FBI still hasn’t identified pipe bomb suspect a year after Capitol attack

A hooded and masked person roamed Capitol Hill on January 5, 2021, planting bombs near the Democratic and Republican national committee headquarters. A year later, there’s been no arrest in the case. 

The bombs were disabled before they exploded, but Steve D’Antuono, the FBI’s lead agent in Washington, D.C., says they were made to be lethal. 

“They could have exploded,” he told CBS News. “They could have done serious physical injury or death.” 

Investigators have conducted over 900 interviews and scoured 39,000 video files to try to identify the suspect. They’ve tracked much of the suspect’s route that was just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. 

D’Antuono said it’s been difficult to identify a suspect because “the individual was covered from head to toe,” wearing a hoodie, glasses, mask and gloves. He said authorities don’t even know whether the person is a man or woman. 

The FBI is asking for the public’s help in the case. 

The attack on the Capitol a day after the pipe bombs were placed has resulted in more than 725 arrests. At least 225 people were arrested for assaulting, resisting or impeding officers. More than 75 were arrested for using a deadly or dangerous weapon. But the FBI is still looking for hundreds of people believed to have committed violence that day. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland marked the anniversary of the attack in a speech Wednesday, vowing to hold all perpetrators “at any level” accountable under the law. 

Tom O’Conner, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, told CBS News that anti-government anger is a major concern and January 6 should be a wakeup call. But he doubted that the arrests will solve the problem. 

“We have to say that there’s more potential for violence out there. I mean, anybody who says that there isn’t and this is gone away is living in a dream world,” O’Conner said.