As Jan. 6 pipe bomb probe breaks wide open, Blaze News investigative reporter Steve Baker, others ask what government has to hide
As the probe about the pipe bomb found on Jan. 6, 2021, at Democratic National Committee headquarters continues to gain traction, Blaze News investigative journalist Steve Baker and others are asking an all-important question: What does the U.S. government have to hide?
What are the details?
Baker — as part his ongoing analyses regarding the truth about Jan. 6 — last week broke new ground in the pipe bomb story: He asserted that the individual who found the alleged explosive device at DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C., wasn't a "passerby," as had been endlessly parroted — the person was a United States Capitol Police plainclothes officer.
Baker noted that "multiple congressional staffers familiar with the investigation" confirmed this with Blaze News in the face of the FBI stonewalling inquiries into the individual's identity.
Video posted to the YouTube channel of U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) shows the individual in question — dressed in dark clothing and wearing a backpack — casually approaching a D.C. Metropolitan Police vehicle parked at the DNC just after 1 p.m., reportedly to inform law enforcement that he spotted what appeared to be a pipe bomb, Baker noted.
That same video also shows the person walking to the driver’s side of a black Secret Service SUV parked next to the Metro Police vehicle and speaking to those inside the Secret Service SUV, again without any apparent urgency, Baker said.
As it turns out, the alleged pipe bomb was located only 15 to 20 feet from the vehicles, Baker said. What's more, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris had arrived at the DNC building in that same Secret Service SUV only about 90 minutes earlier, Baker said — a fact that didn't come to light for a full year after Jan. 6.
Why Harris — who was still a U.S. senator on that date — was taken to the DNC that morning rather than to the Capitol to participate in the 2020 Electoral College vote certification remains a mystery, Baker added.
A bigger head-scratcher, Baker said, is why Harris and other Democrats haven't exploited her proximity to what the FBI called a "viable" explosive device that “could have been detonated, resulting in serious injury or death" to garner sympathy and support. Assuming that pipe bomb — and another found at Republican National Committee headquarters — was part of the violence of Jan. 6, why hasn't the Biden administration used it to underscore its narrative of that day?
Other questions Baker is continuing to explore include:
- Why did a Secret Service agent and an MPD officer feel safe enough to finish their lunches before investigating the information about a bomb located only feet away after a law enforcement officer revealed its location to them?
- How did the Secret Service fail to find the pipe bomb prior to Harris' arrival at the DNC — particularly because it was placed next to a bench the night before in plain sight, as if it was meant to be found?
- Why did operators in the Capitol Police Command Center deliberately redirect CCTV cameras away from the DNC pipe bomb investigation and detonation?
- Was the DNC pipe bomb really a “viable” device, despite never-before-seen video evidence to the contrary?
Other investigative journalists weigh in
Michael Shellenberger and Alex Gutentag penned a Saturday investigative story for Public about the discovery of the pipe bombs at the Democratic and Republican HQs. Significantly, they noted that the whole thing "should have been a national scandal."
The authors said that while the pipe bombs initially were "key to the narrative that the Capitol riot was a premeditated act of domestic terrorism," for some reason they're omitted from the detailed analysis and timeline of an 841-page official report from the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 6 — and relegated only to a brief mention in an appendix.
Shellenberger and Gutentag offered what could be a possible explanation: While the FBI called the pipe bombs "viable," Kyle Seraphin — a former FBI agent who worked on the investigation — said technicians from the Joint Program Office for Countering IEDs told him the devices lacked the necessary assembly to operate.
The Public story also said the FBI released CCTV videos and photos of the pipe bomb suspect "holding a cell phone and possibly texting" — which would make it easy for the FBI to identify the cell phone user. However, Shellenberger and Gutentag revealed that data from the phone company that could have identified the suspected bomber was "mysteriously corrupted."
More from their Public report:
The FBI claims that the pipe bomb was planted at the DNC on the night of January 5, 2021. Yet given Harris’ presence at the DNC, it is very likely that the Secret Service would have conducted a security sweep, possibly with a bomb-sniffing dog, upon her arrival on January 6, when the bomb was supposedly already on the premises.
