The FBI has arrested a Virginia ‘anarchist’ suspect in connection with several pipe bombs laid near Capitol Hill on the eve of the January 6, 2021 riots.
Officials have not yet named the suspect, who sources told MS Now has been linked to support for anarchist ideologies.
No further details on the suspect’s identity have been released. They have been charged with laying explosives outside the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters, which did not detonate.
The arrest marks the first major breakthrough in the five-year investigation that had baffled the agency and sparked a wave of conspiracy theories.
It comes weeks after the FBI offered a $500,000 reward for leads to identify the suspect, when authorities shared previously unreleased footage of the perp stalking the streets of Washington DC the night before the infamous riots.
However, the arrest was reportedly not the result of a new breakthrough in the investigation, but came after the FBI reviewed existing evidence it had collected in 2021 and 2022.
Law enforcement sources said that the arrest may cause embarrassment for the FBI because the suspect could have been arrested years ago if investigators had pieced together existing evidence.
In the surveillance footage from the plot, video showed the hooded suspect setting down a backpack on South Capitol Street, before putting on glasses and scanning their surroundings for witnesses and walking off.
The suspect then walked to the nearby DNC headquarters, where a bomb was placed at 7:54pm.
Surveillance then showed the suspect walking to the RNC headquarters and placing a bomb at 8:16pm, and he was last seen on video two minutes later – leaving investigators baffled over their true identity.
The suspect wore a face mask, glasses, a grey hooded sweatshirt, gloves, and black and light grey Nike Air Max Speed Turf shoes with a yellow logo.
The explosive devices planted outside the two buildings in the Capitol Hill neighborhood were located the next day, just hours before hordes of Donald Trump supporters descended on Washington DC to protest the 2020 election results.
US Capitol Police and agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were first called to the RNC’s office at 12.45pm on January 6.
About 30 minutes later, as the agents and bomb technicians were still investigating at the RNC, another call came in for a similar explosive device found at the DNC headquarters nearby.
The bombs were rendered safe, and no one was hurt.
Officials said the homemade bombs were constructed out of threaded galvanized pipes, kitchen timers and homemade black powder.
The pipe bomb plot spawned numerous conspiracy theories as the case remained unsolved for years, including last month as conservative social media commentators falsely claimed the FBI had identified a former Capitol Police officer as the suspect.
The claims said that the female police officer was identified using ‘gait analysis’, and the former officer’s attorney said that the accusations were ‘recklessly false, absurd, and defamatory.’
While the arrest could cause embarrassment for investigators who failed to identify the suspect for years, it is likely to be lauded by the Trump White House after it poured new resources into the case earlier this year.
In particular, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino has often spoke of his desire to solve the case, including previously speculating that it may have been an ‘inside job.’
The hunt for the suspect was one of the largest in FBI history, and investigators struggled for years to piece together evidence collected in the chaotic aftermath of the January 6 riots.
This included subpoenaing box store retailers for credit card data to find customers who bought specific kinds of battery connectors used to manufacture the bombs.
Agents tracked down purchasers of the battery connectors to those whose phones were locate near the DNC and RNC headquarters at the time the bombs were planted, but the FBI found there was no credible match.
