(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Sai Varshith Kandula, a schizophrenic non-citizen from India, was sentenced to 96 months imprisonment on Thursday for crashing a U-Haul truck into a security barrier across from the White House in 2023—a half-baked plan that the Justice Department and liberal media used to inflate the right-wing terror threat.
Judge Dabney L. Friedrich’s sentence for Kandula was the same punishment sought by the Justice Department’s prosecutors, who claimed that he was a serious neo-Nazi who threatened democracy. The harsh sentence also came despite the fact that Kandula was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and that his so-called terrorist plot was motivated by severe mental illness.
“Formally, his offense meets the requirements for application of the terrorism guideline,” the defense attorneys admitted last September, before arguing: “But in substance, he’s no terrorist.
“He’s a 20-year-old with a serious but treatable mental illness, and a sentence of 10-16 months time-served with GPS monitoring, mandated treatment and therapy, and a requirement to reside with his parents will satisfy that which the law requires: a sentence sufficient but not greater than necessary to comply with the purposes of sentencing,” the attorneys argued—unsuccessfully.
Remember this? Court filings include pictures of when the suspect was arrested. The flag was still crumpled up, obscuring the swastika. Sure seems like someone (I wonder who?) unfurled the flag for propaganda purposes.
BTW, did I mention this guy has been sent to a psych hospital… https://t.co/Zbx7yMBdOn pic.twitter.com/glEH9cCZK1— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) November 18, 2024
Kandula acted on his delusions in May 2023, driving a U-Haul into the protective posts that separate the White House grounds from the sidewalk. After that, he stepped outside with the Nazi flag that would be plastered across mainstream news outlets for the next several days. It appears as though someone besides Kandula unfurled the flag for the world to see, as pictures of his arrest still show the Nazi flag folded in half to obscure the swastika.
“He has no time to unfurl it. He lays it on the ground, along with the black bag, raises his hands over his head, and lies prostrate on the sidewalk. Two officers approach and grab his wrists. They pull his arms behind his back. Sai yelps. He says, ‘please, please don’t hurt me.’ An officer asks if he has any weapons. He says, ‘no,’” his defense attorneys recounted.
Despite the obvious half-baked nature of Kandula’s plans, the DOJ and mainstream media used his actions to generate anti-Trump and anti-right-wing propaganda. Even after Kandula was formally diagnosed with schizophrenia earlier last year—as first reported by Headline USA—the DOJ repeated the claims that he was a serious Nazi who threatened democracy.
“Based on Defendant Sai Varshith Kandula’s stated aim to overthrow the democratically elected government of the United States, the aim to replace it with a dictatorship fueled by Nazi ideology, and his brazen attempt to gain access to the White House by crashing a large vehicle into the barriers protecting the White House, the government requests this Court sentence him to 96 months (eight years) of imprisonment,” prosecutors said in their Sept. 6 sentencing memorandum.
Kandula was also sentenced to 36 months of supervised release, restitution $56,727.00 and $100 special assessment. He’s expected to be deported upon his release.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
