The increasingly bizarre and mysterious circumstances behind the late October attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) just got a little stranger, given that an attention-grabbing NBC report on the incident filed Friday was swiftly retracted almost as soon as it appeared, as Fox News notes.
As CNBC reported at the time, the attack by an intruder in the couple’s San Francisco home left Mr. Pelosi with a skull fracture and a host of other injuries, and the facts underlying the scenario remain nebulous, at best, a situation only exacerbated by NBC’s curious editorial decision.
Almaguer’s scoop
The controversy emerged on Friday when, during NBC morning program, Today, network correspondent Miguel Almaguer hit the airwaves with some rather thought-provoking revelations about what may have happened after police appeared at the Pelosi home on the morning of the attack.
Almaguer reported that upon reaching the Pelosi residence, police were greeted at the door by the 82-year-old husband of the House speaker – who had called 911 to report the presence of the intruder – though he did not instantly indicate to officers that an emergency was taking place.
Further, Almaguer indicated that rather than attempting to exit the property, Pelosi instead went back into the house toward the assailant, one David DePape, who now faces a charge of attempted homicide, among others.
Almaguer underscored the muddled nature of what is known about the interaction between Pelosi and DePape, informing co-host Craig Melvin, “We still don’t know exactly what unfolded between Mr. Pelosi and the suspect for the 30 minutes they were alone inside that house before police arrive” and noting that authorities “investigating this matter would not go into further details about these new details.”
Report pulled
Not surprisingly, Almaguer’s report garnered significant interest almost immediately, with social media users observing en masse that the new facts raised more questions than ever before about what truly happened on that fateful morning.
Shortly after the story became available online, however, NBC News made the curious decision to pull it from social media as well as its own website, as the New York Post noted.
The network offered only meager explanation of the move on its website, writing about Almaguer’s report, “This piece has been removed from publication because it did not meet NBC News reporting standards.”
More to the story?
The attack on Pelosi almost instantly sparked a wave of questions and speculation about possible connections between the octogenarian husband of the House speaker and DePape, a man described as a drug-addicted, nudist activist who has been in the country illegally for years.
No less than Elon Musk observed that the apparent secrecy and selectivity with which facts about the incident were being reported had given rise to additional suspicions, writing in a since-deleted tweet, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye” and sparking outrage among those who blasted him as little more than a right-wing conspiracy theorist.
However, with mounting evidence that the full truth about what happened has yet to emerge and may even be the subject of an active suppression campaign, it might behoove NBC News to offer a bit more clarification about the supposed deficiencies in Almaguer’s report and let viewers decide for themselves.