The FBI released a security camera image of a potential suspect in the pipe bombs found in Washington, D,C, on Jan. 6, 2021, and a closeup of the person's distinctive shoe.
NBC News reports the FBI threw cold water on a popular right-wing conspiracy that a former Capitol Police officer was a potential match for the suspect who planted pipe bombs at the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“In a letter to a Republican congressman who leads a new committee investigating Jan. 6, the FBI explained that it had been tracking a separate person of interest who took photos near the RNC on Jan. 5 and then took the Metro back to his friend's home, where he was staying to attend a Jan. 6 rally,” NBC reports. “The FBI said it had focused on the home because the person taking the photos used the homeowner's SmartTrip card on the Metro.”
That congressman, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), posted a section of the letter on X.
The homeowner happened to be a neighbor of a former Capitol Police officer named as a potential suspect on the conservative news site, The Blaze. The Blaze went so far as to post a "gait analysis" claiming to have found a 94 percent match between the officer and the pipe bomb suspect.
Loyalists of President Donald Trumpseized upon the "bombshell" report, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who wrote on X that “a Capitol Police officer placed a pipe bomb at the RNC on J6.” Luna added that the Blaze story was proof that Republicans would “all be in the gulag” if it wasn't for Trump.
NBC reports that even Loudermilk promoted the premature Blaze article, and he now heads a new select subcommittee that aims to neutralize the findings of the Jan. 6 committee that operated during the Biden administration.
But now FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is having to personally put out The Blaze’s viral fire, posting Thursday that reporting about “prior persons of interest is grossly inaccurate and serves only to mislead the public.”
In the same post, Bongino admitted that he “has yet to produce a break through” despite “a week of near 24-hour work on RECENT open source leads.”
Meanwhile, an attorney representing the so-called "Blaze bomber" Shauni Kerkhoff is already telling the Washington Post that his client is prepared to push back against "shameful allegations [that] are recklessly false, absurd, and defamatory.
"The former Capitol Police officer identified in conservative media as a potential Jan. 6th pipe bomb suspect has lawyered up," posted Bulwark reporter Will Sommer on X.
Read the NBC News report at this link.