Putting David DePape, Paul Pelosi's attacker, on the witness stand wasn't a great idea. But it was the only thing DePape's defense had. He has admitted, even bragged, about his attempted murder of Nancy Pelosi's husband last year at the couple's home in San Francisco. Predictably enough, on the witness stand DePape rambled on about the conspiracy theories he believed, telling the jury that he worshiped Donald Trump and believed every cockamamie nugget of disinformation churned out by the MAGA media ecosystem. DePape was captured on video smashing Paul Pelosi's head with a hammer, and has repeatedly admitted he went to the Pelosi house that night in hopes of kidnapping the then-speaker of the House and forcing her to endorse Trump's false claims about the 2020 election lies. This was a Hail Mary move from DePape's lawyers, at best, built on the dubious premise that he'd seem too delusional to be a full-blown domestic terrorist.
In other words, conspiracy theories got DePape into this situation, and he hoped conspiracy theories would get him out. It didn't work. The jury found DePape, whose far-right radicalization goes all the way back to Gamergate in 2014, guilty on all charges.
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This "I believed a conspiracy theory" defense shouldn't come as a big surprise. Outside the courtroom, Trump and his acolytes have relied heavily on conspiracy theories to deflect blame for their role in inspiring DePape's murderous rage. Within hours of the attack on Paul Pelosi,...
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