A federal jury convicted David DePape of assault and attempted kidnapping in November 2023 in connection to DePape breaking into the home of then-Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and assaulting her husband, Paul Pelosi.
Paul Pelosi, 83, was seriously injured in the attack.
Nancy Pelosi was not at the Pelosi home. She was in Washington D.C.
According to the U.S. attorney’s office, DePape intended to kidnap Mrs. Pelosi, “hold her hostage and break her kneecaps” if she didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear.
Prosecutors told the jury that DePape arrived at the Pelosi’s home in San Francisco in late October 2022 with two back packs that included “a hammer, sledgehammer, duct tape, rope, zip ties, and electronic items.”
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/david-depape-convicted-assault-and-attempted-kidnapping-charges
DePape went through the home until he found Paul Pelosi in his third-floor bedroom.
Pelosi testified he was awakened by DePape who demanded: “Where’s Nancy?”
Pelosi said she was in Washington D.C. DePape said he would wait for her.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/14/aul-pelosi-attacker-david-depape-testimony
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/depape-trial-verdict-paul-pelosi-18495685.php
Paul Pelosi called the police without DePape’s knowledge.
When the police arrived, they saw DePape standing near Pelosi. DePape was holding a hammer. Police then demanded that he drop the hammer. DePape then struck Pelosi in the face.
Prosecutors showed a photograph of Pelosi “lying on the ground, a pool of blood gathering around him,” the New York Times reported.
DePape admitted to breaking into the home and hitting Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer, in what Politico termed “a convoluted plot to detain and interrogate the former House speaker as leverage against other prominent figures he believed were engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy and corruption.”
DePape testified that he believed in what the London-based newspaper The Guardian described “as several discredited conspiracy theories, including baseless claims that the US government is run by a group of devil-worshipping pedophiles.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/14/aul-pelosi-attacker-david-depape-testimony
SEE Edgar Maddison Welch
CNN reported that DePape posted links on his Facebook page to videos produced by My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell who falsely alleged that the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen. Other posts included links to websites claiming Covid vaccines were deadly.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/28/politics/pelosi-attack-suspect-conspiracy-theories-invs/index.html
DePape said he listened to political podcasts that supported right-wing conspiracies as he played video games.
Things will now take a turn from the really weird to gobsmacking weirdness.
DePape said he planned to wear a unicorn costume that night and film the interrogation. He said he would ask Nancy Pelosi to confirm his suspicious about a vast, left-wing conspiracy.
“If she lied,” DePape told the jury, “I would break her kneecaps.”
DePape said he heard from a far-right commentator James Lindsay that Nancy Pelosi wanted to “turn our schools into pedophile molestation factories,” Fox News reported.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/david-depape-weeps-stand-apologizes-paul-pelosi-hammer-attack
DePape testified that he wanted Nancy Pelosi and others, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, actor Tom Hanks and Joe Biden’s son Hunter to “admit their corruption” and then have President Biden pardon them, The Guardian reported.
Tom Hanks?
“It’s just easier giving them a pardon so we can move forward as a country,” DePape testified.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/14/aul-pelosi-attacker-david-depape-testimony
There is no record of why he planned to wear a uniform costume or why he decided not to.
DePape could face life in prison.
Things kept getting curiouser and curiouser.
In the aftermath of such violent attacks, it is a human reaction to express outrage or sympathy.
It is a human reaction.
A reaction of human beings.
Democrats joined Republicans in condemning the shooting of House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, who was seriously injured at a practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. Nancy Pelosi described the shooting as a “despicable and cowardly attack.”
https://time.com/6226946/paul-pelosi-attack-gop-response-political-discourse/
Perhaps those on the far right would stop and finally resolve to address excesses that motivated a mentally ill man to break into a home with the intent of harming one of the country’s most important political leaders.
Could this tragedy produce something good?
Nah.
This would depend on Donald Trump and his toadies in politics and working as commentators to have human emotions.
As Paul Pelosi lay in a hospital bed with a fractured skull, Trump called Nancy Pelosi a “crazed lunatic” to a crowd of supporters, and added: “What the hell was going on with her husband? Let’s not ask.”
The crowd cheered.
Time magazine reported that Trump was referring to a bogus conspiracy that was promoted by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican of Texas, Congressman Clay Higgins, a Republican of Louisiana, right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza, and other right-wingers that suggested without evidence that Paul Pelosi’s attacker was a male prostitute.
https://time.com/6226946/paul-pelosi-attack-gop-response-political-discourse/\
In September 2023, Trump continued to mock the Pelosis during his campaign speeches.
“We had no terror during my administration. The only terror we had was Nancy Pelosi. Crazed lunatic. What the hell was going on with her husband? Let’s not ask. She had a wall around her house. It didn’t work very well.”
The crowd laughed.
