It's a traumatic night that's hard for Paul Pelosi to discuss.
Testifying in court about Oct. 28, 2022, Pelosi recalled the attack when he came face-to-face with a hammer-clutching intruder named David DePape. The man was allegedly determined to execute his wife, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said the DailyMail.
“We had some conversation with him saying she was the leader of the pack, he had to take her out, and that he was going to wait for her," the 83-year-old recounted on Monday, disclosing the confrontation publicly for the first time. It was just the second day of DePape's trial, and Pelosi said that he hadn't spoken about it because it was "too traumatic."
Prosecutors in the case argue that DePape attacked Paul Pelosi with the hammer only days before that year’s midterm elections.
The former Speaker's husband of 60 years later underwent surgery to mend a skull fracture, while also dealing with right arm and hand wounds.
The defendant's attorney, Jodi Linker, spoke to jurors last week in the opening statements, saying her client wouldn't contest that her 43-year-old client committed the attack, but that he felt “with every ounce of his being" that he was stopping government corruption and the child abuse committed by both politicians and actors.
DePape's lawyers have refused to use an insanity defense, which requires a defendant to be psychologically tested to see if he knows between right and wrong. In this case, the lawyer is claiming that DePape was convinced of QAnon conspiracies. The one cited was also a reason that a gunman showed up at a Washington, D.C. pizza place demanding to be shown where the children were in the basement.
The attacker there was sentenced to four years and never physically assaulted anyone. The QAnon excuse didn't work for him in court.
Pelosi testified that he had returned home from a dinner at around 10:30 p.m. and planned to go to bed like any other night after dinner.
"I tend to watch little television, maybe one of the late shows, then go to bed," he said, noting that the alarm system with motion sensors wasn't in use while he was home.
CCTV footage showed DePape lurking around Pelosi's San Francisco home around that time.
He remembered seeing his bedroom door open and a "very, very large man" enter carrying a hammer and ties in his other hand.
“Where’s Nancy,” the man said, according to Pelosi.
The rattled husband informed the intruder that his wife was in D.C. That prompted the man — later identified by authorities as DePape — to say he would patiently wait for her.
“It was a tremendous shock to recognize that somebody had broken into the house, and looking at him and looking at the hammer and the ties, I recognized that I was in serious danger, so I tried to stay as calm as possible,” he said.
That involved a conversation with DePape.
“We had some conversation with him saying she was the leader of the pack, he had to take her out, and that he was going to wait for her,” Paul Pelosi said, noting that DePape told him he would "tie you up."
The defendant, who lived in a Bay Area garage and worked some odd carpentry jobs, told authorities he had other targets in his sights, including a women’s and queer studies professor, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, actor Tom Hanks, and Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
