Nov 17, 2023
Paul Pelosi's Attacker Found Guilty of Attempted Kidnapping & Assault
David DePape has been found guilty of attempted kidnapping and assault on Paul Pelosi.
- 11 minutes
David DePape was found guilty of
attempting to kidnap former speaker of the
House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, as well
as assaulting her husband, Paul Pelosi.
The trial was brief.
It only lasted four days,
and the jury returned a guilty verdict
after only a day of deliberation.
[00:00:17]
He's now facing potentially 50 years
in prison based on this guilty verdict.
Now, to jog the memories of anyone
who may have forgotten,
last year, David DePape broke into Nancy
Pelosi San Francisco home with the intent
[00:00:32]
we now know of kidnaping her.
However, Nancy Pelosi was in D.C.,
but her husband Paul was home.
DePape hit Paul Pelosi with a hammer
and hospitalized him.
Now, we can't talk about this case
without discussing the major role
conspiracy theories played in it.
[00:00:49]
Let's start here
from the Los Angeles Times.
The jurors reached their decision
even with the defense's claim that DePape,
43, was motivated not by violence but by
a network of political conspiracy theories
he harbored against Democrats and other
public figures and elected officials.
[00:01:08]
David DePape believed Ms.. Mrs.
Pelosi was part of a plot
to manipulate the country
and steal votes from Donald Trump.
A court in San Francisco heard that was
the contention of his defense attorneys.
So their argument that he was was
that he was motivated by his belief
[00:01:25]
in right wing conspiracy theories.
We also learned during the trial
that DePape was an avid consumer
of far right media.
NBC news reported that he said he watched
YouTube videos and listened to hours
of podcasts from far right figures
like Glenn Beck and Tim Pool.
[00:01:41]
CBS news reported.
He testified that he became interested
in right wing conspiracy theories
after learning about Gamergate,
a misogynistic online harassment campaign
from the mid 20 tens that some experts
have linked to the rise of online alt
right communities, and the rise of the
right wing media ecosystem that thrived
[00:02:00]
during Donald Trump's presidency.
But conspiracies were not just central
to motivating Depapes actions.
They were also central in the way
conservatives addressed this attack
when it was first being reported.
Now, the primary conspiracy was,
and it's so ridiculous, but it was based
[00:02:18]
on a false report by a Fox affiliate.
The day of the attack
that DePape was arrested in his underwear.
It was not true that reporting was
retracted, but that reporting led
to the right wing conspiracy theory
that David DePape was actually Paul
[00:02:35]
Pelosi's gay lover, a claim
that was pushed by Donald Trump himself.
We had no terror during my administration.
The only terror we had was Nancy Pelosi,
who was a crazed lunatic.
This is a lunatic. She is a crazed lunatic.
[00:02:55]
What the hell was going on
with her husband?
Let's not ask. Let's not ask.
I'll withdraw that statement.
Obviously, Donald Trump is playing into
the conspiracy theories I just mentioned.
Other right wing media figures Jesse
[00:03:10]
Watters championed this Tucker Carlson,
while he was still on Fox News, spread
this conspiracy theory far and wide.
Before I give it over to you guys,
I want to add that these aren't the only
charges that DePape was facing in.
[00:03:26]
The LA times reported that still pending
state charges accused DePape of attempted
murder, assault with a deadly weapon,
elder abuse, burglary and threats
to a public official and their family.
But the federal trial centered
on whether DePape was motivated
to assault Paul Pelosi and attempt
to kidnap Speaker Pelosi because of her
[00:03:43]
official duties in Congress.
As we just reported,
he was found guilty in that case.
And I mean, it was maybe Jake to me, one
of the more absurd, far right conspiracy
theories was that this extremely elderly,
Paul Pelosi was having a gay love affair
[00:04:00]
with this far right wing conspiracy
theorist, a homeless individual.
I mean, the whole thing was absurd,
but, you know, it is good to see someone
who committed an act of political violence
being held accountable for what they did.
[00:04:18]
Yeah. So there's two parts to this story.
One is the conspiracy theories and the
other is the absurdity of the defense.
But first on the conspiracy theories.
So Donald Trump made that statement
just a couple of days ago.
It's not like that was an old statement.
And there is no amount of evidence
that will convince any conspiracy
[00:04:36]
theorists of anything that is true.
So, like DePape is driven to do this
because he thought that Nancy Pelosi
was part of a criminal conspiracy
to molest children.
Nancy Pelosi.
By the way, he had a long laundry list of
people he was going to attack, including
[00:04:55]
the actor Tom Hanks, because he thought
he was also part of that conspiracy.
And so now look at the vicious cycle
of conspiracy theories.
The conspiracy theories drive him to do
this maniacal act, and then it is met with
more conspiracy theories about that act.
[00:05:11]
And now it's completely
and utterly disproven in court.
He's convicted overwhelming evidence
that anyone who believed that
conspiracy theory, including Donald Trump,
ever come back and go, oh, no.
Yeah, we were we were,
at a minimum, totally wrong.
It turns out they were not lovers.
That's insane.
[00:05:27]
No, this guy went and viciously hit this
82 year old man in the head with a hammer.
No, none of them have ever retracted it.
Have ever said sorry,
have ever said anything.
That is true.
And so these these crazy individuals
aren't getting these ideas from nowhere.
[00:05:44]
They're getting it from right wing
political and media figures.
And it's not like, hey, you know,
they had an opinion
about gun control they were for.
They were against it.
And that motivated someone.
