A spokesperson for the U.S. House of Representatives said this week that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was officially asked to appear in a California criminal case.
According to House rules, members must respond to judicial subpoenas and orders that are “properly” delivered. Tylease Alli, the reading clerk, recited a message coming from Pelosi to the speaker of the House within the chamber.
“It was officially announced by Alli that Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House of Representatives and United States representative of the 11th Congressional District of California, has been served with a summons from both the prosecution as well as the defendant in a criminal proceeding in the Northernmost District of California.”
“With the help of our Office of General Counsel, I have decided that following the subpoenas is in line with the House’s privileges and rights,” the message said. “The answers to the subpoenas are going to be the same to the extent that they require the submission of nonprivileged material.”
It wasn’t made clear what case the subpoenas were related to. Jake Sherman, co-founder of Punchbowl News, said that Pelosi’s office wouldn’t say anything about current legal issues.
The news comes at the same time as the federal trial for David DePape this month. DePape has been charged with breaking into the home of Paul Pelosi about a year ago in the city of San Francisco. DePape has pleaded not guilty to both the state and federal charges against him. If he is found guilty, he could spend decades in jail.
Reports from August said that Pelosi let DePape’s lawyers look at the crime scene inside their home and asked the court to make a decision about how to handle the information they found.
Nancy Pelosi has been a representative for the city of San Francisco since 1987. She has also been speaker of the House twice, with the most recent term ending when the GOP took over the chamber at the beginning of this Congress. She chose not to stay in charge, but she was given the title “speaker emerita.” Pelosi, who is 83 years old, said in Sept. that she was going to run for office again in 2024.
