Kari Lake Rejects Claims She ‘Made Light’ of Paul Pelosi Attack

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake during a rally in Chandler, Ariz., on Oct. 18, 2022. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake denied claims that she mocked the alleged attack targeting Paul Pelosi and said her remarks were taken out of context.

“I was talking about our children and why they don’t have better security. And I said that our politicians have security and that our athletes have security, and we need to have security,” Lake told the Daily Mail, adding she never “made light” of the incident. “Go back and look at the tape and don’t do any creative editing, like the fake media tends to do, and you'll see what I was saying.”

During a campaign stop shortly after reports of the alleged attack surfaced, Lake made reference to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). She was responding to a question about whether children should be afforded the same protection that’s afforded to federal lawmakers.

“Well, she’s got protection when she’s in D.C. Apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection,” she said at an event in Scottsdale, Arizona. “If our lawmakers can have protection, if our politicians can have protection, if our athletes, then certainly the most important people in our lives—our children—should have protection,” added Lake, a former TV anchor.

In the alleged incident, suspect David DePape is accused of breaking into Pelosi’s San Francisco home before approaching Paul Pelosi while he was sleeping and demanding that he see his wife, who was not there at the time. Court documents said that Pelosi was able to call the police from a phone in his bathroom and when officers arrived, they saw him and DePape struggling over a hammer before DePape allegedly hit the elderly man in the head, fracturing his skull.

Questions have been raised about why there were no security guards outside Pelosi’s home at the time, and whether or not the Capitol Police was monitoring security cameras there. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) sent a letter to the head of the U.S. Capitol Police, asking about security protocols that were in place.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Capitol Police said that it has the capacity to “actively monitor the Speaker’s San Francisco residence around the clock” but was not doing so last week when the alleged attack occurred because Speaker Pelosi was not there at the time and was in Washington. An internal investigation is now underway, it said.

“While the Speaker was with her security detail in Washington, D.C., the San Francisco cameras were not actively monitored as they are when the Speaker is at the residence. The Command Center personnel noticed the police activity on the screen and used the feeds to monitor the response and assist investigators,” the statement said.