Fake: Email Allegedly Found on Pelosi’s Laptop

Misbar’s investigation found while a laptop was stolen from Pelosi’s office, it is highly unlikely that it contains any troublesome emails. The most popular circulating email from Pelosi to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is fake.

The link from Pelosi’s laptop to leaked emails seems to have started when TheBlaze host Elijah Schaffer posted a photo of a computer screen with the caption: “BREAKING: I am inside Nancy Pelosi’s office with the thousands of revolutionaries who have stormed the building. To put into perspective how quickly staff evacuated, emails are still on the screen along side a federal alert warning members of the current revolution.” Although he later deleted the tweet, on the internet, everything is forever.

However, the image that Schaffer posted does not depict the laptop that was stolen from Pelosi’s office. It is clear from the image Schaffer posted that the computer in question is a desktop, not a laptop. The email on screen is also not the one allegedly sent to Wheeler.

If the stolen laptop did contain an email from Pelosi to Wheeler, it seems that it would have been released by now and reported by major news sites. Even news sites that regularly denounce Pelosi have not reported on the email.

Wheeler, the alleged recipient of the email, recently denounced what he called the “ongoing violence and even scorn from radical Antifa and anarchists.” This language does not coincide with the email's request to refer to everything related to Antifa as “peaceful and calm.” Pelosi has also condemned violence committed by Antifa, so it is unlikely she would ask Wheeler to deny any such violence.

The alleged email itself does not read like something written by Pelosi. Misbar spoke to a linguistic analyst, who said that Pelosi’s usual linguistic choices vary greatly from those used in the email. Pelosi tends to use longer sentences with no excessive punctuation or capitalization, as seen in the excerpt from a letter to her members below: 

Interestingly, the analyst noted that the language used in the alleged email is more similar to language used by Trump. Trump has what some analysts call a “distinctive linguistic style” that relies on emotive language and competition metaphors. For example, the last line in the alleged email reads: “We CANNOT give TRUMP any victory before the election!!!!!” This uses emotive language and punctuation with unusual capitalizations and a competition metaphor, in a manner very similar to many of Trump’s tweets – such as one reading: “Either we WIN this Election, or we are Going to LOSE this Country!”

The alleged email is also quite obviously a letter, not an email. It does not seem likely that Pelosi would include Wheeler’s address at the top of an email, as that is completely unnecessary. A few social media users sharing the claim do call it a letter, rather than an email; however, it also seems unlikely that Pelosi would have scanned an incriminating letter and then kept an image of it on her laptop.

The signature used on the alleged email seems to be partially directly copied from Pelosi’s signature as it appears on Wikimedia Commons. 

If it were Pelosi’s actual signature, there would likely be some small difference from her published signature, rather than being a direct replica.

Pelosi’s aide Drew Hammill posted on Twitter that the stolen laptop “was only used for presentations,” meaning it is unlikely to contain any emails sent by Pelosi.

A spokesperson for Pelosi’s office, Tim Becker, also confirmed that the email is not real. 

Although the laptop was only used for conference presentations, it is possible that its theft is an issue of national security. Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin said that the thefts of Pelosi’s and Senator Jeff Merkley’s laptops may jeopardize national security: “We just don’t know the extent of that damage at this point,” he said. 

However, the email allegedly sent by Pelosi to Wheeler is fake.