A Missouri man is facing nearly a decade of jail time after attempting a 2023 attack on the White House with a rented box truck.

Sai Varshith Kandula, 20, of St. Louis, was sentenced Jan. 16 in U.S. District Court to eight years in federal prison for an attempted attack on the White House with a rented U-Haul truck May 22, 2023.

The attack “aimed to overthrow the democratically elected government of the United States in order to replace it with a dictatorship fueled by Nazi ideology,” according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C.

Sai Varshith Kandula was arrested and charged after hitting a barrier in Lafayette Square in May 2023. (Chris Zaboji/Locla News X/TMX)

U.S. Park Police and Secret Service officers arrested Kandula, according to the attorney’s office.

At the time of the crash, he was attempting to gain access to the White House to seize political power, according to the plea agreement. 

“Kandula’s intent was to replace the democratically elected government with a dictatorship fueled by [the] ideology of Nazi Germany and for himself to be put in charge of the United States,” according to the statement. 

U.S. Park Police and Secret Service officers arrested Kandula. (iStock)

Kandula planned the attack for several weeks, according to authorities. 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 unsuccessfully requested 25 armed guards and an armored convoy from a Virginia security company, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Weeks later, 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.

“Kandula had attempted to arrange for the services of these security guards and the use of large vehicles in order to carry out his offense against the U.S. government,” officials said. “His actions were calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion.”

Kandula told investigators he would have arranged for the killing of former President Joe Biden. (Associated Press, File)

He admitted to investigators that he would have arranged for the killing of former President Joe Biden and others, if necessary, to achieve his objective, authorities noted.

The crash caused $4,322 in damage to the National Park Service, according to prosecutors. The total cost included repairing the metal bollard barriers to their original condition and ensuring structural soundness, oil and chemical removal, spill cleanup and disposal of fluids from the crashed U-Haul.

The case was investigated by the Secret Service, the FBI’s Washington field office, the U.S. Park Police and the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia.