Who is David DePape?

by Jacob Fuller

Lauren C. Moye, FISM News

 

After making headlines for attacking Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer, media accounts of the history of assailant David DePape, 42, are surprisingly bare. Maybe that’s because all the facts don’t support the initial bandwagon that DePape is a right-wing conspiracist nut who violently attacked the Pelosis out of political hatred.

Mainstream media has jumped on the fact that DePape’s social media shows he believed that the 2020 election was stolen, which is often referred to as the “Big Lie” by Democrats and used as a tactic to discredit their political opposition and tie them to the Jan. 6 riot that breached the Capitol Building.

However, the legacy media has largely ignored several other facts, including that DePape also promoted that 9/11 was an insider conspiracy, likely because this belief is not so easily pinned to a connection with Republicans. In fact, a 2006 report by Politico cited a poll in which more than half of Democrat respondents believed the federal government either participated in or knowingly allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen.

DePape’s blog, which was taken down on Friday for an unspecified reason, also included posts saying that “Jesus is the anti-Christ,” sharing anti-vaccine threads, and videos of altered Disney films that show the characters swearing.

In short, DePape isn’t exactly the poster boy for right-wing extremism. In fact, a Saturday NBC News article summarized DePape’s views as “far-reaching and at times contradictory political positions.”

What is known of DePape’s history hints that he’s struggled with mental health disorders and drug abuse, characterized by unsteady personal relationships and bouts of homelessness. If DePape’s political opinions are mixed and sometimes contradictory, so are the character portraits of this man that have also emerged in the aftermath of the attack.

Another former neighbor named Linda Schneider described him to local news media Kron4 as “excessively shy” and with a “history of not being able to communicate.”

According to CNN, who also interviewed Schneider, she knew DePape around 8 years ago in 2014. At the time, he was homeless and estranged from his family.

This fits with a timeline presented by another character witness: DePape’s 21-year-old daughter Inti Gonzalez.

Gonzalez told NBC News that her mother kicked DePape out when she was 13, also around the year 2014. Yet she expressed shock at the attack and described her father as being partly “a good person” who wanted to help people despite being “very consumed by darkness.”

Gonzalez reported being out of touch with her father for years until she recently reached out to check in on him.

Meanwhile, Schneider hinted that DePape was more of a follower than a leader. Ultimately, drug usage caused her to distance herself from the man.

Yet the shy DePape who reportedly had trouble speaking to a bank clerk in 2014 also had a prior history as a nudist advocate.

DePape picketed without clothes in defiance of local ordination. He was romantically involved with the outspoken California nudist named Oxane “Gypsy” Taub.

Around age 22, DePape left his home in British Columbia to follow the older Taub to San Francisco. They had two children together according to his stepfather, Gene DePape.

Taub also liked to promote conspiracy theories and was known for promoting the 9/11 conspiracy theory on her talk show.

In 2013, however, Taub married another man, and DePape was seen at this wedding. A Chronicle article from the same period described DePape as a “hemp jewelry maker” who still shared a Berkley, California residence with Taub.

Taub was ultimately convicted of child abduction and stalking in 2021 and is currently in prison.

However, the former Berkley residence at 1526 Woolsey Street shows another contradiction between the DePape from back then and the violent rightwing extremist that Democrats want to portray him as. As noted by journalist Michael Shellenberger, this residence has stereotypical signs of extreme leftwing beliefs, such as a rainbow flag with a marijuana leaf hanging from a tree and a Black Lives Matter sign on the window.

A Google Maps image confirms the home and bus depicted in Durden’s investigative report do match that address.

CNN also reported that David DePape posted anti-LGTB content on a website just in the past few weeks. However, they did say they could not confirm that the DePape arrested for attacking Pelosi is the same DePape who wrote the content.

What should be most concerning is that yet another witness describes DePape as not “making eye contact very well.” This same former neighbor, Laura Hayes, told CNN that the man “talks to angels.”

DePape invaded the Pelosi home on Oct. 28 and subsequently attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer. The elderly man is expected to make a full recovery after surgery to repair his skull over the weekend.

DePape’s motivation still remains unknown.

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