It’s been the nut too tough for the feds to crack — or so we’ve been told.
For nearly four years now, we have no answers regarding who planted pipe bombs outside the headquarters of both the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., on the night of Jan. 5, 2021.
The bombs did not go off and were a mostly forgotten part of the events of Jan. 6. Now, a new report indicates one of the reasons investigators are giving for why they can’t find the perpetrator isn’t accurate.
In a report by Just the News’ Steven Richards and John Solomon published Wednesday, mobile phone providers say they have “intact phone usage data from the vicinity where two pipe bombs were planted during the Jan. 6 incident.”
The FBI has testified that one of the reasons a key suspect couldn’t be identified was because of corrupted phone data.
Surveillance photo of the individual who allegedly planted the pipe bombs at the headquarters of each party’s headquarters on the evening before the Capitol incursion has been in the public domain since March of 2021.
The person responsible wore a face mask, grey hooded sweatshirt, and black and light grey Nike Air Max Speed Turf shoes with a yellow logo. pic.twitter.com/FZ0wVBG6qn
— FBI Washington Field (@FBIWFO) March 9, 2021
The #FBI is asking for the public’s help to identify the individual responsible for placing these pipe bombs to ensure they will not harm themselves or anyone else. pic.twitter.com/PRGD8TpLai
— FBI Washington Field (@FBIWFO) March 9, 2021
“In one episode that represents the extent of the security lapse which left experts disturbed, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was brought within yards of where the pipe bomb had earlier been planted, according to security footage reviewed by Just the News last year and released publicly by the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight,” the outlet noted.
“The footage shows that the suspect calmly sitting at a park bench near the DNC’s garage entrance the night before, taking out the explosive device and planting it between the bench and a bush about 10 yards from the driveway before walking off..
“A photo of the device as it was found while Harris was still visiting the DNC shows it clearly visible to the human eye. “
While a man in a gray hoodie and black pants may not exactly be the easiest person to track down, thanks to data from cellular phones, it’s relatively easy for law enforcement to identify suspects who are carrying them. (In fact, sometimes too easy — given the fact that easily obtained “geofence warrants” allow police to cast a digital dragnet over the area where a crime was committed and track suspicious individuals.)
However, in testimony to Congress last summer, Steve D’Antuono, former assistant director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said that data was unavailable to them.
“We did a complete geofence. We have complete data. Not complete, because there’s some data that was corrupted by one of the providers, not purposely by them, right,” he said. “It just — unusual circumstance that we have corrupt data from one of the providers.”
Except, according to GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia — chair of the House Administration oversight subcommittee — says that cellular carriers have told him that’s not the case.
“In the days and weeks following January 6, 2021, the FBI opened an investigation into the pipe bomber and attempted to identify the suspect by analyzing cell phone data linked to the area surrounding the RNC and DNC,” Loudermilk said in an interview with Just the News.
“In June 2023, the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Steve D’Antuono, who oversaw the pipe bomb investigation, said that the FBI received corrupted data from one of the cell carriers and that it most likely contained the identity of the pipe bomber.
“Given the significance of this information, my Subcommittee sent letters to the three major cell carriers, asking them to respond to Mr. D’Antuono’s claim of corrupted data,” he added.
“Every major cell carrier responded and confirmed that they did not provide the FBI corrupted data.”
Furthermore, Loudermilk said, he sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking whether the bureau stood behind D’Antuono’s assertions under oath and if they’d ever contacted the mobile providers for uncorrupted data.
“The Subcommittee requests that the FBI provide a response to Mr. D’Antuono’s claim that the FBI received corrupted data,” the letter read, furthermore requesting to know whether the FBI chief had ever “inform[ed] the cell carrier[s] that provided corrupted data that the data they provided was corrupted or otherwise unusable.”
Why does this matter, particularly given the fact that the bombs didn’t go off and this is almost four years in the past?
As Loudermilk noted at a hearing earlier this year, “[d]espite the suspect’s appearance on numerous [Capitol Police] CCTV cameras, and the FBI’s efforts interviewing over 800 individuals and assessing more than 300 tips, the suspect remains at large.”
Meanwhile, in regards to the Capitol incursion, more people who have perpetrated much less serious acts have been nabbed with far less video evidence. And now, we’re being told that wireless carriers have provided the FBI with uncorrupted data they could use to geofence potential suspects.
Given that the pipe bombs are one of the odder events of a profoundly odd day in American history — made even more peculiar by the fact that the whole thing seems to be memory-holed — one would think a certain level of alacrity would be exercised in finding the suspect. Instead, we seem to be getting, at least in public, a whole lot of shrugging from federal officialdom.
Practically four years on, there are plenty of questions to be answered about what happened leading up to and on the day of the Capitol incursion. Without answers, doubt about the official version of events will always linger — particularly in regards to the pipe bombs planted by a suspects the feds say they can’t track down.
It’s not clear that the uncorrupted data will get us any closer to the answer, although it certainly wouldn’t hurt at restoring trust and faith in the capacity of our federal law enforcement, especially when it looks like they’re lying to us.
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