An independent security analyst who has worked for senior elected officials, including on Capitol Hill, wrote a Comprehensive Threat Analysis of the alleged pipe bombs, which Public obtained. Interviewed by Zoom, the expert, who asked that their name not be used, said, “Something had to have happened to not to have found the bomb, or it wasn’t there on the night of the 5th. Had they conducted a regular security sweep, they 100% would have found the bomb. It’s in plain sight. You’d have to be blind not to find it. And if you had a dog? Give me a break.”
The expert found it highly implausible that the Secret Service did not do a sweep. “I can’t believe the Secret Service would put Vice President some place and not do a security sweep. It’s hard to explain how bad that is.”
Still, the authors called attention to a CNN story from January 31, 2022, which cited a "law enforcement source familiar with the event" who told the network that the Secret Service "which was responsible for Harris’ protection that day, swept the interior of the building, the driveway, parking deck and entrances and exits prior to her arrival.”
In addition, Revolver published its own comprehensive investigative piece on the pipe bomb saga Thursday. It attracted the attention of Tucker Carlson, who conducted a compelling video interview with Revolver's Darren J. Beattie on the subject that went live the same day on X.
Carlson also offered an addendum to the below video interview that called attention to Baker's analysis on Blaze News from last week stating that the "passerby" who found the pipe bomb at the DNC was a U.S. Capitol Police plainclothes officer:
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How are the powers that be responding?
Neither the U.S. Capitol Police nor the D.C. Metro Police immediately responded to Blaze News' request for comment on the assertions Baker outlined in his Jan. 17 pipe bomb analysis.
Shellenberger and Gutentag added in their piece for Public that "the Secret Service and the Capitol Police did not respond to our request for comment. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment and directed Public to the agency’s pipe bomb webpage and most recent statement."
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Capitol Police officer turned whistleblower calls for investigation into USCP's former head of intelligence; claims she may have sat on actionable Jan. 6 intel for promotion, cushy job
Former U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Tarik Johnson has long indicated that the failure to contain the Jan. 6, 2021, protests may have had something to do with more than mere incompetence.
In conversation with nationally syndicated radio host Glenn Beck on Monday, Johnson called for the USPC's former head of intelligence to be investigated over the possibility that she may have sat on actionable information, possibly putting the Capitol at risk for personal gain and advantage.
What's the background?
Johnson initiated the evacuations of the Senate and the House on Jan. 6, defused a number of tense situations that could easily have escalated into bloodlettings, and sought to ensure the safety of his officers, all while many of his radio requests for assistance went unheeded.
Despite overwhelming evidence of his bravery and quick thinking, this former Democrat was suspended for 17 months, demoted, and denied help accessing psychological counseling.
Blaze Media contributor Steve Baker, the investigative journalist whom the Biden Department of Justice appears keen to silence, noted that Johnson's disciplinary report "only begins at 3 o'clock. It never addresses his heroics earlier in the day, never addresses anything he did to protect the officers, to decontaminate the officers, to bring the M4 units in so they weren't stolen. It never addresses his heroic actions in taking command on his own recognizance in evacuating both the Senate and the House."
NBC News indicated the reason Johnson was given for his suspension was "donning the MAGA hat," which he admittedly put on to better navigate the crowd without resistance and to more rapidly reach beleaguered USCP officers.
Baker suggested that Johnson was "ultimately disciplined because he took initiatives when he was begging for help from command and he did it himself anyway, embarrassing leadership. They needed to shut him up and shut him out."
"From what I’ve seen on social media video of T.K. Johnson and what I heard on the radio that day, T.K. should have been promoted after Jan 6, not demoted," said Gus Papathanasiou, chairman of the U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee, stressing that Johnson's treatment was a "travesty."
Papathanasiou stressed that USCP officers should not have been disciplined for their actions, especially because their leaders largely went unscathed.
One of the leaders who got out unscathed was Yogananda Pittman.