Well, maybe that's not fair
to put it on someone, right?
No. These are specific theories
about why people should be attacked.
[00:06:01]
Hey, those people are killing children
or molesting children.
Go do something about it.
And this guy said, well, I mean,
Nancy Pelosi was pure evil.
So I had to get her, kidnap her
and break her kneecaps.
Because he was motivated
by people telling him that she was
[00:06:18]
the ringleader of that conspiracy.
So it's this madness has been unleashed in
the world, and Donald Trump is still
laughing about it and reveling in it
and still spreading it, even after the guy
got hit in the head with a hammer.
Donald Trump has zero decency.
[00:06:35]
Zero. None.
None whatsoever.
He's a terrible, monstrous human being.
If you're a fan of Donald Trump,
even after seeing this,
and after the thousands of other grotesque
things he's done, it tells you something
a little bit about you.
[00:06:50]
I'm sorry, but it does.
Okay. It's one thing to be against Biden.
It's one thing to be against Pelosi.
Those are perfectly reasonable positions.
Okay, but to say that you're a fan
of Donald Trump after he does all of this,
it's beyond absurd.
Okay.
But I got to tell you
the absurdities of the case as well.
[00:07:07]
So do you know what?
Let me save that. Ramesh.
You jump in and then I'll get to.
How ludicrous is defense?
Sure, I'll be fast
and handed right back over to you.
So it's so.
It's what we call what what we think
of as conspiracies are actually often
mainstreamed in political discourse now
because in a sense, what used to be fringe
[00:07:28]
has given the right wing and some of
the left left, you know, a lot of energy.
And I think it's just important to know
where where that all comes from, right?
I mean, first of all, I think it's
based upon a sense of alienation.
A lot of people have the fact
that our mainstream media is corrupted
[00:07:44]
as in a different kind of way.
Right?
Because it often serves
the agendas by and for elites.
That's a point that someone
like Noam Chomsky made decades ago
in manufacturing consent.
And the algorithms that drive content
and engagement tend to be inflammatory.
[00:08:00]
You know, it tends to drive more
inflammatory and outrageous content
because it's predicted
through correlation to maximize
what we call engagement or attention.
It's attention hoarding content.
So all of that, you put that all together,
the fragmentation of media,
it lends itself.
It normalizes this kind of content,
and it legitimates politicians
[00:08:19]
who can exploit all of this.
So I guess that's kind
of a big part of this for me, 100%.
It used to be like fringe guys
like Alex Jones, but then Donald Trump
and Tucker Carlson mainstreamed them.
And so what they realized was, oh, we
can get a lot of people to believe this.
And once it's the same trick
that they use on abortion, once you get
[00:08:37]
people to believe that kids lives
are on the line, they'll do anything.
So they're like, they're not going to
worry about another tax cut for the rich
that we're going to pass because we're
telling them we're protecting babies.
And so that works like a charm.
They use it with abortion now.
[00:08:52]
They switched it to,
oh, there's a child sex ring.
And Tom Hanks and Nancy Pelosi
and Fauci are running it.
I mean, guys, come on,
how do you not see that?
That's a lunatic thing to think.
But unfortunately, a giant percentage
of the country, which is tens
of millions of people believe that.
[00:09:08]
They genuinely believe that.
And that was the defense's argument.
So let me go through it
as quickly as I can.
Number one, they said, well, look, you
have to prove intent in this federal case
because since it's not a state case,
state case is just about assault, right,
and attempted murder, etcetera.
And the federal case, you have to prove
that they had intent to target Nancy
[00:09:26]
Pelosi because of her official duties.
So that is a much harder standard.
But they it was easy to meet
that standard in this particular case
because the guy is on tape hitting him,
Paul Pelosi with a hammer.
But on top of that he confessed and said,
yeah, I was doing it because of
what Nancy Pelosi is doing in Congress.
[00:09:42]
Oh, open and shut case.
So they had to go to absurdities
and they said, well, not all of Nancy
Pelosi's things are official duties.
I mean, she gets haircuts.
The defense literally said that.
So did he attack her
because of the haircuts
[00:09:57]
or because of her official duties?
Of course, because of the official duties,
not because of the haircut.
Then they say, well, no, he had more
people on his list like Gavin Newsom.
And if he had had Gavin Newsom in the head
with a hammer, well, that would have
counted because he was he he planned
to attack her for Gavin's official duties,
[00:10:16]
but for Nancy Pelosi, it was the haircuts.
Plus, by the way, by the way,
that is not a good defense.
When you say that your guy was planning
to also kill the governor of California
based on his official duties.
Okay, so then the last part
of the defense is, well, okay.
[00:10:33]
Now this he was really upset
because of what Nancy Pelosi was saying
about Donald Trump, and he thought
he had to protect Donald Trump.
And she was saying that stuff in her
official duties as part of the Democratic
Party, not as speaker of the House.
So technically, it's not because of her.
[00:10:50]
No, that's not true at all.
She said it as speaker of the House.
She said it as a member of Congress
and as a member of the Democratic Party.
But look at what they're saying.
They're like, yes, he was trying to murder
her because he thought she offended
[00:11:06]
Donald Trump's feelings.
And then Trump turns around
and goes, oh, atta boy.
I'm going to keep spreading the conspiracy
theory that you that he was.
As a gay lover of Paul Pelosi
because he has no remorse,
he has no conscience, he has no humanity.
That's the kind of sick person
Donald Trump is.
[00:11:23]
That then unleashes these
other sicknesses into the world.
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