(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Case Solved? Not so fast.
On Saturday, Blaze Media reported that the person who allegedly planted pipe bombs near the RNC and DNC headquarters ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protest is likely a former Capitol Police officer who now works for the CIA. Blaze identified that person, but Headline USA is not publishing the name because the evidence is circumstantial at best.
When Blaze reporter Steve Baker published their story, he and others touted it as a triumph for journalism.
“This might just be the biggest scandal and conspiracy in American history,” Baker said on Twitter/X. “Many heroes were involved in bringing this to light. Some we can name in coming days. Some who want no recognition. And there’s much more to this yet to be told.”
However, the Blaze report immediately received pushback. Independent journalist Breanna Morello reported later that day that a federal employee with knowledge of the pipe bomb case said the person named by Blaze is not, in fact, the pipe bomber.
And now, the FBI is also saying the case is still open.
“The investigation into who placed pipe bombs on Capitol Hill on Jan. 5, 2021, remains a high priority for the FBI and our law enforcement partners. A $500,000 reward remains in effect for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the individual who placed the pipe bombs,” the bureau said in a statement to Morello on Sunday.
“We urge anyone who may have previously hesitated to come forward or who may not have realized they had important information to contact us and share anything relevant.”
The FBI’s statement comes after Blaze reported Saturday morning that it had a “veteran analyst” run the suspect through gait recognition software, which analyzes how someone walks. The software reportedly found that the suspect’s gait is a “94%-98% match” to that of a former Capitol Police officer, whose name Headline USA is not publishing since there’s no hard evidence against this person. Several “current intelligence sources” reportedly confirmed the findings.
Blaze also initially reported that the purported suspect worked on CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s security detail, but had to run a correction after the agency clarified that the person only works campus security.
The Capitol Police has yet to comment on the matter. DOJ special attorney Ed Martin said that the DOJ has not identified the former officer as the suspect.
It’s unclear if the publication reached out to the former officer for comment. Blaze editor in chief Christopher Bedford said he was pulled over by local police after stopping to observe the former officer’s home Friday night. He was allowed to leave.
Pipe Bomb Case History
As Headline USA revealed in March 2024, the FBI had a suspect identified by Jan. 10, 2021 in the pipe bomb case, but never made any arrests.
FBI records released in September revealed that agents didn’t interview the woman who discovered a pipe bomb near the RNC around 12:40 p.m. on Jan. 6 until days later. That woman, former counterterrorism analyst and then-Commerce Department worker Karlin Younger, said she found the bomb while doing laundry.
Meanwhile, former Vice President Kamala Harris continues to be tight-lipped on the subject, despite the fact that her motorcade drove past the DNC pipe bomb on Jan. 6. Harris left the Capitol at 11:21 a.m. arrived to the DNC at 11:25 a.m., but the nearby pipe bomb wasn’t discovered until 1:07 p.m. by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer.
The lack of answers have driven many to suspect that it may have been a false-flag attempt overseen by the feds themselves to divert law enforcement from the Capitol right as the Jan. 6 protest was turning violent.
Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., has said that it may be impossible to successfully prosecute the pipe bomber, even if he or she is ever arrested.
“Here’s what a good criminal defense attorney’s going to say: If you identified the individual who’s believed to place the bomb, then hours go by, and you had a search by the Secret Service at the DNC and the dog didn’t find the explosive—so clearly, the device [the defense attorney’s] client might have left there wasn’t the device that was determined to be the pipe bomb, because it wasn’t picked up by the bomb-sniffing dog,” Griffith argued in March 2024.
Blaze Reporter Steve Baker’s Dubious Journalism
Blaze reporter Steve Baker was the lead reporter on Saturday’s unconfirmed pipe bomb story. Baker has a long history of reporting dubious and downright false information.
In August 2024, for instance, he reported that the alleged pipe bomber seemingly interacting with Capitol Police while walking around DC the night of Jan. 5, 2021. However, that turned out to be false. The pipe bomb suspect seen walking by the Capitol Hill Club was not the same person as someone who walked towards Capitol Police vehicles minutes later.
In that blunder, one of Baker’s sources was former FBI agent Kyle Seraphin, who is also a source in his story naming the supposed pipe bomb suspect. Seraphin is currently being sued for his own blunder—baselessly accusing FBI Director Kashyap Patel’s girlfriend of being an Israeli intelligence asset. Seraphin’s defense is that he was joking when he said that.
A month before reporting a fake pipe bomb story, Baker reported in July 2024 that a Secret Service counter-sniper shot the would-be assassin at Butler, Pennsylvania, from 448 yards away. In fact, the counter-sniper who shot the would-be assassin was about 150 yards away. Baker never ran a correction on his false report.
Additionally, Baker has claimed to have evidence that the Pentagon authorized “directed energy weapons” to be used during the 2020 leftist riots, and that such weapons may also have been used on Jan. 6, 2021. Baker has yet to provide any evidence of this.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
