Ninety miles from the South Eastern tip of the United States, Liberty has no stead. In order for Liberty to exist and thrive, Tyranny must be identified, recognized, confronted and extinguished.
One year after the Capitol riot, the person who planted pipe bombs the night before outside both the Republican and Democratic national committee headquarters in the nation’s capital remains unknown and at large.
Attorney General Merrick Garland gave a speech on the eve of the riot’s one year anniversary in which he described the more than 725 arrests the Justice Department has made thus far — with the attempted pipe bomber going conspicuously unmentioned.
One pipe bomb was placed in an alley behind the RNC, while the other was placed next to a park bench near the DNC.
Steven D’Antuono, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington Field Office, said in a recent interview that the pipe bombs were “viable devices that could have gone off and exploded, causing a lot of serious injury or death." He contended that it "has always been a priority since day one to find this individual.”
D’Antuono said the FBI has done over 900 interviews regarding the pipe bombs and has collected 39,000 video files and 400 tips related to the suspect’s identity.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House in June, saying that "we are aggressively investigating" the pipe bomb saga. When asked if he would commit to releasing all of the video that the bureau has on the attempted pipe bomber, Wray declined to do so, saying, “I’m very careful about making sure that we protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation.”
Video released by the FBI shows the suspect wearing a gray hoodie, a face mask, gloves, and black and light gray Nike Air Max Speed Turf shoes with a yellow logo, and carrying a bag as he or she strolled through the Capitol Hill neighborhood between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 5. At one point, the suspect is seen on South Capitol Street looking around as a man walking a dog passes, and at another moment, the suspect is seen sitting down at a bench outside the DNC headquarters and rifling through a bag before getting back up. Additional footage shows the suspect walking in front of the Capitol Hill Club, a private venue frequented by Republicans, and in an alley between the club and the RNC headquarters.
D’Antuono speculated that the mask-wearing suspect was likely able to escape suspicion that night due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the bureau does not even know if the suspect is male or female.
The FBI said it released the footage in the hopes that someone can identify the person’s gait, body language, or mannerisms. The suspect is seen carrying the bag in his or her right hand in each of the clips. The FBI offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the identification or arrest of the pipe bomb suspect in early January, and that reward was increased to $75,000 then to $100,000 by the end of that month. The bureau continued posting public pleas on Twitter in March, April, May, and September seeking information on the unknown suspect.
The FBI said that the components of the devices include one-inch by eight-inch threaded, galvanized pipes, a kitchen timer, and homemade black powder. A ”Quick Look Report” by the National Explosives Task Force said the pipe bombs contained “a powdery substance consistent with the oxidizer potassium nitrate, the fuel sulfur, and a fuel consistent with charcoal."
A bipartisan Senate report released in June said that the Capitol Police received word of a pipe bomb at the RNC headquarters around 12:45 p.m. on Jan. 6 and that law enforcement officials discovered a similar pipe bomb at the DNC headquarters just after 1:00 p.m.
It has been widely speculated that the pipe bombs were planted in connection with the Capitol riot the next day, but that has not been proven.
Former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testified, “We were dealing with two pipe bombs that were specifically set right off the edge of our perimeter to, what I suspect, draw resources away. … I think there was a significant coordination with this attack.” Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton told the House, “Invariably, when there’s an incident, police officers swarm. … If those pipe bombs were intended to be a diversion, it worked.”
Sund also contended that the initial evacuation of two congressional buildings on Jan. 6 was not prompted by the storming of the Capitol complex but rather because of the discovery of the two pipe bombs.
Karlin Younger said she discovered the bomb near the RNC headquarters while she was taking out her laundry, and she said police arrived almost immediately, evacuating the block.
Former U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin said in March that the pipe bombs were real weapons, saying, “It appears they weren't armed properly. … But they were not hoax devices.”
The FBI released numerous photos and videos of the pipe bomb planter and also released a September video of a map depicting an approximate route the suspect took that night. The FBI said at the time that “reviews of the suspect’s behavior in video footage and interviews with residents in the Capitol Hill neighborhood have led the FBI to believe the suspect is...
