A Hammer Attack Recast as a Lovers' Quarrel
Hours after an intruder beat Paul Pelosi with a hammer in October 2022, a baseless claim that the attacker was a lover spread to millions online. Police and prosecutors said the assault was intentional and politically motivated.
The attack
Early on Oct. 28, 2022, an intruder broke into the San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and attacked her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer. Paul Pelosi, 82, suffered a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands, and underwent surgery, according to PBS News. Police identified the assailant as David DePape, 42.
A source briefed on the attack told NPR that the assailant had been searching for the speaker, confronting her husband and shouting, “Where is Nancy, where is Nancy?” At a news conference that evening, San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said the assault was not random. “This was intentional, and it’s wrong,” he said, according to Bloomberg.
A false story takes hold
Within hours, an unfounded theory began circulating online: that the assault was not a break-in but a dispute between Paul Pelosi and a male acquaintance. The claim traced in part to a story by the Santa Monica Observer, a website with a history of publishing false reports; the same outlet had previously claimed that Hillary Clinton died and was replaced by a body double, according to CBS News.
San Francisco police officials directly contradicted the theory, saying only two people were at the home at the time and that Pelosi and the suspect did not know each other before the attack, as reported by NBC News.
Amplified from the top
The claim gained enormous reach after Elon Musk, who had days earlier completed his purchase of Twitter, weighed in. Replying to a post by Clinton that linked to a Los Angeles Times report on DePape’s far-right online activity, Musk wrote, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” and linked to the Santa Monica Observer, according to NBC News. Musk deleted the post by early Sunday afternoon, but by late Sunday morning it had drawn more than 24,000 retweets and more than 86,000 likes, NBC News reported. Musk did not offer a public explanation for deleting it, Al Jazeera reported.
What investigators found
Federal prosecutors said the attack was politically motivated. In court, prosecutor Laura Vartain Horn said DePape had begun planning in August and had researched his targets online, according to PBS News. DePape told investigators he had planned to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage and to break her kneecaps to show other members of Congress there were “consequences to actions,” the same account reported. DePape was later convicted on federal charges over the assault and sentenced to 30 years in prison, NBC News reported.
Researchers who study online falsehoods note a recurring pattern: a fabricated narrative surfaces within hours of a violent event, is boosted by high-follower accounts before facts are established, and continues to circulate even after officials rebut it.