A U-Haul truck smashed into security barriers near the White House. The truck contained a Nazi flag, which was carefully placed on the ground by the officers to ensure that the media could see it.
The driver was initially charged with assault, trespassing, and using a weapon dangerously against the president or vice president. But the Nazi flag gave social media pundits a reason to call him a white supremacist.
The driver of the UHaul, identified as Sai Varshith Kandula was not a white supremacist. The Department of Justice, in response to speculation that this incident was staged by a third party, has now downgraded its original charges. Kandula is no longer charged with threatening the vice president or president. He now faces only a single charge of depredation against the property of the United States.
Was this attack an accident? It wasn’t. Witnesses say Kandula rammed the barricade twice, after hitting it once. According to The New York Post Kandula claims to have planned the attack over months. I’m skeptical of this claim. He also says that his goal is to “get into the White House and seize power.”
Kandula is reported to have said, “Kill President if that’s all I can do”, and praised Nazism.
Kandula’s mental illness is evident if he believed he would be able to capture the White House and become the leader of the country. In retrospect, the media’s hysterical attempt to portray the driver as a “white supremacist attack” by a right-wing extremist seems a bit foolish. He had no plan, despite what he claimed. He’s crazy. The story is over. That doesn’t make him any less dangerous. The threats he made were serious enough to warrant the charges that he was initially facing.
Why is the DOJ acting like this incident was simply property damage? Kandula’s not a U.S. Citizen? Is it that he is clearly insane? It’s difficult to ignore the suspicions that have been raised in the past about this incident and the bizarre efforts made by law enforcement to ensure the Nazi flag is clearly seen by the media.
