No arrests had been made for nearly five years.
FBI agents have arrested an individual as part of the agency’s years-long investigation into the pipe bombs placed in the District of Columbia on Jan. 5, 2021.
A source confirmed the arrest with The Epoch Times but declined to offer more details.
The FBI’s media office did not return an inquiry.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and other officials are scheduled to hold a press conference to make a “significant law enforcement announcement,” the Department of Justice said in an email.
One pipe bomb was placed outside the Democratic National Committee office on Jan. 5, 2021. The other was left that same day outside the headquarters of the Republican National Committee. Surveillance footage showed a person wearing a hooded sweatshirt and face mask placing the bombs; no arrests had been made in the investigation for nearly five years.
Neither bomb went off, and law enforcement officers found them the following day as Congress convened in the U.S. Capitol to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The FBI said in 2021 the bombs “could have detonated, causing innocent bystanders to be seriously injured or killed.” Former FBI official Steven D’Antuono, though, told members of Congress in 2023 that the timers on the bombs were such that they could not have detonated.
A congressional panel said in January that the FBI identified some persons of interest in the case but had still not identified any suspects and had declined to give members additional information about the leads it had followed.
The bureau had been offering a $500,000 reward for information about the person who placed the bombs, and officials had repeatedly said they were working hard to identify the individual.
“Shortly after swearing in, the Director and I evaluated a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest,” FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said on X in May. “We made the decision to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention, to these cases,” with the pipe bombing investigation among them.
The FBI in October released new footage and reiterated the reward being offered.
This is a breaking story that will be updated.
