Conspiracy-filled blog bearing alleged Pelosi attacker's name pulled offline

The U.S. Department of Justice and San Francisco District Attorney's Office formally filed eight felonies against DePape: Six state felonies carrying up to life in prison, and pair of federal felonies with 30- and 20-year maximum sentences, respectively.

A WordPress website listing DePape included posts from as recently as August and as far back as 2007. The newer posts contained slurs targeting Black, gay and transgender people, screeds against communists, as well as misogynistic and Islamophobic stereotypes and conspiracy theories invoking QAnon. 

The Examiner hasn't confirmed that the David DePape accused of attacking Pelosi is behind the site, which includes "God Is Loving" in its URL. A WordPress.com spokesperson told The Examiner on Friday afternoon that they couldn't "comment on the details of individual sites," but that they had pulled the blog for violating the company's terms of service. 

In the process of reporting this story, The Examiner found the WordPress.com site bearing DePape's name after seeing screenshots from it on social media. The site was live when The Examiner reached out to Automattic, owners of WordPress.com, for comment.

When asked if the site belonged to the same DePape accused of attacking Pelosi, an Automattic spokesperson told The Examiner they would later provide a statement. In between Automattic's initial response and that subsequent WordPress.com statement, the blog bearing DePape's name included a message saying it had "been archived or suspended in accordance" with the WordPress.com Terms of Service. 

"At this time we are not confirming these details you are requesting," the San Francisco Police Department told The Examiner in an emailed response to questions about ownership of the blog. 

Police didn't address the website in Friday night's press conference. San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said on Friday night that the attack was intentional, but he wouldn't say whether it was politically motivated. 

The FBI's San Francisco field office pointed to The Examiner to a tweet that said "investigating agencies are working to determine the facts of what happened, including the motive behind the attack."

Gene and Mark DePape, David's stepfather and uncle, confirmed to CNN on Friday morning that a Facebook page belonging to DePape had shared memes, conspiracy theories and false claims about the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, the 2020 election, the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

CNN also reported that Meta, Facebook's owner, had taken down the page on Friday, according to the outlet. The Examiner reached out to Meta to confirm they had removed DePape's page, and if it contained links to the WordPress site. The company didn't respond prior to publication. 

The David DePape behind the WordPress site first posted on June 24, 2007, with a post headline referencing Stephen Colbert's roast of then-President George W. Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner. That post contained no body text, and subsequent writings published that day centering mostly on religion. 

This DePape's WordPress didn't post again until Aug. 24 of this year, and stopped after Aug. 27. Those posts first linked to a series of videos censoring animated Disney films to make it seem like the characters were swearing. The videos were posted on the website under the tag "Unnecessary Censorship," and DePape then railed against what he perceived to be censorship in his subsequent posts. 

Most of the posts contained screenshots of articles or videos from other websites, crudely covering their contents with black bars mimicking from official documents. White text captions overlaid those bars, the typo-riddled contents of which are written from the perspective of "Big Brother," tech companies and other unnamed elites. 

Nancy Pelosi's office said in a statement on Friday afternoon that DePape demanded to see her when he broke into their Pacific Heights home. None of the posts on the blog mentioned Pelosi by name.

Many, however, referred to QAnon, the conspiracy theory that claims a cabal of elites — including high-ranking Democratic politicians, Hollywood stars and technology executives — are Satanic cannibals who abuse children and conspire against former President Donald Trump. 

One post, entitled "Q" and posted on Aug. 24, included pictures of Jeffrey Epstein — the billionaire sex offender who died in prison while awaiting trial for sex trafficking — and a redacted page with the WayFair logo, seemingly referencing the false claim that the furniture company was trafficking children in its products.

Another post referred to "Pizzagate," the conspiracy theory preceding QAnon that falsely claimed a number of high-ranking Democratic officials were trafficking children in restaurants as part of a sex ring. 

In an interview with police on Friday, DePape said he planned to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage so she could recant the "lies" she has told as a Democratic Party leader. If she didn't tell the "truth," DePape planned to break "her kneecaps" to send a message to her congressional colleagues about the consequences of her actions. 

DePape also told police he didn't leave the Pelosis' home after Paul called 911 because he was fighting against tyranny and that surrender wasn't an option, just as he claimed it wasn't for the founding fathers during the American Revolution. 

A typo-filled post on the since-removed WordPress site, written from the perspective of "Big Brother," the "ministry of truth" and the U.K. government "declared the founding fathers to be wanted terrorists and criminals." 

"They are wanted of charges of hate speech, their speech offends the crown," the post read. "They are terrorists for engaging in activities that undermine the authority of the crown. Any information leading to the arrest and subsequent hanging of the founding fathers will be rewarded with a cash prize."