Phone location data on Jan. 5 pipe bomber may have been ‘corrupted’: FBI official
Jerry Dunleavy
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A former top FBI official said the bureau’s efforts to catch the unidentified suspect who planted pipe bombs the night before the Capitol riot may have been hampered by geolocation data from one cellphone provider being “corrupted.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed in February that he had “total confidence” in the team investigating the pipe bombs that were placed outside of the Republican and Democratic national headquarters on Jan. 5, 2021, despite no arrests being made and the suspect remaining unknown and at large, with even the suspect’s gender remaining a mystery.
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Steven D’Antuono, the former assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office who left the bureau in late 2022, told the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee earlier this month that the FBI “did a complete geofence” of the area in an attempt to identify the bomber, meaning the FBI likely obtained warrants aimed at locating cellular devices based on signals such as Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, or other pings off of cell towers.
D’Antuono initially told the committee, according to newly released excerpts, that “we have complete data” before immediately backtracking and admitting that the data were “not complete because there’s some data that was corrupted by one of the providers.” He said the data “wasn’t purposely corrupted” by the provider, calling it an “unusual circumstance that we have corrupt data from one of the providers.” He said, “I can’t remember right now which” provider it was.
The former FBI official admitted it was possible that the corrupted data may have held the key to identifying the suspect, saying it was “awful because we don’t have that information to search.”
“So, could it have been that provider? Yeah, with our luck, you know, with this investigation, it probably was, right,” D’Antuono said. “So maybe if we did have that — that data wasn’t corrupted — and it wasn’t purposely corrupted. I don’t want any conspiracy theories, right. To my knowledge, it wasn’t corrupted, you know, but that could have been good information that we don’t have, right. So that is painful for us not to have that. So we looked at everything.”
The new information was revealed in a letter to Wray led by the House committee’s chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).
Jordan and his three House GOP co-signers told Wray, “Mr. D’Antuono’s testimony provided new information about the FBI’s investigation into the pipe bombs and reinforces our concerns about the FBI’s handling of this matter” and that the testimony “raises concerns about the FBI’s handling of the pipe bomb investigation.” The Republicans said, “The FBI has failed to respond to the Committee’s requests for a briefing regarding the investigation.”
The FBI announced this January that the bureau was offering a combined reward of up to $500,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attempted pipe bomber. An FBI webpage features a host of details about the suspect, including multiple videos of the would-be bomber and a map of the route the person took the night of Jan. 5.
The dual bomb threats were neutralized by authorities on Jan. 6, but the identity of the suspect remains one of the biggest mysteries stemming from the events surrounding the Capitol riot. One pipe bomb was placed in an alley behind the Republican National Committee headquarters, while the other was placed next to a park bench near the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The bomb behind the RNC was discovered at 12:45 p.m. and the one outside the DNC some 22 minutes later on the day of the Capitol riot.
D’Antuono was asked earlier this month if he was familiar with the hypothesis that the pipe bombs were set up to be a diversion, and the former FBI official sought to cast doubt on that possibility, calling it “speculation, at best, when people say that it’s a diversionary tactic.”
“We’ll never know until we find the person that actually did — or persons that actually did it,” D’Antuono said, adding, “Obviously, it’s one theory. But is it the only theory? I don’t — I really don’t know.”
Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton told the House in May 2021: “Invariably, when there’s an incident, police officers swarm. … If those pipe bombs were intended to be a diversion, it worked.”
Steven Sund, the former chief of the U.S. Capitol Police who resigned after the Capitol riot, testified to the Senate in February 2021 that “as a result of these explosive devices, extensive USCP resources were dispatched to the scenes, and two congressional office buildings had to be evacuated” and that “I believe all of this was part of a coordinated plan related to the attack on the Capitol.”
“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,” Sund told Congress. “I think there was a significant coordination with this attack.”
D’Antuono said in testimony that Sund’s claims were “pure speculation.”
“There’s no intelligence — look, I ran the investigation for two years until I stepped out. We don’t know. We don’t even know the gender at this point.”
The bureau has said that the components of the Jan. 5 pipe bomb devices included 1-by-8-inch threaded, galvanized pipes, a kitchen timer, and homemade black powder.
D’Antuono was asked about the kitchen timer on the pipe bombs and whether it was possible for a timer with a one-hour duration to detonate successfully the next day instead.
“No, I don’t,” the FBI official testified. “And I saw the same kitchen timer as you. I agree. I don’t know when they were supposed to go off. Maybe they weren’t supposed to go off. We can’t — we don’t know. We honestly don’t know, and that’s some of the pain.”
Last year, it emerged that now-Vice President Kamala Harris was inside the DNC headquarters on Jan. 6 when the nearby pipe bomb was discovered, raising questions about security. The Justice Department began correcting court filings in late 2021 related to the Capitol riot, conceding that prior assertions of Harris being present when pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol complex were untrue.
The FBI has asked the public for assistance in the investigation and released videos showing 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, carrying a bag, and strolling through the Capitol Hill neighborhood on the evening of Jan. 5. A day later, rioters made it into the Capitol, where the process of certifying now-President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over then-President Donald Trump was disrupted.
The GOP congressmen reiterated their request for a comprehensive FBI briefing and told Wray to provide them with “all documents and communications referring or relating to the FBI’s gathering of cellphone records relating to the placement of the pipe bombs.”
The congressmen also told the FBI director to hand over “all FBI reports, analyses, or assessments conducted or prepared relating to the viability of the pipe bombs placed outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee” the night before the Capitol riot.
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The Republicans further told Wray to provide them with “all transcripts and memoranda” related to “the FBI’s interviews with the individuals who discovered each of the pipe bombs, potential witnesses to the placement of the pipe bombs, or any other individuals with knowledge about the matter.”
And the congressmen also specifically asked for “all documents and communications referring or relating to video and other material concerning the identification of the individual who discovered the pipe bomb” outside the DNC.