Paul Pelosi hammer trial: David DePape insists Nancy’s husband was not intended target

The Canadian national who bludgeoned former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband with a hammer testified Tuesday that Paul Pelosi was never his main target and that he only reacted violently because his plan to take down his wife was “ruined.” 

David DePape took the stand in his own defense, tearfully telling jurors his actions were the direct result of conspiracy theories he had been consumed by on right-wing websites and in YouTube videos that led him down a dark path.   

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The onetime nude enthusiast said he went to the Pelosi home in the Pacific Palisades last year to talk to Nancy Pelosi about Russia’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and that he had planned to show up wearing an inflatable unicorn costume and upload his interrogation of her online. His objective was to get her as well as other “targets” to admit to their alleged corruption and then get President Joe Biden to issue pardons “so we can move forward as a country.” 

Instead, what he found when he used a hammer to break into her mansion on Oct. 28, 2022, was a sleeping Paul Pelosi. 

“He was never my target, and I’m sorry that he got hurt,” DePape said.

When asked why he hit the then-82-year-old with a 5-pound steel hammer, DePape said he “reacted because my plan was basically ruined.” He also acknowledged he hit Paul Pelosi with “full force.”

AP

DePape broke down on the stand when asked about his transition from being a liberal to “right-of-center,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. He claimed that ideas presented on conspiracy theory sites, podcasts, and other platforms, no matter how fantastical, started to make sense, including ones by QAnon which claimed there was a cabal of government officials, celebrities, and pedophiles working in unison to morally bankrupt the country.

“At that time, I was biased against [former President Donald] Trump, but there’s, like, truth there,” he said, sobbing. “So if there’s truth out there that I don’t know, I want to know it.”

His search for the truth led him to the Pelosis’ mansion, he said.

Prosecutors claim DePape researched the congresswoman weeks before the attack and looked up members of the Pelosi family, including Nancy Pelosi’s children and grandchildren.

DePape thought the former speaker was “evil” and had “planned to kidnap her, to hold her hostage, to break her kneecaps, to teach her a lesson,” they added.

DePape allegedly screamed “Where’s Nancy?” repeatedly at Paul Pelosi, who managed to make a 911 telephone call in which he spoke to the dispatcher and left the line open for authorities. The dispatcher, realizing something was wrong, sent the police to the address.

When the authorities arrived, they saw DePape and Paul Pelosi with their hands on the hammer. They were both told to drop the hammer, but DePape wrestled it away and hit Paul Pelosi with it multiple times. DePape was immediately arrested, and Paul Pelosi was taken to the emergency after suffering extensive wounds. He was hospitalized for six days.

DePape denied prosecutors’ claims that the attack was linked to Nancy Pelosi’s job in Congress, a key requirement in the charges against him. He did eventually admit to knowing she worked in Washington and called her the “leader of the pack.”

He also admitted to telling the authorities in the immediate aftermath of the attack that if his plan had been successful and he had broken Nancy Pelosi’s kneecaps, she’d be wheeled onto the House floor and that all of the other congressional lawmakers would fall in line and realize the consequences of being “the most evil people on the planet.”

On Monday, Paul Pelosi gave his own tearful testimony and recalled the events that unfolded the night of the attack, including waking up in a pool of his own blood.

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DePage is charged with the attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault upon an immediate family member of a federal official tied directly to her job. He is also facing several state felony charges that do not rely on Nancy Pelosi being a federal official.

He has pleaded not guilty.