The Strange Case of the DC Pipe Bomber

Pipe Bombs are Considered "Weapons of Mass Destruction"

January 6, 2021 is related to a pipe bomb mystery and both are related to the FBI.

January 6, 2021

To understand the pipe bomb mystery, we have to start with the 2020 election. Elections in America, even Presidential elections, are not one unified national event. Instead, they are an intricate patchwork of hundreds of local elections held in districts. The districts feed their results to the state. Each state has a specific number of Electors, who are actual people. These Electors then go on a certain date in January to a joint session of Congress in Washington, DC where they ceremonially vote for the President. The protocol requires the joint session to be run by the vice president who, on January 6, 2021 was Mike Pence. (The vice president is considered “president” of the Senate.)

In a way, it’s just a formality. For instance, Texas has 38 Electors. When voting results in Texas showed Trump the winner there, all 38 Electors were to travel to D.C. for the joint session and vote for Trump. There was not a lot of wiggle room—the Electors had a specific vote to cast. It was a foregone conclusion that 38 Electoral votes from Texas would go to Trump. In calmer times, this certification process is boring.

The whole thing is admittedly a little archaic. Each state has already tallied the votes and prepared “certified results” in the form of sealed certificates in two wooden boxes. It then becomes the job of the vice president, in this case Mike Pence, to open the certificates and hand them off to the various people in the House and Senate, who read them aloud. These people are called “tellers,” like bank tellers. The results are then officially tallied.

Everybody already knows the results before the tellers even do their work, so this is a bit of old-fashioned pomp and circumstance.

The question arises as to whether or not the vice president has the right to reject these findings. The rejection would be based on the concept that if election fraud had occurred, then the Electors would be “fraudulent Electors” trying to sully the election results with their erroneous findings. Fraudulent results can be tossed out.

What is not subject to debate is the fact that members of Congress can object to the Electors, providing they do so in writing. This demands one person from the Senate and one person from the House get together and issue a short written objection. Such an action would force both House and Senate to adjourn for not more than two hours to come up with a response. The objection would then be voted on. Let’s say the response was that a certain state cheated and the results were fraudulent. The House and Senate would argue this out, issue statements, and then vote. A simple majority is all that is needed (51%) but both chambers must agree to sustain a challenge. This is all from the Amendment 12 of the Constitution.

Mitch McConnell urged Republicans NOT to challenge any of the election results, but challenges were still possible, legal, and not unprecedented. Case in point: Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Sen. Barbara Boxer, a couple of Democrats, challenged the results from Ohio in the 2004 election. They believed there were “irregularities” in the state’s election and contested the Electors. The House and Senate convened, there was a vote, and their objection was overruled.

In an odd quirk of fate, then-Vice-President Joe Biden presided over this ceremonial electoral process in 2017, when he was asked to ratify the election of Donald J. Trump. There were several Democrats who objected to Trump’s election but Biden cut them off at the pass. He overruled their objections, ostensibly because they were not made in writing, and stated in that crabby Biden voice, “It’s over!” It never even got to a vote.

Now let’s come back to January 6, 2021. Mike Pence was presiding over the Electoral College. Election results said Biden had won the election but these findings were controversial and certainly not everybody thought the election was on the up-and-up. The Democrats held the majority in the House at that time, so it seems that even if somebody had raised an objection, the House Democrats would have voted it down. In other words, it is hard to see how the election results could have been overturned if Congress followed protocol.

Contrary to various social media denizens, the Vice President has no right on his own to overturn the results of the election. However, the idea that Electoral votes might be challenged is an integral part of the process. To date, no vice president ever had to allow results to be overturned. However, the idea that challenges to the Electors were out of bound is not true at all.

If all goes well, this event typically lasts about an hour or two, but the Constitution allows for several days to elapse. The elasticity in the time frame was built in by the founding fathers, who knew that some elections might devolve into contentious challenges and repeated rounds of votes. The rules stated that Congress just had to certify results before January 20, 2021, which is the date when the old President leaves the White House and the newly elected President comes in.

