WASHINGTON — The FBI on Thursday threw cold water on a story on a right-wing website that named a former Capitol Police officer as a potential match for the individual who planted pipe bombs at the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In a letter to a Republican congressman who leads a new committee investigating Jan. 6, the FBI explained that it had been tracking a separate person of interest who took photos near the RNC on Jan. 5 and then took the Metro back to his friend's home, where he was staying to attend a Jan. 6 rally. The FBI said it had focused on the home because the person taking the photos used the homeowner's SmartTrip card on the Metro. The congressman, Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, posted a section of the letter on X, which was amplified by the FBI Rapid Response account.
The owner of the home happened to be a neighbor of a former Capitol Police officer named in a story as a potential suspect in the pipe bomb incident on the conservative news site, The Blaze. The Blaze cited a "gait analysis" — a study of how a person walks — saying that it found a 94% match between the officer and the suspect. The former officer now works in campus security for the CIA, a source with knowledge of the person’s employment told NBC News.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino posted Thursday that some reporting about “prior persons of interest is grossly inaccurate and serves only to mislead the public.”
NBC News is not naming the former officer, as the person has not been credibly accused of any wrongdoing.
In a statement given to NBC News on Friday, an attorney for the officer said they had been “falsely accused in social media accounts of being involved in the placement of pipe bombs outside the DNC and RNC buildings on the evening of January 5, 2021,” and noted that the officer had testified at two Jan. 6 trials and “categorically denies” involvement with the pipe bombs.
“These shameful allegations are recklessly false, absurd, and defamatory,” the attorney, Steve Bunnell, said in a statement first provided to The Washington Post.
The home appears to have come into recent focus because of former FBI Special Agent Kyle Seraphin, who was close with Kash Patel but has since become a major critic of the FBI director. Seraphin said that he had been on a surveillance team that was watching the home in 2021 as part of the investigation into the pipe bombs when he was still at the FBI.
The Blaze story was promoted by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Loudermilk, who heads a new select subcommittee that aims to counter the findings of the now-defunct Jan. 6 committee that operated during the Biden administration.
President Donald Trump pardoned hundreds of rioters, including many seen on camera assaulting federal law enforcement officers. But the mystery of the would-be pipe bomber's identity has allowed some Trump supporters to pose an alternative narrative about Jan. 6, one which absolves Trump of any responsibility for the actions of his supporters and instead points to an alleged deep-state cabal.
"Possible law enforcement involvement in the case of the January 6 pipe bombs is one of the scenarios we have suspected and have been investigating," Loudermilk wrote in an X post promoting The Blaze story. "I look forward to hearing more from the agencies about this aspect of their investigation. As always, we will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead."
"America is waking up today to learn that Capitol Police turned CIA orchestrated the pipe bombs on January 6th, and the FBI has covered it up for over fours years," Massie wrote.
After the FBI further explained its focus on the home, Loudermilk posted that the information "fills in some of the blanks the previous administration refused to provide about the pipe bomb investigation." But some of the information about the person taking the photos was disclosed by the Biden administration: Loudermilk and Massie published it in a report issued Jan. 2 of this year, 18 days before Trump's return to office.
In a statement to NBC News on Friday, Massie said he “can’t vouch for every detail of the story."
He added, “I believe it’s long past due for FBI and Capitol Police leadership to explain publicly where their own investigation stands."
The Blaze story was authored by former Jan. 6 defendant Steve Baker and Joseph Hanneman. Baker, a libertarian writer, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to four misdemeanor counts in connection with the Capitol riot, including trespassing. He was never sentenced as he was among those Trump pardoned when he returned to office in January.
Baker, in a post with more than 15 million views on X, wrote that his story about the pipe bombs might be "the biggest scandal and conspiracy in American history." Baker did not immediately provide a comment to NBC News.
The Blaze story fit into a broader "fedsurrection" narrative that some Republicans have tried to spread since the day that a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. Starting the day of the attack, Republicans immediately began to place the blame on “antifa,” but that story fell apart time and time again as individual MAGA supporters identified as potential anti-fascists were unmasked as Trump supporters.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly suggested that the Capitol attack was a setup by federal authorities. One Jan. 6 rioter who bashed in a window leading into the House speaker's lobby said that, while incarcerated, he was targeted by other Jan. 6 prisoners after they watched a conspiracy-laden segment produced by the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group and then came to the false conclusion that he was an FBI confidential human source. Prosecutors did say that one "anti-establishment" activist who became a "poster child of conspiracy theories on the deep far-right" helped incite members of the crowd; he was sentenced to six years in prison before Trump pardoned him.
The FBI released new information about the pipe bomb suspect this year, days before the fourth anniversary of the attack. A reward of up to $500,000 is available for information leading to the identification of the person.
On Wednesday, the FBI told NBC News that the investigation "remains a high priority for the FBI and our law enforcement partners" and that the reward "remains in effect for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the individual who placed the pipe bombs."
Bongino and Patel had previously indulged conspiracy theories about Jan. 6. Patel previously claimed that "government gangsters at the FBI under Chris Wray are hiding this information” about the pipe bomb investigation. “Do you think the Federal Bureau of Investigation can’t find a bomber in the United States of America?" he asked. Bongino called it an "inside job" to stop Trump. "This was a setup. I have zero doubt," he said last year.
Bongino, in an appearance on "Fox & Friends" in May, said he was "pretty confident" the FBI was "closing in on some suspects" in the pipe bomb case. But last month, he boosted an FBI post that said the bureau was still offering $500,000 for information leading to the arrest.
"If you have information regarding this critical investigation," Bongino posted, "please call 1-800-CALL-FBI."
