“It’s stunning, however not stunning, that violence is the consequence,” she wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “As residents, we should maintain them accountable for his or her phrases and the actions that comply with.”
It was her publish that prompted Mr. Musk, Twitter’s proprietor since final Thursday evening, to insinuate that an alternate model of the assault was attainable. “There’s a tiny chance there is likely to be extra to this story than meets the attention,” he replied on to Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Musk linked to an opinion piece from the Santa Monica Observer, a web site identified to publish falsehoods, which provided an alternate account of what led to the assault on Mr. Pelosi. Counting on an nameless supply and offering no proof, the article claimed that the attacker was a male prostitute.
The story additionally indicated that the attacker was discovered by the police carrying solely his underwear, a element that was initially printed by a Fox affiliate earlier than getting extensively circulated in right-wing communities on-line. The affiliate later eliminated the element and appended a correction, saying the article “misstated what clothes the suspect was carrying.”
Fox didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
That change prompted a brand new spherical of baseless theories, with some right-wing People claiming a cover-up.
“New day, new narrative,” Tricia Flanagan, a former Republican major candidate for New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District, tweeted to her 70,000 followers.
On Monday, federal prosecutors charged Mr. DePape with tried kidnapping and assault of a relative of a public official. He was searching for Ms. Pelosi, who was in Washington on the time, and carrying “a roll of tape, white rope, a second hammer, a pair of rubber and fabric gloves and zip ties,” in line with the workplace of america Lawyer for the Northern District of California, which filed the fees.