(Now there is a weird and horrifying provision if January 20 arrives before the Electoral votes are certified. The Speaker of the House, in this case, Nancy Pelosi, becomes acting President until the Electoral college votes can be sorted out. This is how it would work—but it never has never happened in our history so far.)

Trump was holding a now-famous rally on January 6 in DC. A crowd had formed, which is typical of his speaking engagements. President Trump told the crowd to peacefully and patriotically assemble at Capitol. Accounts vary as to what transpired next, and it seems like all of them are true. Capitol police and authorities inside the building opened doors and let some people in. Other people were not let in and smashed windows to get in. There was scuffling and fighting in some areas and calm, people just wandering politely around in other areas. Some of it was peaceful; some of it was lethal; a lot of it was chaotic. A couple of the trespassers were killed; one was shot by a Capitol police officer named Michael Byrd (who was not only never charged, the shooting was never even investigated). Some of the protestors took selfies and acted like tourists. Some people were rioting. No one knew exactly what would happen next. Alexandra Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s filmmaker daughter, had been hired days beforehand to get video footage of the events. It was both chaos and order, destruction and curiosity.

Mike Pence, the key person in the election certification procedure, had to run to a secure underground location. Some Congresspeople hid under their desks or took cover in their offices. Some, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were not even in the building but still claim to have been traumatized by the unfolding chaos.

The Timeline

The timeline is telling. Trump began speaking near the White House to a rally-size crowd around noon. Protestors drifted from there to the Capitol by around 1 p.m., just as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gaveled the joint session to order. It is important to note that Trump went back to the White House; Donald Trump never went to the Capitol that day.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R, AZ) objected to the results from his state. He also said that he and 60 colleagues demanded a ballot count from Arizona. Sen. Ted Cruz (R, TX) supported Gosar, meeting the requirement that both a Representative and a Senator bring forth the objection in writing. So now the House and Senate split apart to consider this. By now it’s 1:30 p.m.

The first protestors arrive at the Capitol grounds and some start to enter.

By now, the Senate and House had separated to consider the Arizona election results and the Congress people appeared to be oblivious to the “invasion” by the crowd.  Mitch McConnel took the floor a little bit after 1:30 and said the election should NOT be overruled.

It is at this very moment that pipe bombs are found. There was one in front of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) building and one at the Republican National Convention (RNC) building.

By 2 p.m. some windows had been broken at the Capitol. The Secret Service spirited Pence to an underground safety area. Nancy Pelosi was also led away to a safe space. By 2:20 p.m. the Senate and House were called to recess and the Capitol went into lockdown. Whatever happened to Arizona’s questionable election results was quickly forgotten.

At 2:38 p.m., Trump tweeted out that he urged people to “stay peaceful” and asked for everyone to support the efforts of law enforcement and the Capitol police.

By 3:00 p.m., protestors had entered the Senate. By 3:36 p.m., Trump orders the National Guard to the Capitol. Before January 6, he had offered both Nancy Pelosi and Muriel Bowser, the mayor of DC, an offer of National Guard support but both refused. He now overrode their poor decision and sent in the National Guard.

At 4:00 p.m., Biden went on television and told Trump to call off the protest and named it an “insurrection,” an inaccurate term that stuck.

Demonstrations on a lesser scale occurred at other areas of the nation. By about 6 p.m. the Capitol was secured and Muriel Bowser instituted a 12-hour curfew. Trump never went on TV but he utilized social media to talk about unfairness in the election results and said to his supporters, “Go home with love and in peace.” Facebook and Twitter banned him at this point.

Things gradually calmed down and the Capitol meetings resumed by around 11:32 p.m. on January 6. By 3:42 a.m. on January 7, Pence called the election for Biden. The challenge about the Arizona electors was dismissed.

So what does this mean? The January 6 event was not an insurrection. When FBI Director Christopher Wray was brought to testify before Congress about how many federal agents were working undercover in the crowd that day, he said he didn’t know. That may not be perjury, because maybe he does not actually know the exact number. However, the proper answer should have been, “Zero.” There have been lots of allegations that the January 6 activity was incited and accelerated by federal agents.

