Paul Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi at Lincoln Center on April 23, 2019. Paul Pelosi was attacked on Friday morning at his San Francisco home.
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked on Friday morning.
Police identified David DePape, a 42-year-old Berkeley, California, resident as the suspect.
Online activity from DePape showed he espoused conspiratorial views, according to reports.
The suspected assailant of Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, espoused conspiracy theories online, including claims that COVID-19 was a ruse by global elites to take over the economy and that the 2020 election was stolen, according to several reports.
Authorities identified the suspect on Friday, the day of the attack, as David DePape, a 42-year-old Berkeley, California, resident. The San Francisco Police Department said DePape broke into the Pelosis’ home and assaulted Paul Pelosi with a hammer.
“This was not a random act,” said Police Chief Bill Scott. “This was intentional.”
DePape has a winding past that mysteriously leads up to an apparent fixation with extremist views, according to reports.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that after becoming estranged from his family in British Columbia, DePape eventually came to the Bay Area, at one point joining a nudist group and becoming a hemp jewelry maker. The newspaper also found that he was once registered as a member of the Green Party, which promotes environmentalism, social justice, and grassroots democracy.
But his latest political views and beliefs remain unclear as they may have taken a 180 based on more recent posts on a blog and social media account that appeared to belong to DePape and were viewed by some outlets before being taken down. Insider could not independently verify the posts.
Law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation told The Wall Street Journal that the suspect held extreme right-wing views on social media.
In 2021, DePape shared a string of dubious content on his Facebook page, including videos from the My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, alleging that the 2020 election was stolen, as well as content with transphobic images and links to websites claiming that COVID-19 vaccines are deadly, CNN reported.
The outlet also reported that he shared links to YouTube videos with titles such as “Democrat FARCE Commission to Investigate January 6th Capitol Riot COLLAPSES in Congress!!!” and “Global Elites Plan To Take Control Of YOUR Money! (Revealed).”
In addition, he shared content about a conspiracy theory claiming that global elites are using the pandemic as an excuse to take over the economy and control humanity, according to CNN. He once wrote that politicians “are offering you bribes in exchange for your further enslavement.”
Laura Hayes, an acquaintance who once made hemp jewelry with DePape and is friends with him on Facebook, told CNN his most recent posts were “so phobic in so many ways” and filled with “so much anger.”
DePape also seemed to find an outlet through personal blogs, with one registered under “david depape” and to a Bay Area zip code, NBC News reported.
Two of DePape’s websites identified by the Sacramento Bee contained posts on a myriad of topics from aliens, Jewish people, and communism, to vaccines and voter fraud.
One of the blogs had posts as recently as yesterday, the Bee reported.