SAN FRANCISCO — The man accused of bludgeoning former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer was caught up in conspiracies when he broke into her San Francisco home last year, his defense attorney said as his trial opened Thursday.
The attack on then-82-year-old Paul Pelosi in the early hours of Oct. 28, 2022, sent shockwaves through the political world just days before last year’s midterm elections.
Defense attorney Jodi Linker said Thursday she won’t dispute that her client David DePape attacked Paul Pelosi, an encounter caught on police body camera video. Instead, she will argue that he believed “with every ounce of his body” that he was taking action to stop government corruption and the abuse of children by 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,” she said.
DePape 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. The crux of Linker’s argument is that DePape is not guilty of the charges because he was not after Nancy Pelosi to try to stop her from engaging in her official duties.
“These beliefs matter because both charges require that the government prove that Mr. DePape acted because of her performance of her official duties as a member of Congress,” Linker said. She said DePape’s beliefs are “wholly unrelated to Nancy Pelosi’s official duties.”
Federal prosecutor Laura Vartain Horn told jurors that DePape started planning the attack in August and that the evidence and FBI testimony will show he researched his targets online, collecting phone numbers and addresses, even paying for a public records service to find information about Nancy Pelosi and others.
During her opening statement, Vartain Horn showed a photo of Paul Pelosi lying in a pool of blood. She also played a call DePape made to a television station repeating conspiracy theories.