Paul Pelosi's alleged DUI arrest has weird developments – SFGATE
FILE: Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and husband Paul Pelosi attend the 44th Kennedy Center Honors at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on December 5, 2021.
Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has finally spoken out through a spokesperson after he was arrested in the Bay Area this Memorial Day weekend on suspicion of operating a vehicle while intoxicated — and his response has added some new wrinkles to this saga.
Spokesperson Larry Kamer, in a statement to SFGATE provided Monday morning, lambasted “several” reports about Pelosi’s arrest that “included incorrect information” about the incident. One significant piece of “incorrect information,” according to Kamer, is the attribution of a prior DUI arrest to Pelosi.
According to California Highway Patrol records and Kamer’s statement, Pelosi, a San Francisco resident, was driving to his home in St. Helena from a dinner party at around 10:15 p.m. Saturday. About ten minutes later, Pelosi was driving on Walnut Lane in Napa attempting to cross State Route 29 when his 2021 Porsche was hit by a 48-year-old Jeep driver.
At around 11:44 p.m., Pelosi was arrested on suspicion of DUI and was booked in the Napa County Detention Center. Kamer said in the statement that Pelosi was “fully cooperative” with CHP officers. Pelosi was later released on $5,000 bail.
Kamer did not specify to SFGATE which reports included “incorrect information,” but he seems to be referring to NBC Bay Area, possibly among others. The NBC Bay Area report alleges that Pelosi was arrested in 2018 for a similar incident, instead attributing that arrest to another man named Paul Pelosi.
“A prior driving offense erroneously attributed to Mr. Pelosi is untrue and likely refers to an unrelated person with the same name,” Kamer said. “This error must be corrected.”
(As of Tuesday morning, NBC Bay Area has removed that claim in the article referenced without any note explaining its deletion. It is unclear when the removal took place; an NBC Bay Area representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from SFGATE.)
Nancy Pelosi’s office declined to comment to multiple news outlets on “this private matter which occurred while she was on the East Coast.” She was in Rhode Island on Sunday to deliver a commencement speech at Brown University.
Joshua Bote is the tech editor at SFGATE. He grew up in the Los Angeles area, went to UC Berkeley and has previously worked as a news reporter at USA Today and SFGATE and a music writer at NPR. Email: joshua.bote@sfgate.com
