NYTimes | Speaker Nancy Pelosi had just urged Brown University graduates to stay resilient and summon their “better angels” on Memorial Day weekend when she was forced to turn her attention to a less uplifting situation: her husband’s arrest in California.
The details emerging from the incident were not especially flattering.
The night before, May 28, Paul Pelosi, 82, had been in Oakville, among the country’s most exclusive enclaves, leaving a small dinner at the hedgerow-lined estate of Alexander Mehran, a longtime friend and Democratic donor.
Mr. Pelosi got behind the wheel of his black 2021 Porsche 911 to drive the six miles to the Pelosis’ Napa Valley country house. It was around 10 p.m., according to a police report and eyewitnesses.
He went a little more than half a mile and was trying to cross State Route 29 and make a left. But a Jeep was coming down the highway and hit Mr. Pelosi’s car as he made the turn.
The police who responded arrested him on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and suspicion of driving with a .08 blood alcohol content or higher. He is due back in court on Aug. 3. If criminal charges are filed, he will be arraigned then. (The driver of the Jeep was not arrested.)
It may not have been only alcohol that hindered Mr. Pelosi’s driving.
A person who witnessed the accident said both cars were totaled, and that Mr. Pelosi simply sat in the car, seemingly frozen, for several minutes, until the sheriff and members of the Fire Department arrived moments later.
Neither Mr. Pelosi nor the driver of the Jeep was injured.
Some friends felt that Mr. Pelosi’s full night in custody at the Napa County Jail after the accident was excessive. Others were puzzled why their friend hadn’t pre-empted the whole ordeal by simply taking a car service home.
And some local residents suggested that, in an earlier era in Napa, driving after drinking was met with understanding, rather than criminal charges.
“I feel just awful about what’s happened because there was a time when if a thing like this happened, the cops would take you home,” said the society doyenne Diane Wilsey, better known as Dede.
Ms. Wilsey, who is Mr. Pelosi’s fellow trustee at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, is a Republican, but she has donated to several of the speaker’s political campaigns, and sees the couple socially in California.
“I don’t agree with Nancy on everything, but I cannot think of anyone nicer than Nancy or Paul,” she said.
