January 6th pipe bomber still at large

Between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) on January 5, 2021, an unknown individual placed two pipe bombs in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. One pipe bomb was placed ​in an alley behind the headquarters of the Republican National Committee (RNC), located at 310 First Street Southeast, and the other was placed next to a park bench near the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), located at 430 South Capitol Street Southeast #3.

Two years after January 6, an attempted bomber remains at large. The FBI issued a national call for tips from the American people

Two years later, law enforcement is raising the reward to $500,000 for any information leading to the arrest of the suspect accused of placing two pipe bombs outside Democratic and Republican national headquarters a day before January 6th, 2021.

Echo report published in The Washington Post:

More than 950 arrests have been made in connection with the insurrection on January 6, 2021. The Justice Department has a near-perfect conviction rate. (The reward was previously $100,000.)

Although this insurrection has been “one of the largest, most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in our history,” as Attorney General Merrick Garland noted Wednesday, the FBI still has not been able to identify about 350 individuals believed to have committed violent acts on the Capitol grounds, including more than 250 who allegedly assaulted police officers that day. In other cases, the bureau has identified suspects — such as Evan Neumann and Jonathan Daniel Pollock — and placed them on the Most Wanted list.

Fully functioning pipe bomb discovered during the Washington DC insurrection on January 6, 2021

 The most alarming person who remains at large two years later is the mystery man, or maybe woman, who planted fully functional pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees the night before. The explosives didn’t detonate but probably achieved their aim of drawing large numbers of officers away from the Capitol grounds as a mob incited by President Donald Trump was arriving to stop the counting of electoral votes. A woman doing her laundry discovered the first bomb in an alley behind the RNC around 12:40 p.m. She says a countdown timer showed 20 minutes, suggesting it could have gone off as the joint session of 

Congress convened at 1 p.m. The bomb by a bench outside the DNC was discovered after authorities began a frantic search for additional devices. Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris’s motorcade had passed just yards away.

The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and D.C. police raised the reward this week from $100,000 to $500,000 for information leading to the arrest of the would-be bomber, who wore a hoodie and Nike tennis shoes. (The pandemic meant a person walking around Capitol Hill with a face mask aroused no suspicions.) Detectives say they have checked out nearly 500 tips, conducted about 1,000 interviews, visited more than 1,200 residences and businesses, and collected more than 39,000 video files, but they still don’t have a suspect. The FBI has posted footage of the person circling the RNC and DNC headquarters before placing the homemade explosives and then disappearing into the night

Political violence has become an increasingly grave concern to authorities. Capitol Police recorded 9,625 threats against members of Congress in 2021, up more than tenfold from the year before Mr. Trump became president. Last week, the mastermind of the foiled 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and blow up a bridge in hopes of inciting a civil war was sentenced to 19½ years in prison.

Yet investigations can be surprisingly difficult when explosives come into play. Though the Boston Marathon bombers and Cesar Sayoc (who mailed bombs to Trump critics) were captured quickly, it took 17 years for the FBI to find the Unabomber and five years to apprehend the Olympic Park bomber. When bombers are not stopped, their weapons can become more sophisticated and deadlier. Timothy McVeigh spent three years experimenting with homemade explosives before parking a 5,000-pound bomb outside the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168.

January 6, was an attack on the pillars, and the temple, of our American republic. The hoodie bomber, who is still out there, is the personification of the larger threat that remains two years later. We won’t sleep comfortably until he, or she, is brought to justice.

Post Script Maine Writer:  So, here we are, two years later on the second anniversary, there is no pipe bomber suspect and no evidence about who paid for this terrorist to plant the weapons.