Accused Paul Pelosi attacker was caught up in conspiracies: Defense attorney

Source: The Hill | November 10, 2023 | Tara Suter

The defense attorney for a man accused of attacking former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) husband, Paul Pelosi, in October, 2022, said on Thursday that David DePape was caught up in conspiracy theories.

Jodi Linker, who represents DePape in a trial that began earlier this week in San Francisco, said that she isn’t disputing DePape’s attack on Paul Pelosi, 82. She added that she will argue DePape believed “with every ounce of his being” he was trying to end government corruption and child abuse from politicians and actors.

“This is not a ‘whodunit.’ But what the government fails to acknowledge is the ‘whydunit,’ and the why matters in this case,” Linken said, according to The Associated Press.

DePape has pleaded not guilty to attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official with intent to retaliate against the official for performance of their duties. Linker’s central piece of her argument is that DePape wasn’t targeting the former Speaker in an attempt to stop her from her official work.

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Laura Vartain Horn, a federal prosecutor, told jurors that DePape began planning his attack in August, 2022, and that evidence and testimony from the FBI will show he researched his alleged targets online, worked on collecting phone numbers and addresses and went so far as to pay a public records service for information on Nancy Pelosi, among others.

During her opening statement, Vartain Horn showed a picture of Paul Pelosi in a pool of blood, and played a call by DePape to a television station in which he repeated conspiracy theories. 

“The evidence in this case is going show that when the defendant used this hammer to break into the Pelosi’s home he intended to kidnap Nancy Pelosi,” Vartain Horn said, holding a hammer in an evidence bag, according to the AP.

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