at risk and undermining our very democracy and Democratic institutions,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “This attack,” said San Francisco’s state Senator, Scott Weiner, “is terrifying and the direct result of toxic right-wing rhetoric.”
Journalists, en masse, agreed with their assessment. DePape “appears to have made racist and often rambling posts online,” noted AP, in a report this morning that encapsulated the media narrative, “including some that questioned the results of the 2020 election, defended former President Donald Trump and echoed QAnon conspiracy theories.”
But DePape’s politics have little rhyme or reason. In past years DePape shared a post about Stephen Colbert’s 2006 roast of President George W. Bush at the White House Correspondents dinner; linked to videos of Disney films altered to make it look like the characters were swearing; and claimed, “Jesus is the anti-Christ” — not exactly a litany of right-wing tropes.
On Saturday, Hillary Clinton blamed Republicans for spreading “conspiracy theories” — apparently not referring to Trump-Russia collusion, which was quite possibly the biggest media hoax of all-time.
“The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories,” Clinton wrote on Twitter. “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result. As citizens, we must hold them accountable for their words and the actions that follow.”
Clinton’s tweet linked to an LA Times article with the headline: “Accused Pelosi attacker David DePape spread QAnon, other far-right, bigoted conspiracies.”
The website purportedly belonging to DePape that the LA Times links to in its article, renlyfrens.com, is no longer active after the Paul Pelosi attack.
