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Pro-Trump provocateur Laura Loomer grabbed a few more headlines Monday by hopping the fence at Nancy Pelosi’s Napa Valley estate, in an attempt to make the point that the House speaker opposes the Mexico border wall while also owning a wall.
Unlike when Loomer chained herself to Twitter’s New York headquarters to get her account back, though, this Loomer stunt had a cruel twist.
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While trespassing on Pelosi’s property, Loomer tricked three men she described as undocumented immigrants into joining her, setting them up for an inevitable confrontation with police. Loomer tells The Daily Beast that she found the men in a Home Depot parking lot, and convinced them to come set up the tent on Pelosi’s property.
It’s not clear whether the men knew that they were being duped into committing crimes at a home owned by one of the most powerful lawmakers in America. They certainly didn’t seem to know what was going on during livestreams of the event, and they later required a Spanish translator to understand what the cops were telling them.
When police arrived, they mostly ignored Loomer and her rants about the border wall. Instead, they focused on the three men, who weren’t able to provide any identification, according to the livestreamed footage from Loomer’s friends. Before taking the men aside, one sheriff’s deputy told Loomer she’d put the men in a tough spot by setting them up for an encounter with law enforcement.
Throughout it all, Loomer and her cohort, which included Charlottesville Unite the Right marcher Antonio Foreman, made condescending and often racist quips about the men. Loomer ordered them up to Pelosi’s house with shouts of “Vamonos!” and one of her friends asked whether a taco truck would be joining them.
Fortunately for the men, the Napa County Sheriff’s Office decided to let them go. After a Pelosi representative declined to press charges against the group, the men were released without fines, according to a spokesman for the Napa sheriff.
That wasn’t the outcome Loomer’s group had hoped for. When it became clear that the men wouldn’t be arrested and deported, as was apparently the plan, one of Loomer’s associates groaned and shouted “Catch and release!” at them.
