Kandula pleaded guilty on May 13, 2024, “to a charge of willful injury or depredation of property of the United States before U.S. District Court Judge Dabney L. Friedrich,” the DOJ press release said. Born in Chandanagar, India, Kandula was a lawful permanent resident of the U.S. with a green card, during the attack. He graduated from Marquette High School in Chesterfield, Missouri, in January 2022, David Morrison, a spokesman for the Rockwood School District in Eureka, Missouri told The Kansas City Star. He was pursuing a career in data analytics, according to a LinkedIn profile.
After his arrest, Kandula told the Secret Service agents that he flew on a one-way ticket from St. Louis to Washington, D.C. Shortly after arriving, he rented the U-Haul from a location near the airport and drove straight to the White House. He told the agents “he knew his chances of arrest were great, but that he wanted to get attention from agencies like the Secret Service,” news reports said at the time. He expressed admiration for Nazis and told agents he wanted to “get to the White House, seize power, and be put in charge of the nation.”
After crashing the U-Haul into the barriers protecting White House and President’s Park, Kandula exited the vehicle and went to the back of the truck. From a backpack he removed a flag, “a three-by-five foot red-and-white banner with a Nazi Swastika in the center, and brandished it,” the DOJ said. He admitted to investigators that he would have arranged for the killing of the U.S. President and others if necessary to achieve his objective, the DOJ said. “His actions were calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, and caused $4,322 in damage to the National Park Service,” the DOJ added.
Kandula had planned the attack for several weeks. Prior to renting the truck and crashing it on White House grounds, he made several attempts to gain access to vehicles or armed security guards. On April 22, 2023, “Kandula requested 25 armed guards and an armored convoy from a security company located in Virginia,” the DOJ said. On May 4, 2023, he “attempted to contact several other companies in an attempt to rent a large commercial tractor-trailer truck, a dump truck, or another large truck.,” the department added. But he was unsuccessful in his efforts,
In addition to the prison term, the court has ordered Kandula to serve three years of supervised release.
source : american kahani