Pelosi: Facebook is ‘lying’ by keeping altered video online

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed Facebook on Wednesday, saying the social media giant’s refusal to take down a video altered to make her look bad raised questions about how concerned the company was about Russian disinformation that was posted on the site during the 2016 presidential campaign.

By leaving up a sloweddown video designed to make Pelosi appear halting or even drunk, the company was saying, “‘I know this is false and it’s a lie, but we’re running it anyway,’ ” Pelosi said in an appearance at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

The video was posted after Pelosi, D-San Francisco, spoke at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., on May 22, the day she accused President Trump of a “coverup” for refusing to cooperate with congressional investigations into his administration.

The video was slowed down to make it appear Pelosi was slurring her words and was posted to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. YouTube took it down, but it remains up on

Twitter and Facebook a week later.

Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president for product policy and communications, told CNN on Friday that the company left the video up because “we think it’s important for people to make their own informed choice for what to believe . ... Our job is to make sure we are getting them accurate information.”

The company did not respond to a request for comment on Pelosi’s remarks.

Pelosi said Wednesday that in the past, she has given Facebook “the benefit of a doubt” when the company protested it was unaware of disinformation posts by Russians during the 2016 campaign that were designed to boost Trump’s candidacy and tear down that of Democrat Hillary Clinton. But the company’s inaction in response to last week’s video has prompted her to change her mind, she said.

Before the Commonwealth Club appearance, Pelosi told KQED News, “We have said all along, ‘Poor Facebook, they were unwittingly exploited by the Russians.’ I think wittingly, because right now they are putting up something that they know is false. I think it’s wrong.

“I can take it,” Pelosi said. “But (Facebook is) lying to the public.”

She added, “I think they have proven — by not taking down something they know is false — that they were willing enablers of the Russian interference in our election.”

In her Commonwealth Club appearance, Pelosi pushed back against growing Democratic calls for Trump’s impeachment, saying that any evidence for removing the president from office “has to be clear to the Senate as well.” The Senate, which unlike the House is controlled by Republicans, is unlikely to convict Trump.

Pelosi argued that only a few House Democrats are openly in favor of launching impeachment proceedings, but that the media “is more interested in those 28 than in the other 200.”

Wednesday’s statement by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller that “if we had had confidence that the president had clearly not committed a crime, we would have said so,” prompted Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York to join other 2020 Democratic presidential candidates in calling for impeachment proceedings.

That didn’t change Pelosi’s stance.

“Most of the candidates don’t have a vote in the House of Representatives,” she said.

Pelosi has been trying to balance the concerns of Democrats anxious to take action against Trump and those worried that an impeachment effort, with no chance of a conviction in the Senate, would be a political disaster that could help Trump get re-elected.

House Democrats are working to force Trump to reveal more information on his finances and to dig deeper into what he has been doing as president, Pelosi said.

“Where it leads, we shall see,” the speaker said. “Nothing is off the table.”

Pelosi said she still wants to have Mueller testify about his report before a congressional committee, despite his statement Wednesday that “the work speaks for itself ” and he had nothing to add.

“It would be useful for him to testify before Congress,” she said. Answering questions from lawmakers could provide “clarification and confirmation” about information in his report.

Pelosi was quick to praise Mueller as a patriot who did his best to provide a nonpartisan look at Russian intervention in the election and whether Trump obstructed justice in relation to the report. But she was far less kind to Attorney General William Barr and the way he portrayed Mueller’s report as a vindication of the president.

“I have total contempt for the attorney general for speaking untruths to the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi said. “He did a disservice to the truth and a disservice to the country.”

Pelosi has been in San Francisco for the past few days making the rounds of her district. On Monday, she spoke at the Presidio’s Memorial Day observance and was the featured speaker at San Francisco State’s graduation ceremonies Tuesday night.

In that address, she reminded the students of the founders’ vision for America.

“They disagreed, we disagree. But they said, ‘E pluribus unum’ — from many, one,” Pelosi said. “They couldn’t imagine how many we would be or how different we would be from each other, but they knew that we had to remember that we are one as country.”

Pelosi came back to that theme Wednesday at the Commonwealth Club, arguing that it’s important to seek consensus even on a topic as divisive as impeachment because it’s the results that count.

“We seek not to divide, but to unite,” she said. “We’re not out there to pick fights.”