Indian national Sai Varshith Kandula, 20, was sentenced to eight years in prison on Thursday for attempting an attack on the White House using a rented truck on May 22, 2023.
According to the Department of Justice, Kandula aimed to overthrow the democratically elected U.S. government and replace it with a dictatorship inspired by Nazi ideology.
Kandula pleaded guilty on May 13, 2024, to the charge of willful injury or depredation of U.S. property. Born in Chandanagar, Hyderabad, he was a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. with a green card. In addition to his prison sentence, District Court Judge Dabney L. Friedrich also sentenced him to three years of supervised release.
On the afternoon of May 22, 2023, Kandula flew from St. Louis, Missouri, to Washington, D.C., on a one-way airline ticket. After connecting through another airport, he arrived at Dulles International Airport around 5:20 p.m. and rented a truck at 6:30 p.m.
After stopping for food and fuel, Kandula drove to Washington, D.C., where he deliberately crashed the truck into the barriers near the White House and the President’s Park at approximately 9:35 p.m., near the intersection of H Street Northwest and 16th Street Northwest. He drove onto the sidewalk, causing pedestrians to flee the scene. Upon striking the barriers, he reversed and then accelerated forward, hitting the metal barriers a second time. This second impact disabled the truck, which began emitting smoke from the engine compartment and leaking fluids.
After crashing the truck, Kandula exited the vehicle and proceeded to the rear, where he retrieved a three-by-five-foot red-and-white flag featuring a Nazi Swastika from his backpack and brandished it. Officers from the U.S. Park Police and the U.S. Secret Service promptly arrested him at the scene, as confirmed by the Department of Justice.
According to the plea agreement, Kandula intended to breach the White House perimeter to seize political power. His objective was to replace the democratically elected government with a dictatorship inspired by Nazi Germany, positioning himself as the leader of the United States. Kandula admitted to investigators that he was prepared to arrange for the assassination of the U.S. President and others if necessary to achieve his goal. The Department of Justice noted that his actions were aimed at influencing or disrupting the government through intimidation and coercion.
The Department of Justice further reported that Kandula’s actions resulted in $4,322 in damages to the National Park Service, including costs for repairing the metal bollard barriers, restoring structural soundness, oil and chemical removal, spill cleanup, and fluid disposal from the damaged U-Haul truck.
Investigations revealed that Kandula had been planning the attack for several weeks. Prior to renting the truck and executing the crash, he made multiple attempts to acquire vehicles and armed security personnel. For instance, on April 22, 2023, he requested 25 armed guards and an armored convoy from a Virginia-based security company, as disclosed by federal prosecutors.
On May 4, 2023, Kandula also attempted to contact other companies in an effort to rent large commercial vehicles such as a tractor-trailer or a dump truck but was unsuccessful. He had sought both security personnel and the use of heavy vehicles as part of his strategy to carry out his attack against the U.S. government, according to a media release.
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