Nancy Pelosi on Saturday evening said she was ‘heartbroken and traumatized’ by the pre-dawn attack on her husband Paul inside their San Francisco home, but said his ‘condition continues to improve.’
Paul Pelosi, the 82-year-old husband of the Speaker of the House, was violently assaulted by a hammer-wielding intruder in the early hours of Friday.
Nancy Pelosi was in Washington DC at the time and flew to California on Friday to be by his bedside.
On Saturday, she issued a statement thanking well-wishers for their support and praising the first responders who came to his aid.
‘Yesterday morning, a violent man broke into our family home, demanded to confront me and brutally attacked my husband Paul,’ she wrote, in a letter to her colleagues.
Nancy Pelosi is pictured in December 2019 at a dinner with her husband Paul. In the early hours of Friday an intruder broke into their home and attacked him with a hammer
‘Our children, our grandchildren and I are heartbroken and traumatized by the life-threatening attack on our Pop.
‘We are grateful for the quick response of law enforcement and emergency services, and for the life-saving medical care he is receiving.’
Pelosi said that her husband was grateful for the support he had received from politicians across the nation.
‘Please know that the outpouring of prayers and warm wishes from so many in the Congress is a comfort to our family and is helping Paul make progress with his recovery. His condition continues to improve,’ she wrote.
She concluded with a Biblical quotation, saying they had been ‘comforted by the words of the Book of Isaiah: “Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”’
Aerial footage showed broken panes and shatter glass at the backdoor of Pelosi’s home
FBI agents work outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where her husband Paul Pelosi was ‘violently assaulted’ after a break-in at their house
David DePape, 42, was identified as the man who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul with a hammer at their San Francisco home in the early hours of Friday morning
Joe Biden on Saturday said that the attack appeared to have been ‘intended for Nancy.’ He spent Friday evening condemning the political rhetoric that whipped up frenzied, disturbed individuals to take extreme action.
Biden said Pelosi ‘seems to be doing a lot better’ after surgery.
Pelosi’s attacker, 42-year-old David DePape, faces attempted murder charges. He is believed to have broken into the home around 2:30am, yelling: ‘Where’s Nancy?’ – a cry held on January 6 as rioters stormed the Capitol.
Pelosi’s son, Paul Jr, said on Saturday he was optimistic about his father’s chances of making a recovery.
‘So far so good, so far so good,’ he told Fox News Digital outside Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.
On Friday, Paul Jr was at the family home in San Francisco and thanked well-wishers for their support.
Joe Biden, seen on Saturday in Wilmington, Delaware with his granddaughter Natalie, said that he had heard Paul Pelosi ‘seems to be doing a lot better’ after surgery
Paul Pelosi Jr is seen on Saturday outside the San Francisco hospital where his father is recovering
Pelosi is seen on Friday near his parents’ house, and thanked well-wishers for their support
Nancy Pelosi’s spokesman on Friday said he had undergone surgery for his fractured skull and limbs, and was expected to make a full recovery.
‘Earlier this morning, Paul Pelosi was attacked at home by an assailant who acted with force, and threatened his life while demanding to see the Speaker,’ said Drew Hammill, spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi.
‘Mr Pelosi was admitted to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital where he underwent successful surgery to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands.
‘His doctors expect a full recovery.’
Police are yet to ascribe a motive for DePape’s attack, but online accounts illustrated a highly-disturbed and suicidal individual with hallucinations and far-Right fixations.
DePape’s daughter said her father is ‘consumed by darkness’ and sexually abused her and her brothers when they were children.
Inti Gonzalez blogged about him on Friday, writing in the post, which has since been taken down, that her mother met DePape – whom she describes as her father – in Maui when she was pregnant with her. The couple moved to the Bay Area soon after Gonzalez was born.
Her mother Oxane ‘Gypsy’ Taub, 53, is in prison on 2021 child abuse charges.
Oxane ‘Gypsy’ Taub, who once protested naked in front of San Francisco City Hall (above), was convicted in 2021 for child abuse after stalking and harassing a 14-year-old boy
Taub (right, pictured with Paul Pelosi attacker David DePape in 2013) was accused of sending messages to a former friend of her son, telling the minor that she wanted to date him and trying to lure him to meet with her secretly
Taub, pictured at a naked wedding ceremony by San Francisco City Hall, was arrested in 2019 and convicted of her crimes against the 14-year-old boy in 2021
The daughter of the man who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul with a hammer early Friday morning says that he’s ‘consumed by darkness’ and sexually abused both her and her brothers before their mother left him
Prosecutors said Taub, who once protested naked in front of San Francisco City Hall, had been stalking a 14-year-old boy, sending him emails and messages and trying to lure him to secretly meet with her.
DePape cut off contact with Taub and her children after he was he was kicked out of their home and living in a car, according to his online account.
On Saturday, The Washington Post reported on DePape’s own blog, which was filled with delusional thoughts.
The website was registered under the name ‘frenlyfriends.com’ – a term that is sometimes written as an acronym for Far Right Ethno-Nationalist.
The week before the attack, he wrote that an invisible fairy attacked an acquaintance, and sometimes appeared to him in the form of a bird.
