Republicans Continue to Spread Baseless Claims About Pelosi Attack - The New York Times

Donald Trump Jr., the erstwhile president’s son, continues to station jokes astir it.

Dinesh D’Souza, the creator of a discredited movie astir the 2020 predetermination called “2000 Mules,” accused the San Francisco Police Department connected Monday of covering up the facts.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, wrote that the “same mainstream media politician activists” who questioned erstwhile President Donald J. Trump’s ties to Russia were present silencing the caller proprietor of Twitter, Elon Musk.

The reason: Mr. Musk deleted a post linking to a paper that erstwhile claimed Hillary Rodham Clinton was dormant erstwhile she ran for president successful 2016.

In the days since Paul Pelosi, the 82-year-old hubby of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked by an intruder asking, “Where is Nancy?”, a litany of Republicans and conservatives person dispersed baseless conspiracy theories astir the battle and its motives.

Although the constabulary person not yet elaborate each the circumstances of the crime, these theories person already seeped into the Republican mainstream. While galore Republican officials person denounced the violence, others person astatine the precise slightest tolerated, and successful immoderate cases cheered, a convulsive battle connected the spouse of a governmental rival.

The disinformation “isn’t conscionable political,” said Angelo Carusone, the president and main enforcement of Media Matters for America, a progressive nonprofit. “It’s overmuch bigger than that; it’s deeper. They’re truly rethinking and reshaping a batch of our norms.”

The onslaught connected Mr. Pelosi successful the couple’s location successful San Francisco aboriginal connected Friday greeting has raised fears astir the emergence of governmental unit against elected officials — increasingly, it seems, inspired by a toxic brew of extremism, hatred and paranoia that is easy recovered online.

The assailant, identified by the constabulary arsenic David DePape, 42, posted a bid of notes successful the days earlier the onslaught suggesting that helium had fallen nether the sway of right-wing conspiracy theories and antisemitism online. Some of the flurry of posts by others questioning the circumstances of the onslaught appeared intended to deflect attraction from Mr. DePape’s views.

No apical Republican lawmakers joined successful peddling unfounded claims astir the attack, but fewer denounced them, either. Mrs. Clinton, the erstwhile archetypal woman and legislator who mislaid to Mr. Trump successful 2016, pointedly blamed the enactment for spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories.”

“It is shocking, but not surprising, that unit is the result,” she wrote connected Twitter connected Saturday. “As citizens, we indispensable clasp them accountable for their words and the actions that follow.”

It was her station that prompted Mr. Musk, Twitter’s proprietor since past Thursday night, to insinuate that an alternate mentation of the battle was possible. “There is simply a tiny anticipation determination mightiness beryllium much to this communicative than meets the eye,” helium replied straight to Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Musk linked to an sentiment portion from the Santa Monica Observer, a website known to people falsehoods, which offered an alternate relationship of what led to the onslaught connected Mr. Pelosi. Relying connected an anonymous root and providing nary evidence, the nonfiction claimed that the attacker was a antheral prostitute.

The communicative besides indicated that the attacker was recovered by the constabulary wearing lone his underwear, a item that was primitively published by a Fox affiliate earlier getting wide circulated successful right-wing communities online. The affiliate aboriginal removed the item and appended a correction, saying the nonfiction “misstated what covering the fishy was wearing.”

A spokeswoman for Fox Television Stations said the communicative was corrected wrong astir 2 hours.

That alteration prompted a caller circular of baseless theories, with immoderate right-wing Americans claiming a cover-up.

“New day, caller narrative,” Tricia Flanagan, a erstwhile Republican superior campaigner for New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District, tweeted to her 70,000 followers.

On Monday, national prosecutors charged Mr. DePape with attempted kidnapping and battle of a comparative of a nationalist official. He was looking for Ms. Pelosi, who was successful Washington astatine the time, and carrying “a rotation of tape, achromatic rope, a 2nd hammer, a brace of rubber and cloth gloves and zip ties,” according to the bureau of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California, which filed the charges.

Mr. DePape’s instrumentality — and his request to cognize “Where’s Nancy?” — suggested a premeditated assault, which would undercut the counterfactual versions being dispersed online.

Even so, the conspiracy theories recovered receptive audiences, receiving tens of thousands of engagements connected galore platforms similar Facebook and Twitter, and different platforms that person built smaller, though politically active, audiences.

Charlie Kirk, the blimpish vigor and YouTube host, expressed anticipation connected Monday that immoderate “amazing patriot” would station bail for Mr. DePape and go a “midterm hero.” “Bail him retired and past spell inquire him immoderate questions,” helium said, adding that liberals were trying to politicize the attack.

Mr. Carusone noted that Fox’s sum shifted implicit the weekend, overmuch arsenic it did aft the 2020 election, erstwhile the web initially reported the result accurately lone to aboriginal springiness credence to the mendacious claims by Mr. Trump and others that the ballot was someway fraudulent.

Fox News did not respond to a petition for comment.

The sum of the onslaught connected Mr. Pelosi began with reasonably straightforward sum of the crime, earlier portraying it arsenic a effect of Democratic “soft-on-crime” policies and, finally, arsenic a enigma with darker undercurrents that could not yet beryllium known.

“Look for what’s missing and what doesn’t adhd up,” David Webb, a Fox News contributor, said during “The Big Sunday Show.”

Mr. Carusone said the displacement reflected a deference by the network, similar the Republican Party, to the astir utmost voices successful the right-wing accusation ecosystem that some cater to.

“This was everyplace successful the right-wing fever swamps immediately,” helium said.

At the halfway of the flurry of disinformation, helium argued, was a refusal to amusement immoderate sympathy for an older unfortunate simply due to the fact that of his ties to a fig regularly vilified connected the other extremity of the governmental spectrum.

Conservatives person for years turned opponents similar Ms. Pelosi and others into cartoonish supervillains. Mr. Trump himself regularly called her “Crazy Nancy.”

“They’re precise improbable to springiness them immoderate solace oregon enactment adjacent successful the astir clear-cut circumstances,” Mr. Carusone said, “because successful immoderate mode it cuts against the broader communicative that they’re supervillains and truthful merit it.”