Feds charge suspect who attacked Nancy Pelosi's husband with attempted kidnapping of a US official and assault

• The DOJ charged the suspect who broke into Nancy Pelosi's home and attacked her husband with assault and attempted kidnapping.
• David DePape is also facing separate state charges of attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, and burglary.

The Justice Department on Monday charged David Wayne DePape with assault and attempted kidnapping connected to the break-in at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home last week.

According to a DOJ news release, DePape has been charged with two felonies: one count of assault of an immediate family member of a US official with the intent to retaliate against the official on account of the performance of official duties, and one count of attempted kidnapping of a US official on account of the performance of official duties.

The first count carries a maximum prison sentence of 30 years, and the second carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

DePape broke into Pelosi's home early Friday morning and shouted, "Where is Nancy?" at her husband, Paul. The House speaker was in Washington, DC at the time, along with her protective detail.

Paul Pelosi later told police that he had been asleep when DePape entered his bedroom searching for the House speaker. Pelosi called 911, and two police officers who responded to the call said that when they arrived at the Pelosis' residence, they saw DePape and Paul Pelosi struggling over a hammer before DePape wrestled it away and struck Pelosi over the head with it, at which point he was arrested.

State prosecutors have charged DePape with attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, and burglary.

An FBI affidavit accompanying the federal complaint against DePape said investigators believe he "was prepared to detain and injure Speaker Pelosi when he entered the Pelosi residence" on Friday. He had "zip ties, tape, rope, and at least one hammer with him that morning," it continued.

Prosecutors also said DePape threatened to break the House speaker's kneecaps to set an example for other congressional Democrats.

According to the affidavit, DePape told San Francisco Police Department officials in a recorded interview that if Pelosi told him the "truth," he would let her go, and that if she "lied," he was going to break "her kneecaps."

DePape "was certain that Nancy would not have told the 'truth,'" the affidavit said. He told SFPD officials he saw Pelosi as the "'leader of the pack' of lies told by the Democratic Party," and he later said that by breaking the House Speaker's kneecaps, "she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions," according to the affidavit.

After Speaker Pelosi's office released a statement about the attack on Friday, lawmakers from across the political spectrum condemned the violence and offered condolences and prayers for Paul Pelosi's recovery. Former President Donald Trump called the assault "a terrible thing" and linked it, as many Republicans have, to the crime rate in San Francisco.

But right-wing and far-right actors spent the weekend spinning bogus anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories about the attack.

Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., quote-tweeted a post of a Paul Pelosi Halloween costume consisting of men's briefs and a hammer.

Republican Rep. Clay Higgins, who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, tweeted a baseless claim that DePape is a "nudist hippie male prostitute LSD guy." He later deleted the tweet.

The right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk called for an "amazing patriot" to bail out DePape, who is being held without bail, and characterized the suspect as a "gay schizophrenic nudist."

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — who is also Twitter's newly minted "Chief Twit" — tweeted and later deleted a link to a blog post suggesting DePape and Pelosi were intimately involved and that the hammer attack was the result of a drunken lovers quarrel.

According to NBC News, the tweet had racked up more than 24,000 retweets and more than 86,000 likes before Musk deleted it on Sunday afternoon.

In addition to the fact that there's no evidence DePape and Pelosi knew each other, DePape himself acknowledged to investigators that his goal in breaking into the Pelosis' residence was to get to the House speaker.

A look at DePape's internet and social media activity showed racist and antisemitic rants, as well as conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election, QAnon, the so-called global elites, the death of Jeffrey Epstein, and COVID-19.

His shouts upon entering the Pelosis' home — "Where's Nancy?" — also echoed those of the pro-Trump rioters who overran the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a failed but deadly attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election victory.