DePape filled the blog – which has now been taken down – with dark and disturbing imagery. He published a drawing of the Devil kneeling and asking a caricature of a Jewish person to teach him the arts of ‘lying, deception, cheating and incitement.’ The Post reported.
Several posts contained lifelike images of rotting human flesh and blood, including a zombified Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton.
Others depict headless bodies against unsettling landscapes.
DePape wrote about playing video games at a library and spending hours meditating.
He wrote condemnations of transgender people, and diatribes against feminists, who he called ‘feminazis’. DePape said he was being targeted by law enforcement, and weighed in on the election.
‘No evidence of election fraud. Any journalist saying that should be dragged straight out into the street and shot,’ he wrote.
In another post, he shared an image of a fantasy miniature salamander he purchased on Etsy.
He wrote that he was looking to purchase a fairy house on Etsy but was frustrated that the doors were painted and so could not be used by a fairy.
‘They have lots of fairy houses but NONE of them are MADE for fairies,’ he wrote, according to the Post.
Four days before the attack, he shared images of a wooden birdhouse he said he had purchased for an invisible fairy he communicated with.
David DePape, the former nudist turned unhinged conspiracy theorist, who attacked Paul Pelosi inside his $6 million San Francisco home
DePape is a former nudist from British Columbia who has struggled with drugs and posts crazed COVID conspiracy theories, anti-Semitic rants, racist slurs and unhinged screeds about religion online.
Cops say were at the property in the exclusive Pacific Heights neighborhood when they saw the suspect grapple with Pelosi, take the hammer and then hit him with it, causing severe head, arm and hand injuries.
When they arrested Depape, they found a manifesto that contained anti-government COVID beliefs and a list of other politicians he planned to target, KTVU reported.
Pelosi was taken into surgery to repair a skull fracture after the attack but is expected to make a full recovery, while DePape is in custody and set to be charged with multiple felonies including attempted homicide.
President Joe Biden called the attack ‘horrible’ and Republican and Democrats condemned the violence as the House Speaker rushed from DC to San Francisco to be at her husband’s side.
DePape, right, is seen at a naked wedding on the steps of City Hall in December 2013
DePape would frequently post conspiratorial blog posts on his various website
Pelosi was taken into brain surgery after the attack but is expected to make a full recovery, while DePape is set to be charged with multiple felonies including attempted homicide. He is pictured with Nancy at the Time 100 Gala in 2019
DePape grew up north of the border but moved from British Columbia to California 20 years ago. He followed a love interest, his stepfather told CNN, and family members have insisted he was a ‘good kid’.
He ended up in the Berkeley area, an ultra-liberal enclave of the city, where he lived in a three-bedroom Victorian flat with famed nudist activist Gypsy Taub and a group who believed 9/11 was an ‘inside job’.
A November 2008 article in the Oakland Tribune reported that he had ‘three small children’ with Russian-born Taub. She was quoted in the article on community meals saying: ‘In Russia, where I am from, people share more, and I want my kids to grow up knowing sharing.’
Taub and her fiance Jaymz Smith tapped DePape to be their best man at their nudist wedding in 2013, but he stayed dressed and took photos during the ceremony that attracted a huge police presence.
An acquaintance of his told CNN that DePape was struggling with hard drugs about eight years ago but was ‘trying to create a new life for himself.’ She said she cut off contact with DePape after receiving ‘disturbing’ emails in which he sounded ‘dangerous’ and ‘out of touch with reality.’
His social media showed he posted conspiracy theories about the origins of the covid epidemic, about the validity of the 2020 election, and on the January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill.
He first began posting on a blog titled ‘God Is Loving’ in June 2007 with rambling screeds about religion. He stopped posting for 15 years – then suddenly started again on August 24 this year with racist, sexist, anti-Semitic and crazed entries about the Q-Anon conspiracy theory.
DePape is pictured with the bride, Gypsy Taub, at her wedding to Jaymz Smith in December 2013
Aerial footage showed broken panes and shatter glass at the backdoor of Pelosi’s home
The Pelosis own a four-bedroom San Francisco home that sits in the middle of her congressional district and was purchased in 2007 for $2.2 million but is thought to be worth at least $6 million now
He posted obscene versions of Disney songs from YouTube including one titled: ‘Do you want to **** a snowman?’ He posted a screed containing the n-word, and a post titled ‘This is what a dumb b***h looks like’. Others were titled: ‘Noah survived the collapse of Atlantis’, ‘Pedophile normalization’, ‘Facts are Racist’, ‘Communist Voodoo science’, ‘I’m not sexist’ and ‘Feminist gets owned’.
On a separate blog he set up called Frenly Frens, he wrote unhinged entries on how ‘Jews hate whites’, and several posts about Donald Trump, including one that said: ‘Trump you NEEEEEEEED to make Tulsi your VP in 2024.’
He defended former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, who was found guilty of killing George Floyd.
DePape called Chauvin’s trial ‘a modern lynching’ and falsely indicated that Floyd died of a drug overdose.
He also posted long screeds about religion, including claims that ‘Jesus is the anti christ.’ When DePaper broke into the Pelosis’ home, he was shouting ‘Where is Nancy? Where’s Nancy?’
