Megyn Kelly Fuels Conspiracy Theory Around Attack On Paul Pelosi

Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News anchor and short-lived co-host of NBC’s Today spent time Tuesday raising doubts about the police and FBI investigation into the home invasion attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “I don’t know what went on,” Kelly said on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show. “I know enough to smell a rat.” So Kelly says she “knows enough” to say the police and other officials are, what, covering up the truth? Without any evidence, Kelly said “there’s something going on here that they’re not telling us. I just don’t know what it is.”

Kelly doesn’t know what “that” is, but she surely knows what’s she’s doing: fanning the flames of conspiracy theories that blossomed online in the hours after news broke of the Pelosi attack—with former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk among those who posted messages on Twitter and elsewhere implying that the incident was anything other than politically-motivated violence (Musk later deleted his tweet).

Hillary Clinton was among those calling out Republicans—accusing them of spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories” and suggesting the attack on Pelosi was the inevitable result:

“I feel like at a minimum, the SFPD has egg on its face because even under the most generous story to Paul Pelosi and to the San Francisco police, they were in the house when this guy attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer,” Kelly said. “How do you have police officers on site and an 82-year-old gets attacked with a hammer in front of you when you have a gun as a police officer? It’s one of the many questions here.”

In an interview on CNN Monday, San Francisco Police Chief William Scott dismissed conspiracy theories around the attack, including suggestions that Paul Pelosi knew his attacker, with conservatives insinuating that this may have been some sort of domestic dispute. “There is absolutely no evidence that Mr. Pelosi knew this man,” Scott told CNN.

Apple Podcasts‎The Megyn Kelly Show: Need for Pelosi Attack Transparency, Media Hypocrisy, and Left Abandons Free Speech, with Sen. Tom Cotton | Ep. 423 on Apple Podcasts

An American University professor who studies polarization and extremism told CNN that Nancy Pelosi in particular has become a target for Republican attacks and right-wing conspiracists. “We have a population that is unable to discern what is true and what’s not, and this spreading of misinformation from credible sources undermines that,” Cynthia Miller-Idriss said. “People are willing to accept conspiracy theories when they reinforce the narrative they already hold in their head.”