Now let’s look at this a different way. While it was a long shot that objections from Congress could delay the election results, let alone overturn them …  it was possible. Since the election was fraught with controversy and Trump was already planning a rally, Democrats anticipated a bit of a slugfest. And they were right—an issue about Arizona results came up right out of the gate. Had things gone peacefully, the procedure would have demanded that Senate and House go to their separate corners, discuss the matter, and then vote. There is no limit on how long this could go on. Dozens of states might object.

While it is unlikely that the Republicans could have overturned election results with this method, it was not impossible. The more likely outcome was that Republicans could have prolonged the certification process, made impassioned speeches, and annoyed their Democrat colleagues. Assuredly, the Republicans had it within their power to gum up the works, but it is hard to say if anything they might have done would have changed election results.

Nevertheless, the Democrats wanted a fast way to conclude the process.

• The Democrats needed Congress to be willing to agree to certify the results so Pence could rubber stamp them quickly. Once Pence said they were certified, that was it.

• The J6 event was transformed into an “insurrection,” which was then used as a cudgel to batter Trump after the election and to intimidate anyone who ever might attend a Trump rally.

• A total of 378 people went to prison for J6 related activities. Many of them were guilty of nothing more than trespassing but still got long sentences, were held without bail before trial, and some spent time in solitary confinement. The deep state made its point about wanting MAGA people to stay in line. Around this time, Vladimir Putin pointed out that the United States had political prisoners. Biden did not contradict him.

The Pipe Bombs

Enter the pipe bombs. Two pipe bombs were found on January 6, one outside the DNC and one at the RNC. They were found right around the time that Mike Pence was fending off the Goslar-Cruz challenge.

Kamala Harris was not at the Senate that day, as originally reported, she was at the DNC. By all accounts, the Secret Service had a protective detail on her and knew she was in the DNC building. To this day, it is not known why Kamala was at the DNC on this most important day of her political career. What was she doing at the DNC? Why wouldn’t she want to be at the Capitol and watch the ratification of her own election? That question has yet to be answered. In fact, earlier reports had said Kamala was NOT at the DNC. Why was her presence at the DNC something to be hidden?

There are many reasons to suspect the pipe bombs were plants. At the very least, they were suspicious. There is video footage showing the Secret Service and federal agents being alerted to the whereabouts of the pipe bombs. Law enforcement officers were so blasé about it, they did not bother even to alert the bomb squad, nor did they bother getting Madame Vice-President-Elect to safety. In fact, a group of children walked in front of the pipe bomb (which one would have to assume was still “live”) and law enforcement did nothing.

Nobody ever identified who the DC pipe bomber was, although it is alleged that the FBI has video footage of the person. The whole thing was swept under the rug. The bombs never went off. It is not known for sure if they were live bombs that were de-activated or fake bombs that were simply removed. My money is on the latter, but we really do not know.

And now the bombs are gone and the story has faded from the news.

It may have been that the pipe bombs were insurance—they were there as part of the alleged “insurrection.” In other words, had the actual “attack” on the Capitol fizzled out, there were still bombs that could be used to verify a MAGA insurrection. When the Capitol was indeed breached, the bombs were no longer necessary and removed. I think our mainstream media and political powers that be expected that we would forget about them.

Right now, there is a veil of secrecy over the two pipe bombs. They are hardly reported and the reports we do get are so convoluted, they’re hard to understand.

If these pipe bombs were built and placed by alleged insurrectionists, why didn’t the federal government seek these perpetrators out? Why was there no investigation? Why was no one arrested? We have arrested hundreds of people in or around DC on that day, but no one seems interested in somebody who was actually planting pipe bombs. (By the way, our government calls pipe bombs “weapons of mass destruction”—they’re not to be trifled with!)

We have buried the pipe bomber story and gone after grandmothers who strolled through the Capitol holding flags on January 6. We have arrested and persecuted “trespassers” and smeared them as insurrectionists. We have chased Donald Trump high and low for his foul deeds on January 6, when he repeatedly called for peace and order.

Why don’t we care about the pipe bombers? Or were the two pipe bombs planted by the deep state?