Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Court documents released Tuesday revealed that the 19-year-old driver who deliberately crashed a truck into a barrier near the White House he told authorities he wanted to “seize power and kill the president” Joe Biden.
A Secret Service agent noted in a statement of fact filed in federal district court in Washington DC that Sai Varshith Kandula, of Chesterfield, Missouri, rented a U-Haul truck Monday night immediately after flying from St. Louis to Dulles International Airport on a one-way ticket.
The statement was included in a criminal complaint charging Kandula with depreciation of United States property of more than $1,000.
At around 9:35 p.m. Monday, the young man drove the vehicle onto a sidewalk outside the White House and into a metal barrier just north of the building. Kandula put the truck in reverse and hit the barrier a second time before he was pulled over by United States Park Police officers.
When Secret Service agents asked Kandula about a swastika flag she pulled from a backpack, she allegedly said she bought it online because Nazis ‘have a great history’according to the court document.
The document also states that the young man said that he admired the Nazis’ “authoritarian nature, eugenics and their unique world order” and identified Hitler as a “strong leader” whom he admired.
Kandula added to the authorities that he had been planning the attack for six months and detailed the plans in a “green paper,” the document says.
“He stated that his goal was ‘to enter the White House, seize power and be put in charge of the nation.’ When the agents asked him how Kandula would take power, he said that ‘I’d kill the president if that’s what I had to do and hurt anyone who got in my way’”add the documentation.
Kandula was a member of the sizable South Asian population of Chesterfield, a middle-class suburb about 20 miles west of St. Louis.
Kandula appeared in Washington DC Superior Court on Tuesday and is expected to make an initial appearance in federal court on Wednesday afternoon.
Keep reading:
• Arrested a 19-year-old boy who ran into barriers near the White House
• Driver of the truck that crashed near the White House was wearing a Nazi flag
• Biden believes a debt ceiling deal can be reached