FBI Arrests Jan. 6 Pipe Bomb Suspect
MAGA conspiracy theorists have long fixated on the case as a sign the 2021 Capitol riot was an inside job.
FBI/Handout via Reuters
The FBI has arrested a suspect accused of placing pipe bombs in Washington, D.C., just hours before riots broke out at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The nearly 5-year-old case has vexed law enforcement and spawned numerous conspiracy theories as officials failed to zero in on a suspect.
Law enforcement officials told the Associated Press on Thursday that a suspect had finally been arrested. The suspect was described as a man, with the arrest made in Virginia, though no further details were immediately available.
MAGA conspiracy theorists have argued the pipe bomb case would provide a missing link "proving" that the FBI staged the Capitol riot to discredit President Trump's supporters.
The Washington Post/The Washington Post via Getty Im
Nobody was hurt by the bombs, which were placed near the Democratic and Republican national committees. But both devices could have been deadly if authorities had not been able to disarm them in time, according to the FBI.
Some MAGA supporters have become fixated on the case and touted it as a possible “missing link” to prove a connection between the pipe bombs and the Capitol riot that erupted the next day.
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Wild speculation about the motives of the attempted pipe-bombing also generated some new controversies in the case.
Last month, a whistleblower accused the FBI of bungling the investigation, leading to a stand-off between FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Soon after, a former Capitol Police officer was smeared as the attempted pipe bomber after a memo leaked from National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard’s office and spread like wildfire among some conservative figures.
Paul McNamara, a Gabbard aide, was accused of authoring the memo after receiving an unvetted tip and conducting his own investigation into the police officer.
The FBI was blindsided last month by a memo that leaked from Tulsi Gabbard's office identifying the wrong suspect in the case.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
McNamara reportedly accessed confidential files and obtained the officer’s Social Security number before circulating the memo claiming she was a suspect. Before it was reviewed or approved by the agency’s leadership, the memo was leaked to The Blaze, owned by conservative radio host Glenn Beck.
The officer was investigated by the FBI and ultimately cleared, but not before she was subjected to a MAGA firestorm.
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