There Are Two Conflicting Theories Of The January 6 Pipe Bombs

A little over a week ago, I posted on what amounts to the dominant theory of the pipe bombs that were placed near both the Republican and Democrat National Committee headquarters buildings in Washington prior to the January 6, 2021 demonstration at the Capitol. This theory, supported by video evidence, proposes that an individual, slight in build and wearing both a hoodie and a face mask, left the bombs in the evening hours on January 5.

The FBI posted the video evidence and requested more information from the public as early as October, 2021. However, other than slightly more additional video covering the same suspect's path through the area, no additional imformation has come to light despite increasing rewards. A second theory is emerging, made more credible given the lack of new information on the video suspect, but it contradicts the idea that the bombs were planted the evening before.

In this version, a woman who lived in the area, Karin Younger, discovered one of the bombs near the Republican National Committee as she walked thnrough an adjacent alley to visit a laundromat.

“As I was going back into the alley that’s when, by sheer luck, that’s when I looked down and see this piece of metal debris, that I thought was a metal piece of recycling or something,” Younger said. “That’s when I looked down and I really had trouble processing what I could possibly be looking at.”

She looked at the object and wondered what it was.

Is that a pipe? Are those wires? This has got to be a joke. There’s just no way that this is possibly what it looks like.["]

. . . Younger alerted a nearby security guard who called law enforcement. Once police arrived, Younger and her neighbors were evacuated from their homes and were told they could go back inside once police left.

This story was reported soon after the January 6 episode, but it subsequently faded. The biggest issue in her accounts of what she saw was a kitchen timer connected to the device that was somehow set to "20". These accounts vary in details.

Of all the details Younger shared with authorities and reporters, the “20-minute” timer arguably fed the most important part of narrative related to the pipe bombs, or at least the one at the RNC—the bomb was set to detonate at 1:00 p.m., the exact time Congress convened to debate the outcome of the 2020 election and certify Joe Biden as the winner.

In at least one interview, Younger acknowledged that the timer was in perfect sync with the start of the historic proceedings about to begin just a few blocks away at the U.S. Capitol. “I couldn’t think that there might be some connection here,” Younger said days after the incident. “There has to be. The timing was too coincidental.”

But although the kitchen-type timers were in fact found attached to both bombs, there's some question about whether they could actually have detonated the bombs as accounts have surmised. Even more important, at the same link,

In a June 2023 congressional interview, Steven D’Antuono—the former head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, who oversaw the pipe-bomb investigation—admitted that “whoever discovers the device is somebody you need to talk to because they could be the one that planted the device in the first place. You know, so that’s just investigation 101.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) asked D’Antuono if Younger “was ruled out as a suspect or an unwitting accomplice to somebody?” to which D’Antuono answered, “I don’t know.”

As I noted in this post, D'Antuono left the FBI in late 2022 following apparent disagreements with Director Wray and Attorney General Garland. In fact, little new has emerged about the bombs since 2021, but new discrepancies have kept emerging about what we think we already know. In an interview, Rep Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), Chairman of the New January 6 Select Subcommittee,

revealed that the FBI’s own lab report confirmed there were explosives in the devices found near the RNC and DNC — but the story of when and how those devices were planted keeps changing.

According to Loudermilk, Secret Service bomb-sniffing dogs swept the DNC grounds the morning of January 6 — the day after the FBI claims a bomb was planted — and the dogs did not detect any device.

This was a routine sweep prior to Vice President Harris's arrival at the Democrat headwuarters, but it was before Karin Younger discovered the bomb at the Republican headquarters.

“Either it was inert — which according to the FBI it wasn’t, it had explosives in it — or it wasn’t there,” Loudermilk said. “But we have video of it being placed, so now we need to know — was it placed and picked back up and then put back out again? If so, why? Why did they go to that extent?”

My own reaction to the video footage that was posted by the FBI was that the individual in the mask and hoodie seemed disorganized -- this didn't seem like a professional focused to carry out a particular mission. It's entirely possible that the individual was so conflicted that he or she placed the bombs, removed them, and placed them again, although there ought to be additional video from later on January 5 and the morning of January 6 that would confirm this.

There were also frequent comments following the recent re-posting of the video saying the slightly-built person about 5'7" tall who wore a face mask and hoodie could easily be a woman, or at least a trans male -- but this wouldn't rule out Karin Younger herself. In any case, this all reinforces the idea that the bombs may have been planted by a disorganized amateur, not a professional terrorist.