Paul Pelosi’s attacker told cops he bludgeoned the politician’s husband with a hammer in a bid to fight “tyranny” — bizarrely comparing himself to a “Founding Father” and ranting about the “stolen election” in a bonkers police interview released Friday.
“It’s like the Founding Fathers, they fought the British. They fought the tyranny; they didn’t just f–king turn into it,” David DePape told a San Francisco police officer during an interview after his arrest in October.
“And when I left my house, I went to fight tyranny, I did not leave to surrender,” he said. “I’m not going to surrender — I’m here for the fight.”
DePape, 42, said he wrestled the hammer away from Pelosi and struck him in the head several times because the 82-year-old stood in the way of his delusional mission to save America from a corrupt conspiracy led by Democrats.
“If you stop me from going after evil, you will take the punishment instead,” he said.
Early in the interview, DePape confessed to attacking former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, telling the officer, “I’m not trying to get away with this. I know exactly what I did.”
He said he broke into the Pelosi residence by slamming through a lower-level glass door to tie up Nancy Pelosi, hold her “hostage” and force her to “tell the truth” about President Joe Biden’s “stolen election” — but that her husband was never part of the plot.
“He was not my target, I even told him that,” DePape said, adding that he eventually wanted to leave him and take a nap.
“[Paul Pelosi] was asking me … ‘So what do you want to do?’ I was like, ‘Can I tie you up? I just want to f–king go to sleep.’”
But the break-in went south after police arrived and the men began wrestling for the hammer, leading him DePape to quickly swing at Pelosi’s head with full force, according to police body camera footage released Friday.
The incident, which unfolded in just seconds, left Pelosi unconscious with a fractured skull in a pool of his own blood.
Asked during the interview why he intended to target Nancy Pelosi, DePape said she had wronged the “entire American public” by “submitting fake evidence to spy on [Trump’s] rival campaign.”
“It originates with Hillary [Clinton] but, like, Pelosi ran with the lie,” he said. “[Democrats] go from one crime to another crime … until they were finally able to steal the election.”
He called the imaginary scandal worse than Watergate and said he wanted Pelosi to admit to it.
“I was basically going to hold her hostage and I was going to talk to her in the basement,” he said. “If she told the truth, I would let her go scot-free.”
He said much of the interaction with Paul Pelosi was tame, including time they spent talking in the couple’s bedroom and bathroom — until he called 911.
“He’s pushing me into a corner where I have to do something,” he said of the police call. “[I] explain to him, like, you know I have other targets and I can’t be stopped by him,” he said. “If I have to go through him, I will.”
DePape was also asked during the interview why he didn’t leave the home after he saw Pelosi call 911.
“It’s like, I didn’t come here to surrender,” he said.