As Joe Biden attempts to squeeze as much political capital as he can out of the anniversary of the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol, the White House has informed the press that Biden intends to accuse his predecessor, President Trump, of having "singular responsibility" for the events of that day. The remarks come as the new AG Merrick Garland insists that anyone involved with that day's events will be prosecuted, whether they were present or not.
We'll set aside the fact that the AG has stopped just short of openly calling for Americans to be persecuted for thought crimes, and focus on the matter at hand: that President Biden's sagging polling and twin devils of inflation and the current COVID surge have left him in a desperate position.
In ten months, Americans will head to the polls in what's bound to be a closely watched midterm election. It's possible Democrats could lose both of their narrow Congressional majorities. To try and stop this from happening, Biden needs to try and scare Americans into remembering how bad the last guy was. And he intends to accomplish this with high-handed rhetoric about media lies and the "subversion" of Democracy.
Biden is set to speak live from the Statuary Hall of the Capitol at 0900ET. Readers can watch live below:
The Biden Team has already distributed select excerpts from the president's planned remarks to the media. In one quip, Biden exhorts Americans not to accept "political violence as the norm".
"Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm? Are we going to be a nation where we allow partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people?” Biden will say in his speech, according to excerpts provided by the White House. “We cannot allow ourselves to be that kind of nation."
As Bloomberg points out in its coverage, Biden appears to be abandoning a strategy of not mentioning Trump directly. As his poll numbers continue to sag, Biden and his team are going to try "reengaging" with Trump (on a purely rhetorical basis) to see if this might help lift Biden's sagging approval rating. The day represents "a rhetorical opportunity" for Biden to change the narrative of his flailing presidency and "reorient" the conversation away from the disastrous handling of the COVID pandemic and toward something more politically useful for the Democrats.
Speaking during yesterday's White House press briefing, Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki insisted that Biden was "personally" affected by the events of Jan. 6. "It hit him personally", she said (though not as personally as it hit AOC, who infamously lied about the "rioters" threatening her during the "siege".
Psaki also claimed Biden would be discussing "the truth" of what happened that day, while pushing back against "lies" and the "subversion" of...
U.S. and coalition forces thwarted two separate suicide drone attacks targeting bases housing Americans on Tuesday. One of the thwarted attacks was reportedly caught on video.
BBC correspondent Nafiseh Kohnavard first shared video allegedly from U.S. defensive systems showing a C-RAM shooting down two suicide drones at Al Asad Air Base.
Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby confirmed that U.S. and allied forces shot down two suicide drones attempting to attack Al Asad Air Base in Iraq on Tuesday. Forces also conducted “strikes” on targets near Green Village in Syria responsible for...
A New York Magazine writer took to Twitter on Tuesday to mock a conservative group trying to help drivers stranded on snow-covered I-95 in Virginia.
After a snowstorm and subsequent accidents trapped hundreds of motorists in their vehicles for nearly 24 hours, The Reagan Battalion, a conservative media group, offered to connect people in need of food, water, and other help to rescuers armed with supplies.
New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait, however, used The Reagan Battalion’s neighborly offer to take political shots at the conservative group’s namesake, former President Ronald Reagan.
“The Reaganites used to believe in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps,” Chait tweeted.
Chait’s insensitivity to the ongoing crisis was quickly reprimanded by several Twitter users including The Reagan Battalion which encouraged the writer to assist the people in need.
“Now if you can use your account to help people in dire need of assistance and put your politics aside for a few hours that would be great,” the group tweeted.
As of Tuesday morning, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam still had not called in the National Guard. Instead, he claimed that the Virginia Department of Transportation had all of the resources it needed to rescue people.
“We have the manpower and people have been working through the night, the National Guard is on standby,” Northam said, before switching his attention to the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“That doesn’t happen at the snap of a finger. I don’t know if anybody remembers the Insurrection. But that happened in the afternoon, we had the National Guard on the ground the following morning. These are civilians that have jobs and need to muster and then be deployed. So again, those are all options that are on the table,” Northam said in a press conference.
Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine was among many of the drivers who slept in his car Monday night while temperatures outside stayed below...
