Paul Pelosi describes the night he was attacked at home

It was a typically quiet evening for Paul Pelosi while his wife was out of town: out to dinner, home around 10 p.m., watching a little TV, then lights out at midnight. About two hours later, he was awakened by an intruder bursting into his third-floor bedroom.

“The door opened and a very large man walked in with a hammer in one hand and a pair of ties in the other,” Pelosi, 83, told a jury Monday. “And he said, ‘Where’s Nancy?'”

In a San Francisco courtroom, Mr. Pelosi, the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, spoke publicly for the first time about the brutal attack last year that left him hospitalized for days with a cracked skull. The testimony came during the federal trial of David DePape, who was accused of crushing Mr. Pelosi while he sought out Ms. Pelosi, who was the Speaker of the House of Representatives and in Washington at the time.

Mr. DePape told police last year that he was on a mission to capture Ms. Pelosi, interrogate her and possibly “break her kneecaps.” He also said he saw Ms. Pelosi as a leader of a cabal of liberal elites bent on taking away people’s freedoms, echoing the language right-wing pundits and elected officials have used to describe her for years.

“She was the leader of the pack and he had to take her out,” Mr. Pelosi said the intruder told him.

Sitting across the room from the man accused of attacking him with a hammer, Mr. Pelosi calmly and collectedly recounted the incident. But his voice trembled as he spoke of the lingering trauma.

“I did my very best not to relive this,” Mr. Pelosi said on the witness stand. He said he did not listen to the 911 call that night, nor did he watch the videos presented as evidence. Aside from his interviews with prosecutors, “I have not discussed this incident with anyone,” he said, adding that the episode was “so traumatic for my family.”

In his testimony, Mr. Pelosi, a venture capitalist and real estate investor, recounted the chronology of those early morning hours of October 28, 2022 – from the moment an intruder burst into his bedroom; on his surreptitious call to 911 from his bathroom, speaking in code so as not to annoy the man who threatened him; until he opened the door for the police, just before he said Mr. DePape hit him with the hammer.

Laura Vartain Horn, prosecuting, asked him what he remembered after being knocked down.

“Wake up in a pool of blood,” Mr. Pelosi responded.

Mr. DePape’s personal history and alleged crimes are, for many, a reflection of America’s polarized age and the disinformation that fueled it: He was a lonely man seemingly radicalized by the dark corners of the Internet, which not only peddled conspiracy theories as QAnon and Pizzagate embraced the “Democratic elite,” but also acted violently towards them.

Mr. DePape’s lawyers, who are set to present their case on Tuesday, have said they will not contest the evidence against him, much of which has already been released to the public during the legal process. The attack was captured on police body cameras, and Mr. DePape, 43, admitted to the crimes in an interview with police and a phone call to a local reporter in jail.

Mr. DePape is charged with two crimes: assault on an immediate family member of a federal official and attempted kidnapping of a federal official. If convicted, he could face life in prison.

His lawyers have drawn up a defense strategy based on limited legal grounds. In her opening statement on Thursday, Jodi Linker, a federal public defender, argued that federal charges should not apply because of Mr. DePape’s motivation for carrying out the attack. She said he was not acting because of Ms. Pelosi’s official duties as a member of Congress, but rather focused on a larger conspiracy in which he planned to use Ms. Pelosi to lure other liberal figures he believed were responsible for pedophilia, corruption and destruction. freedom in America.

Mr. DePape told police after his arrest that he had a list of other targets, including the actor Tom Hanks; the billionaire George Soros; Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California; and Adam Schiff, the Democratic congressman from California who rose to prominence for his starring role in the first impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump.

Shortly after the attack last year, Mrs. Pelosi announced she was stepping down from Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives. She later said she would seek re-election next year.

Mr. DePape also faces multiple felony charges in state court, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and elder abuse. The next hearing in that case is scheduled for Nov. 29, when a judge is expected to set a trial date.

Before calling Mr. Pelosi as the day’s final witness, the administration called several law enforcement officials to testify, including a Capitol Police supervisor who was a longtime member of Ms. Pelosi’s security detail. An executive at Spokeo, a company that maintains a subscription database of information on individuals, also testified that Mr. DePape had searched for Ms. Pelosi’s San Francisco address in the days before the attack.

Mr. Pelosi said he was still undergoing physical therapy and in pain from the attack. For most of the past year he has worn hats and caps everywhere he goes. His hair has only just grown back, but he still has bumps on his head from being beaten. “When I move my fingers, I can still feel them,” he said.

Doctors have told him to be careful with light and noise, and to avoid the news. If he has to watch television, they told him to stick to sports.

“I tried to put it out of my mind,” he told the jury.