A suspect has been arrested in connection with the planting of pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican National Committees on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, multiple outlets reported Thursday.
The arrest, reported by CNN and the Associated Press, comes one month before the five-year anniversary of the melee that briefly delayed congressional confirmation of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory — and closes an embarrassing chapter for the FBI, which had been castigated by members of both parties for the lack of progress in identifying a perpetrator.
Surveillance footage showed a person carrying a backpack and wearing a grey-hooded sweatshirt, mask, gloves, glasses, and a pair of Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers planting what investigators called “viable explosive devices” at the headquarters of the two major parties on the night of Jan. 5, 2021.
The devices were discovered the following afternoon, at around the same time Congress convened to count the 2020 electoral votes, a session which was suspended for several hours after supporters of President Trump broke into the Capitol and stormed the House and Senate chambers.
A report released in January of this year by Reps. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), claimed that “little meaningful progress” had been made in the pipe bomb investigation and charged that the feds had “refused to provide substantive updates to Congress.”
Despite “a promising array of data and … numerous persons of interest,” the lawmakers’ report said, “[b]y the end of February 2021, the FBI began diverting resources away from the pipe bomb investigation.”
The FBI and Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment by The Post.
