Congress Probes FBI’s Failed Investigation Of J6 Pipe Bomb Case

The FBI had thousands of employees aggressively investigating the happenings in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but it seems to have given up on finding out who planted two pipe bombs, one outside of the Democratic National Committee and the other outside the Republican National Committee.

It has multiple videos of the would-be bomber, has identified the style of shoe worn (Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers), and the path the suspect walked through the city. But the FBI has made no arrest and appears to have given up on promising leads.

That is according to a report released in January by the House Subcommittee on Oversight, “Examining the State of the Investigation into the RNC and DNC Pipe Bombs.”

The bombs were placed on Jan. 5, and were discovered more than 16 hours later, on Jan. 6, minutes before Congress voted to certify the 2020 presidential election.

Soon after Jan. 6, the FBI issued a “geofence warrant” to major cell phone companies in an effort to identify devices that were in the vicinity of the DNC and RNC on Jan. 5, the report shows. The geofence warrant  allows law enforcement to identify people inside a geographical area by collecting cellular data associated with their electronic devices.

From that information, the FBI began identifying “devices of interest” that appeared near the suspected bomber’s location on Jan. 5.

Next, the FBI went about finding the names associated with these devices. In the first two weeks of the investigation, the FBI identified eleven devices of interest from the geofence warrant and the names of possible owners of seven of these devices. Of those, five were eliminated as suspects.

It also got data from major cell phone companies and by early February had 186 phone numbers of interest. The report details how the FBI narrowed the field to three and ultimately one suspect. The research team requested the FBI’s Special Operations Group conduct surveillance on the person of interest.

“It ultimately remains unclear what happened to this lead; however, the allocation of resources for surveillance purposes suggests [it was…] a significant lead,” the report said. “The FBI’s efforts to collect and analyze a significant amount of data yielded credible leads. The data the FBI collected and analyzed provided information about a user’s location, search history, and internet activity — enabling the FBI to narrow in on individuals whose behavior or movements appeared suspicious. Despite the information available to the FBI through these investigative means, the suspect remains at large nearly four years later.”

Congressional Oversight

Now the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is pressuring the FBI to cough up investigative information, and it has requested similar information from the major phone companies. They want answers to a glaring discrepancy.

In June 2023, Steven D’Antuono, the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the official leading the pipe bomb investigation, testified to Congress that the FBI received “corrupted” data from “one of the [cellular] providers.” He could not recall which provider, but if that data had not been corrupted, it may have contained the identity of the pipe bomber.

But the cellular carriers said they did not provide “corrupted” data to the FBI and did not receive notification that the FBI had issues accessing the cellular data, according to the report.

Somebody is lying. Either one of the companies gave corrupted data, or the FBI shrugged its shoulders and stopped investigating this angle.

The committee sent letters to AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and to the FBI asking each for cellular data connected to the investigation. The letters were signed by committee Chairman Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga.

Based on the requests, it appears the committee will compare the FBI’s 2023 testimony about the data with the actual data provided by the phone companies,

The committee wants to look at the data each phone company provided, and it has asked the FBI to provide the name of the company that gave it the alleged “corrupted data.”

That should be easy enough.

The committee also wants the FBI to provide internal communications regarding the FBI’s request, review, or analysis of cellular data in connection with the investigation, including all communications between of the FBI Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST); copies of all cellular data provided by the carriers; all records relating to corrupted or otherwise unusable cellular data provided by any cellular carrier in connection with this case; and other related records.

During the 2023 congressional questioning, D’Antuono was asked, “What was your reaction when they told you we can’t get that data because it’s corrupt?”

He didn’t seem too concerned.

“Oh, great, you know, that’s — that’s wonderful, right. That, like, really screws up everything, right, because that’s — you hope to have all the data, right, as an investigator you want all the data. But things happen in investigations. This has happened before with bank statements or bank account information or corrupted data or email servers and whatever. Things happen, right. And it’s just like, oh, Jesus, you know.”

‘Unclear’

The House Oversight report uses the word “unclear” numerous times. According to the report: it is unclear why the area near the DNC bomb was not cleared of pedestrian traffic more than thirteen minutes after it was discovered.

The FBI identified a person of interest who owned a pair of Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers and who worked in the area of the crime. The team did a “deep dive” investigation of this person. “To date, it is unclear whether the FBI has determined if this person of interest was involved in the pipe bomb incident,” the report said.

The suspect used 60-minute timers in the manufacture of the bombs. “It remains unclear whether the pipe bombs were capable of detonating on January 6 and how the FBI defined the term ‘viable’ when describing the explosive devices.”

Within the first two weeks of the investigation, the FBI identified the specific brand of timers used and started to look for people who bought such timers. The FBI identified six people who bought more than one white kitchen timer since December 2020. “Specifically, the FBI identified an individual who bought four of the specific brand of kitchen timers just days before January 5,” the report says. “According to a document obtained by the subcommittee, the FBI appears to have reviewed security camera footage related to this lead; however, it is unclear what ultimately happened with this lead.”

It was similarly unclear what the FBI did with the leads on 60 people who purchased a chemical black powder found inside the bombs.

At minimum, the FBI should be able to articulate where its investigations led. If they really don’t know where these leads went, they were wasting time. If they do know and won’t say, that is a bigger problem.

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.