By Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The FBI made an arrest on Thursday in its nearly 5-year-old investigation into who placed pipe bombs in Washington on Jan. 5, 2021, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
The arrest took place Thursday morning, and the suspect is a man, the official said. He was arrested in Virginia, according to another person familiar with the matter. No other details were immediately available, including the charges the man might face. The people who described the arrest were not authorized to publicly discuss a case that has not yet been made public and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
| REGISTER: Navigating your first year in leadership: Insights from new police chiefs
The pipe bombs were placed on the evening of Jan. 5, 2021, near the offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees in the District of Columbia. Nobody was hurt before the bombs were rendered safe, but the FBI has said both devices could have been lethal.
In the years since, investigators have sought the public’s help in identifying a shadowy subject seen on surveillance camera even as they struggled to determine answers to basic questions, including the person’s gender and motive and whether the act had a clear connection to the riot at the Capitol a day later when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the building in a bid to halt the certification of the Republican’s 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Seeking a breakthrough, the FBI last January publicized additional information about the investigation, including an estimate that the suspect was about 5-foot-7, as well as previously unreleased video of the suspect placing one of the bombs.
The bureau had for years struggled to pinpoint a suspect despite hundreds of tips, a review of tens of thousands of video files and a significant number of interviews.
House Republicans criticized security lapses, questioning how law enforcement failed to detect the bombs for 17 hours. Dan Bongino, the current FBI deputy director, floated the possibility last year before being tapped for his job that the act was an “inside job” and involved a “massive cover-up.”
In a long post on X last month, Bongino wrote that the FBI had brought in new personnel to examine the case and “dramatically increased investigative resources” along with the public award for information “to utilize crowd-sourcing leads.”
