Better in their words…

It should have been a national scandal. On January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol riot, a bomb nearly exploded at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Had it gone off, it could have killed Vice President Kamala Harris, who drove by the alleged bomb, and was in the DNC headquarters when the bomb was discovered.

“Although these bombs did not detonate,” said the FBI earlier this year, “it is important to remember the suspect walked along residential and commercial areas in Capitol Hill just blocks from the U.S. Capitol with viable pipe bombs that could have seriously injured or killed innocent bystanders.” Among those innocent bystanders was the Vice President.

But the incident never became a national scandal. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times on January 17, 2021, Harris never mentioned the potential assassination attempt. In fact, Harris’s near-death experience was unknown until the Department of Justice revealed it in a court filing in November 2021. The government had previously incorrectly stated that Harris was in the US Capitol. And the US House of Representatives’ official January 6 Committee investigation’s 841-page report only briefly mentions the pipe bombs in an appendix. The pipe bombs, which were initially key to the narrative that the Capitol riot was a premeditated act of domestic terrorism, are omitted from the report’s detailed analysis and timeline.

A video released by Rep. Thomas Massie and first reported on by Revolver News and The Blaze shows that a passerby with a backpack alerted Capitol Police officers sitting in their cars outside the DNC that there was a pipe bomb nearby. Congressional staffers told Blaze reporter Steve Baker that a Capitol Police plainclothes officer found the DNC pipe bomb. In the video, Capitol Police do not react with alarm, and they let people, including children, pass just a few feet from the pipe bomb as though it is not dangerous. The evidence suggests that the Capitol Police officers knew the bomb was not a threat.

The FBI appears to have taken the explosive devices seriously. The FBI offered a $500,000 reward for help in finding the person who left the bomb. The FBI’s Washington Field Office Director, Steven D’Antuono, recorded a video urging the public to report suspicious individuals to the FBI. The FBI says that its lab determined that the devices, both pipe bombs with 60-minute kitchen timers, were “viable.”

But a National Explosives Task Force (NETF) Quick Look Report, leaked to CBS News, suggested that the bombs could not have been detonated remotely from a secondary device like a cell phone. “All of it suggests that if they had been set, they were designed to go off on January 5th,” reported CBS News investigative correspondent Catherin Herridge. This leaked report calls into question the accepted pipe bomb timeline.

What’s more, Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent who worked on the investigation, saidthe explosive devices were inoperable. Technicians from the Joint Program Office for Countering IEDs, Seraphin stated, told him the devices lacked the necessary assembly to work. And even D’Antuono admitted to Rep. Thomas Massie, who participated in the questioning of D’Antuono before the House Judiciary, that the bombs wouldn’t have worked.

Massie: Do you think it was technically possible for a kitchen timer –

D’Antuono: No, no.

Massie: — that has 1-hour duration —

D’Antuono: No.

Massie: — to detonate a bomb 17 hours later?

D’Antuono: No, I don’t. And I saw the same kitchen timer as you. I agree. I don’t know when they were supposed to go off. Maybe they weren’t supposed to go off. We can’t — we don’t know. We honestly don’t know…

FBI agent turned whistleblower Steve Friend told Public, “Without compromising sources, I’ve heard there are components of this that are part of the Department of Homeland Security’s training for bombs.”

Garret O’Boyle, another FBI whistleblower who was an Assistant Weapons of Mass Destruction Coordinator, told Public that the FBI’s use of the term “viable” may be suspect. “What do they mean by ‘viable’? Simply that the components work, like the timer and what not? They are very lawyerly with their words,” O’Boyle said. “In some of their manufactured terrorism cases they have provided what the subject thought was a ‘viable’ explosive device, but in actuality wasn’t since the explosive component isn’t built into the ‘bomb.’”

The FBI released CCTV videos and photos of the suspect holding a cell phone and possibly texting. The phone would allow the FBI to find the user based on the time and location. However, the data from the phone company that could have identified the suspected bomber was mysteriously corrupted.

“There’s some data that was corrupted by one of the providers,” D’Antuono said. “Not purposely by them, right. It just — unusual circumstance that we have corrupt data from one of the providers… it wasn’t purposely corrupted. I don’t want any conspiracy theories…”

The FBI claims that the pipe bomb was planted at the DNC on the night of January 5, 2021. Yet given Harris’ presence at the DNC, it is very likely that the Secret Service would have conducted a security sweep, possibly with a bomb-sniffing dog, upon her arrival on January 6, when the bomb was supposedly already on the premises.

An independent security analyst who has worked for senior elected officials, including on Capitol Hill, wrote a Comprehensive Threat Analysis of the alleged pipe bombs, which Public obtained.

Interviewed by Zoom, the expert, who asked that their name not be used, said, “Something had to have happened to not to have found the bomb, or it wasn’t there on the night of the 5th. Had they conducted a regular security sweep, they 100% would have found the bomb. It’s in plain sight. You’d have to be blind not to find it. And if you had a dog? Give me a break.”

The expert found it highly implausible that the Secret Service did not do a sweep. “I can’t believe the Secret Service would put Vice President some place and not do a security sweep. It’s hard to explain how bad that is.”

On January 31, 2022, CNN reported, “A law enforcement source familiar with the event told CNN that the US Secret Service, which was responsible for Harris’ protection that day, swept the interior of the building, the driveway, parking deck and entrances and exits prior to her arrival.”

The expert said the FBI’s behavior was inconsistent with standard security procedures. “If it’s true a bomb was planted at the DNC on the night of January 5, the FBI would have had many questions. Was Harris the target of an attack? Why was the pipe bomb not found by Secret Service agents during its security sweep? … One would think the FBI would have wanted to conduct a full-blown investigation…”

But the FBI didn’t even try to find the individual who reported the DNC bomb, even though D’Antuono admitted the person would be a prime suspect.

Massie: But the individual in a hoodie going up to two police cars after he’s passed by that bench, did your investigation review this video?

D’Antuono: I’m not aware of the video you’re talking about, sir. I’m not.

Massie: If you had seen that video, would you be interested in speaking to that person —

D’Antuono: Absolutely.

Massie: — who seems to have discovered that second bomb?

D’Antuono: In any investigation, whoever discovers the device is somebody you need to talk to, right, because they could be the one that planted the device in the first place. You know, so that’s just investigation 101. So, but I am not aware of that video. I’m not aware of that person.

Either way, it should have been a scandal. There was either a catastrophic security failure that resulted in the near-death of the Vice President, which is scandalous in its own right and even more so considering that there was no investigation of it, or the bombs were not real or “viable.” In that case, the FBI, the Capitol Police, the Secret Service, and senior government officials, including perhaps even Vice President Harris, have lied to the American people.

The Secret Service and the Capitol Police did not respond to our request for comment. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment and directed Public to the agency’s pipe bomb webpage and most recent statement.

Even D’Antuono has admitted that the case is mysterious to him, even though it was his office that investigated the pipe bombs. “It just is a lot of coincidences happen [sic] all the time. There’s a lot of unanswered questions,” he said. “There really are.”