The FBI arrested a man on Thursday who investigators believe planted pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the 2021 US Capitol riot, according to two law enforcement sources.
The arrest follows an almost five-year investigation to uncover the identity of the bomber who has only been seen in grainy surveillance video shrouded in a hoodie, gloves and a face mask.
Video clips previously released by the FBI showed an individual placing a bomb outside the DNC headquarters and another in an alley behind the RNC building, both just a few blocks away from the US Capitol. Then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris came within 20 feet of the bomb at the DNC the next morning, and its discovery diverted police away from the violence unfolding at the Capitol.
The FBI has said the bombs were viable and capable of harming anyone near them if they had exploded. The discovery of the bombs drew police from the Capitol complex, before crowds of President Donald Trump supporters began breaking through police cordons to attack the Capitol building.
The timing has helped drive conspiracies about the bombing suspect and a possible connection to the riot.
Investigators reviewed tens of thousands of video files, hundreds of tips and scoured cell phone tower data. They examined data on sales of black and gray Nike Air Max sneakers worn by the suspect – fewer than 25,000 of the shoes had been sold around the time the bombs were placed.
They were thwarted by a number of challenges, including poor surveillance video quality. Given the pandemic era when face masks were common and a cold winter night, the bomber didn’t seem remarkable to any witnesses.
The FBI had offered a $500,000 reward for information that helped investigators identity the person and conducted a thousand interviews, but it still struggled for years to determine who placed the crude bombs on January 5, 2021, the night before then-President Donald Trump would make his last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Both bombs were discovered 15 hours after they were placed, giving the suspect plenty of time to leave the area without being detected, investigators have said.
The investigation faced new scrutiny under the Trump administration, as some allies of the president have fixated on the pipe bomber’s identity as potential proof that the January 6 riot at the US Capitol was an “inside job.” One of those allies, Dan Bongino, is now the deputy director of the FBI.
Before taking the FBI job, Bongino said on his podcast, “I believe the FBI knows the identity of this pipe bomber on January 6, four years ago, and just doesn’t wanna tell us ‘cause it was an inside job.” He also suggested that if the “inside job” allegation were proven to be true, the FBI would claim the bombs were a “training exercise.”
Bongino has continued to focus on the pipe bomb case since arriving at the FBI, sources told CNN. In a Fox News interview soon after taking the job, he said, “I’m pretty confident that we’re closing in on some suspects.” That wasn’t exactly true then, people briefed on matter told CNN at the time. Some leads that had developed didn’t pan out.
But in the months since, investigators produced additional leads that were more promising. Just last month, Bongino touted in a social media post on X that the bureau had increased investigative resources, flown in “police officers and detectives” to review the FBI’s previous investigative work, and conducted internal reviews.
The-CNN-Wire
