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The FBI has taken into custody a person suspected of planting pipe bombs in Washington the night before the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, a Justice Department official and another source briefed on the matter said on Thursday.
The FBI released surveillance video, offered a $500,000 US reward and received hundreds of tips in a years-long search for the suspect.
The footage, from Jan. 5, 2021, showed an individual putting a bomb near a bench outside the Democratic National Committee building. The suspect placed another bomb at the Republican headquarters. Both sites are near the Capitol.
Police deactivated the bombs and neither exploded.
Right-wing website named a suspect
Dan Bongino, the current FBI deputy director, floated the possibility last year before being tapped for his job that the act was an “inside job” and involved a “massive cover-up.”
In the absence of harder evidence, Republican lawmakers and right-wing media outlets promoted conspiracy theories about the pipe bombs. The Blaze website, founded by conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck, published a recent report that heavily implicated, by name, a female suspect.
Not long after that report, Bongino posted on social media that “some of the media reporting regarding prior persons of interest is grossly inaccurate and serves only to mislead the public.”
The bombs were discovered on the same day supporters of Donald Trump stormed Congress in an attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.
Rioters surged past police barricades, assaulting about 140 officers and causing more than $2.8 million US in damage.
Right-wing sites and influential broadcaster Tucker Carlson, first with Fox News, published stories accusing undercover FBI agents of fomenting the riot.
Trump has referred to the rioters as “patriotic” Americans, and upon entering office a second time, issued pardons to roughly 1,600 people convicted for offences related to the Jan. 6 riot.
Fourteen others, members of extremist groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were convicted of crimes including seditious conspiracy, saw their sentences commuted.
