Prosecutors grapple with alternate reality defense in Paul Pelosi trial

The man who attacked the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi came armed with a hammer, zip ties and fevered delusions about her role in a make-believe plot by elites to destroy the nation.

Now, facing trial a year later, the 43-year-old Canadian’s lawyers are trying to beat serious felony charges on a technicality — arguing that he wasn’t interfering with Pelosi’s role in Congress when he broke into the couple’s home demanding to know “Where’s Nancy?” and striking her elderly husband in the head with a hammer.

Instead, David DePape’s attorneys say, he sought to hold her captive over her “wholly unrelated” role in a bizarre conspiracy theory. They are effectively claiming that he was living in an alternate reality where her role as speaker of the House did not factor into his thinking.