Man pleads guilty to driving truck into White House fence

The truck crashed just a few hundred feet (meters) from the White House (Daniel SLIM)
The truck crashed just a few hundred feet (meters) from the White House (Daniel SLIM)

A 20-year-old man from Missouri pleaded guilty on Monday to crashing a rented truck into a White House fence in a quixotic bid to "seize political power."

Sai Varshith Kandula drove a U-haul truck into a fence surrounding the White House in May of last year.

Kandula was arrested by Park Police and Secret Service officers after exiting the vehicle and waving a Nazi flag.

He pleaded guilty to a charge of willful injury and destruction of property, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia said in a statement.

Kandula, who was born in Chandanagar, India, and was living in the midwestern state of Missouri on a green card, is to be sentenced on August 23.

According to his plea agreement, Kandula was "attempting to gain access to the White House to seize political power.

It added: "Kandula's intent was to replace the democratically elected government with a dictatorship fueled by ideology of Nazi Germany and for himself to be put in charge of the United States."

cl/dw