Pelosi attacker radicalized by hateful troll who made him think schools are “pedophile factories”

David DePape, the man accused of attacking Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer on October 28, 2022, took the stand in his own federal trial this week and said that he was hoping to lure a queer and feminist studies professor to the Pelosi household with the attack.

Shortly after DePape attacked Pelosi, conservatives spread a conspiracy theory that DePape and Paul Pelosi were actually lovers. Prominent conservatives like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Twitter CEO Elon Musk, and Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) spread the myth in an attempt to deflect attention away from more likely reasons for an attack on the husband of one of the most prominent Democrats in the country.

Related: Anti-LGBTQ activist begs followers to bail out Pelosi attacker to prove that he’s gay

He said that anyone who gets the alleged attacker out of jail would be “a midterm hero.”

That is, to stop speculation that the attack was politically motivated, they wanted to make it seem like it was a personal matter. That they could call Paul Pelosi gay and blame another supposedly gay person for a senseless act of violence just made the conspiracy theory harder for them to resist.

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But DePape isn’t doing anything to support it on the witness stand, telling the jury that he broke into the Pelosi home and surprised Paul Pelosi while he was in bed.

“We kinda had a good rapport going,” DePape said. “He was an amiable gentleman. We had a good rapport going, and I kinda trusted him.”

He only hit Paul Pelosi after police arrived. DePape said that he hit him once with his hammer; bodycam footage shows him hitting the 82-year-old three times.

DePape explained that he broke into the Pelosi home in order to lure University of Michigan anthropology and women’s studies professor Gayle Rubin to their house. Rubin’s research, according to her professional bio, focuses on LGBTQ+ studies, gay and lesbian ethnography, sexual populations and geographies, sexology, and feminist theory. She is known for her 1984 essay “Thinking Sex,” which is considered a founding text of queer theory.

“Paul was never a target,” DePape said in court, explaining that he was only using the Pelosis “to get to my other targets” and that he “felt really bad for” Paul Pelosi.

He explained that he spent six hours a day watching political commentary on YouTube before he was arrested, where he learned that “everything was a lie coming from the press.” He listed off common rightwing grievances, according to NBC News, to explain why he broke into the home.

Then he heard about Rubin from anti-LGBTQ+ activist James Lindsay, who is the same person who claims to have popularized the “groomer” slur against LGBTQ+ people. DePape said that he regularly listened to Lindsay’s podcast.

“The takeaway I got is that she wants to turn our schools into pedophile molestation factories,” DePape said.

DePape said that, after Rubin, he wanted to attack California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, who has been at the center of rightwing conspiracy theories for years.

“The grand plan was to expose everything at the end with Hunter Biden,” DePape said.

Rubin also testified and said that she was informed by the FBI shortly after the attack last year that she was the main target. She said that the university took steps to increase security for her and those around her. She explained that conservatives often misconstrue some of her writings in order to attack LGBTQ+ people.

On X, Lindsay acknowledged that DePape said he was a fan but did not appear contrite.

“Oh, here we go!” he wrote, before spending the rest of the day attacking feminists on the platform and calling people groomers.

DePape is charged with attempted kidnapping of a federal officer or employee and assault of an immediate family member of a federal official in federal court. He could get sentenced to decades in prison on those charges.

DePape has also pled not guilty to charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, residential burglary, and several other felonies.

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