National Correspondent Miguel Almaguer revealed new information on the break-in and attack of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, on Friday morning’s broadcast of NBC’s TODAY Show. The TODAY Show’s official Twitter account posted the story, but it was then deleted, and a video clip of the segment was taken down from the TODAY Show’s website. Why?
Here’s what NBC News’ Almaguer had to say about it. “It’s a week to the day that Paul Pelosi’s house became a crime scene, yet he’s back there this morning. Information obtained by NBC News concerning the time before police arrival, “As he recounted, A source close to the situation said, “When cops arrived to the high priority call, they were ignorant they’d been sent to the house of the Speaker of the House.”
The fact that neither the dispatcher nor the cops knew that the call was from Pelosi or that the home they were traveling to belonged to the Speaker of the House was odd but not particularly shocking. It was at this point that Almaguer’s account became intriguing.
“Mr. Pelosi answered the door to our “knock and announced” at the entrance. The 82-year-old man didn’t call 911 or make any attempts to flee the house right away, “As Almaguer described. “But then she turned and walked back into the foyer toward the attacker, away from the cops. According to sources, the 82-year-mental old’s physical states are unknown at this time. “Moreover, he said.
The information published by NBC News directly contradicts the affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Stephanie Minor. From what we can gather from Minor’s sworn statement:
Officer Colby Wilmes from the San Francisco Police Department (“SFPD”) arrived at the Pelosi home in California at 2:31 a.m. and rang the doorbell. Both Pelosi and DE PAPE held hammers in one hand, while DE PAPE had a firm grip on Pelosi’s forearm with the other.
Why, therefore, are there disparities in the specifics? Why did NBC News cover it before addressing the discrepancy when confronted with additional material that seemed to contradict the government agents’ account of events?
According to the court records cited by Almaguer in his TODAY Show article, “when the [responding] officer inquired what was going on, defendant smiled and replied ‘everything’s okay,’ but immediately a struggle occurred as officers observed David Depape strike Paul Pelosi in the skull with a hammer.”
Almaguer concluded his assessment by pointing out the glaring gap in our understanding, writing, “Why Pelosi didn’t try to run or warn responding authorities he was in difficulty is unexplained.”
After NBC’s failed attempt to delete the story from the Internet’s collective memory, the network appended a mysterious remark to the page where the video had previously been viewable, reading: “The segment should not have aired since it did not fulfill NBC News reporting standards.”
Some Twitter users noted that disclosing new information by mainstream sites followed by a swift and quiet attempt to pretend they didn’t cover it doesn’t do much to reassure people who think there’s more to the story than is being explained.
To this day, authorities have not released either the 911 call made by Pelosi or the body-worn camera footage from the responding cops, which would instantly clear up the discrepancy between what Almaguer claimed and what the FBI affidavit indicated. It has also been reported that the U.S. Capitol Police have no plans to disclose any surveillance footage from the night of the break-in.