The trial of the man who attacked Speaker Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, is slated to begin Thursday. Jury selection, which has been a topic of dispute in the case, has already begun.

The alleged attacker, David DePape, pleaded not guilty to charges including attempted murder and assault after he allegedly broke into the Pelosi home last year and attacked Mr. Pelosi with a hammer.

Attorneys for Mr. DePape attempted to move the trial to Eureka, California, from San Francisco, citing the fact that Ms. Pelosi has represented the city for decades.

“Nancy Pelosi has served as a Congressperson representing various districts within the City of San Francisco since 1987,” a court filing arguing for moving the trial reads. “Objective data support the common-sense intuition that Pelosi is an extremely prominent and popular figure in the Bay Area.”

Mr. DePape’s attorneys argued that he wouldn’t be able to get a fair trial at the federal court at San Francisco due to the high profile of the case. Judge Jacquiline Scott Corley ruled against moving the case, though saying that potential jurors at Eureka would also be aware of the “notorious national case.”

A public defender representing Mr. DePape, Jodi Linkler, has criticized local press outlets for covering Mr. DePape’s political opinions, writing in a filing that they have “focused on Mr. DePape’s allegedly bigoted political beliefs, further poisoning the well in the Bay Area.”

In a police interview from 2022, Mr. DePape told investigators that he wanted to hold Ms. Pelosi hostage and was “going to break her calves” if she did not walk back statements she made about President Trump.

Reports from outlets including Politico and PBS have also found that Mr. DePape would rant about aliens, communists, religious minorities, and Q-Anon in blog posts online. The website hosting the posts has since been removed by WordPress for violating the company’s terms of service.