Jim Jordan Seeks FBI Briefing After Special Agent Comes Forward With Disclosure on Investigation of D.C. Pipe Bombs Before Jan 6

A top House Republican is asking the FBI for a briefing after a special agent came forward with a disclosure about the bureau’s investigation into a pair of pipe bombs planted outside the GOP’s and Democratic Party’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., the night before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday saying this “whistleblower disclosure” revealed that the FBI’s Washington Field Office asked FBI field offices last month to canvass all confidential human sources nationwide for relevant information.

The message asked, in part, that the canvass “include sources reporting on all [types of] threats” because the suspect’s “motive and ideology remain unknown,” according to Jordan.

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The special agent, who was not identified, claimed that the request was “unusual” because it came a year after the investigation began, and Jordan said it raises questions about the progress and extent of the inquiry. Both bomb threats were neutralized by authorities, but the identity of the suspect remains one of the biggest mysteries stemming from the events surrounding the Capitol riot. One pipe bomb was placed in an alley behind the Republican National Committee headquarters, while the other was placed next to a park bench near the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

Jordan also said the FBI has failed to “sufficiently answer questions” posed by Rep. Bill Posey, a Florida Republican, in September regarding the status of the investigation. The bureau explained it was “exclusively providing information to the partisan Democrat-led Select Committee investigating the events of January 6, 2021,” Jordan wrote in the letter.

Jordan requested the FBI briefing take place no later than March 23.

The FBI confirmed receipt of the letter to the Washington Examiner and declined to comment further.

The FBI asked the public for assistance in the investigation and released videos showing the suspect wearing a gray hoodie, a face mask, gloves, and black and light gray Nike Air Max Speed Turf shoes with a yellow logo, carrying a bag and strolling through the Capitol Hill neighborhood on the evening of Jan. 5. A day later, when rioters stormed the Capitol, the process of certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory was disrupted, although there is no publicly confirmed link between those events and the pipe bombs.

The FBI offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the identification or arrest of the pipe bomb suspect in early January 2021. In the year since, the reward increased to $75,000, then to $100,000.

The bureau renewed its public push for answers on the pipe bomber around the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riot. An FBI webpage features a host of details about the suspect, including multiple videos of the would-be bomber and a map of the route they took the night of Jan. 5.

In testimony before the House in June, Wray said the FBI is “aggressively investigating” the placement of the pipe bombs. When asked if he would commit to releasing all of the relevant footage the bureau possesses, Wray demurred. “I’m very careful about making sure that we protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation,” he said.

In recent months, it has emerged that Vice President Kamala Harris was inside the DNC headquarters Jan. 6 when the nearby pipe bomb was discovered, raising questions about security. She was a U.S. senator and the vice president-elect at the time.

Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, wrote a letter to the Secret Service last month seeking answers about the “potential lapse in security.”

In an odd twist late last year, the Justice Department began correcting court filings related to the Capitol riot, conceding that prior assertions of Harris being present when pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol complex were untrue.

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Steven D’Antuono, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said recently the pipe bombs were “viable devices that could have gone off and exploded, causing a lot of serious injury or death.” He contended that it “has always been a priority since day one to find this individual.”

The FBI has performed more than 900 interviews regarding the pipe bombs, D’Antuono said, adding that the bureau had collected 39,000 video files and 400 tips related to the suspect’s identity.

“We were dealing with two pipe bombs that were specifically set right off the edge of our perimeter to, what I suspect, draw resources away. … I think there was a significant coordination with this attack,” former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testified to Congress in February 2021.

In May, Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton told the House, “Invariably, when there’s an incident, police officers swarm. … If those pipe bombs were intended to be a diversion, it worked.”