Unscathed and rewarded
Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund recently told Tucker Carlson that he requested federal assistance, particularly in the form of National Guard troops, ahead of the Jan. 6 protests, but was repeatedly denied by the Capitol Police Board. The board, whose critical voting members answered to Sen. Mitch McConnell and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, allegedly suggested that Sund lacked intelligence to substantiate the request at the time.
Johnson told Beck that Yogananda Pittman, assistant chief of Capitol Police responsible for protective and intelligence operations at the time, was possibly in the possession of intelligence that would have provided Sund with what he needed to secure that assistance — materiel and manpower that would likely have prevented a breach of the Capitol.
The former USCP officer speculated that Pittman stood to gain personally if Sund were seen to fail in his duties on Jan. 6.
Pittman was after all promoted following Sund's resignation to acting chief and kept on in that role for several months, even after the supermajority of the force indicated they had no confidence in her.
She was then reinstated to her old position by USCP Chief J. Thomas Manger — a reinstatement Johnson suggested was a means to deter prospective whistleblowers and clean out dissenters.
Finally, Pittman secured a cushy job at the University of California, Berkeley, as campus police chief.
Johnson suggested it's high time to investigate Pittman for possible wrongdoing.
"January 6 cannot happen without her permission," said Johnson. "It cannot. It's impossible. She's the alpha and omega of what happened on January 6, and the world needs to know that."
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While there presently appears to be no hard evidence that Pittman withheld evidence from Sund, there are substantial indicators that the USCP was nevertheless poised to fail.
US Capitol mouse trap
Baker expounded on Johnson's sense that the Capitol Police were set up to fail, telling TheBlaze that the force was woefully under-deployed.
Baker indicated that ahead of a high-profile protest day with six permits issued, policy for Capitol Police would normally have dictated that those on graveyard shifts would stay on for 16-hour stretches. Instead, they were sent home at 7 a.m., while additional forces on administrative leave weren't called in.
Forbes reported that of the over 1,800 sworn officers in the USCP as of September 2020, a "congressional inquiry forced USCP to admit that on January 6th, only 195 officers were deployed to interior or exterior posts at the U.S. Capitol and 276 more were assigned to the Department’s seven civil disturbance unit platoons."
Whereas USCP documents indicated 1,214 officers were "on site" across the Capitol complex of buildings, congressional investigators determined the force could only "account for 417 officers and could not account for the whereabouts of the remaining 797 officers."
Johnson previously told Baker that the suggestion that the whereabouts of officers could not be accounted for was "a bald-faced lie," given that all USCP officers are tracked during their tour of duty and must both electronically "clock in" and "clock out."
"They don't want to tell you where they [USCP officers] were, or what they were doing," said Johnson. "They don't want anyone to know how many of our officers were on administrative leave that day."
Compounding the problem of an inadequate police presence at the Capitol was the discovery of pipe bombs at the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee headquarters, both under the purview of the USCP. This drew some potential reinforcements away from the Capitol, again thinning the defense at a critical juncture.
The forces that the USCP could muster also happened to be ill equipped and in the dark about possible threats.
Not only were a number of badly needed riot shields later found to have been locked away in a bus, Baker noted numerous USCP officers were left without helmets owing to an uncustomary equipment exchange days earlier, when officers reportedly turned in their protective helmets per an alleged order from Cpt. Ben Smith, but were not provided with replacements.
In addition to this greater exposure to bodily risk, Baker noted officers have testified that they were not briefed on possible concerns over the protest.
"It's one thing to have gross incompetence," said Baker. "And of course, you always have to go there first when you're talking about a government agency. ... But in this particular case, there are just too many of these incidents that happened for anybody to sit back and go, 'Okay, they were just that grossly incompetent.'"
If the cascade of failures that appears to have predisposed the USCP to failure on Jan. 6 was not a matter of gross incompetence but instead a nefarious scheme, Baker speculated the strategy appears to have been a "rope-a-dope" — to draw in protesters for a finishing blow, resulting in "the biggest narrative victory for the American left."
Johnson previously agreed with Baker's sense that the Capitol Police were set up to be sacrificial pawns to this end, adding, "They didn't give a sh** what happened to them that day."
TheBlaze reached out to Yogananda Pittman for comment, but she did not respond.
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