Some outlets and social media users initially reported that DePape was in his underwear when he confronted Paul Pelosi, but these claims have since been discredited. Other false claims and conspiracy theories have proliferated since the attack, including one that Paul Pelosi and DePape were having a sexual liaison.
Conservative figures including Dinesh D’Souza and Charlie Kirk have called into question reports about what happened, suggesting that the media is feeding the public a false narrative. D’Souza tweeted Monday, “The facts initially presented are too incriminating—for Pelosi, that is.”
A controversial tweet from former Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee member Rod Martin circulated earlier this week, showing a photo of a pair of briefs and a hammer with the words, “Get it now: the Paul Pelosi Halloween costume!”
Albert Mohler: Attack on Paul Pelosi Was ‘Evil’
In The Briefing, Dr. Albert Mohler condemned the attack against Paul Pelosi, calling it “an evil act.” Mohler acknowledged that there is still a lot of missing information about what happened Friday, but said at least one point is clear: “This is an act of violence undertaken within a clearly political context. We may find that there is more to the situation than that, but at the very least we know there is not less to the situation than that.”
“We are looking at an alarming rise in political violence in the United States, and this is where Christians have to start out by saying that we know that violence in this kind of context is just entirely wrong,” said Mohler. “When you’re looking at an assault like this, we’re looking at something that every Christian should understand is, in its essence, evil. There may be more details or more about the context we will learn, but there is no situation in which it is appropriate to use a hammer on an 82-year-old man. Period.”
Mohler laid out evidence that politicians on both the right and the left side of the aisle are subject to acts of violence and observed that DePape was on the fringes politically. Mohler quoted a report from the Associated Press that said at one point in DePape’s life, “DePape was known in Berkeley as a pro-nudity activist who had picketed naked at protests against local ordinances requiring people to be clothed in public.” More recently, DePape had promoted a number of conspiracy theories and had been involved with QAnon.
Democrats and Republicans need to take responsibility for inflammatory language that could influence susceptible people to become violent, said Mohler.
