On January 6, 2021, during the U.S. Capitol protest-turned-riot, pipe bombs were found near the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters.
Reports have now emerged that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) motorcade passed close to the DNC bomb before it was disabled by law enforcement, as detailed by The New York Times.
Similarly, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ motorcade also went past the yet-to-be-discovered pipe bomb while entering the DNC’s parking garage just a few hours earlier.
The Republican-led House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee has been addressing the gaps in investigation left by the defunct Democrat-led Jan. 6 House Select Committee.
This includes the oversight of the Capitol riot and the overlooked discovery of pipe bombs outside both headquarters in Washington D.C.
As per The Times, newly released video and analysis from the subcommittee show how Pelosi’s motorcade came within close proximity to the DNC bomb before its deactivation by law enforcement.
According to video footage from Capitol Police, surveillance cameras, and an unaired documentary filmed by Pelosi’s daughter, it was determined that Pelosi’s motorcade was allowed to pass police barricades and travel through a security perimeter while the DNC bomb was still being worked on after evacuating her from the besieged Capitol building.
Police have defended this action by claiming that the bomb had been mostly neutralized and posed minimal danger when Pelosi’s motorcade passed by, approximately five minutes before the explosive device was declared fully inoperable.
A CNN report from January 2022 stated that just hours before then-Speaker Pelosi’s motorcade drove near the unexploded pipe bomb at the DNC on January 6, 2021, then-VP-elect Harris’ motorcade also came within close proximity of the same device as she entered the DNC’s parking garage.
Harris entered the DNC around 11:30 am ET, while the bomb remained undiscovered until shortly after 1 pm despite supposed security sweeps with a bomb-detecting canine. At that time, Harris was evacuated from the building via a different route.
Both the Secret Service and White House declined to comment for that CNN report, and the network noted at the time that “The fact that Harris was so close to potential danger for that period of time raises additional questions about the security measures in place to protect her.”
The initial report from the subcommittee, released in March of this year, raised significant concerns about the handling of the discovery and disarming of the DNC and RNC pipe bombs by federal and local law enforcement.
The report highlighted questions about the delay in finding the explosive devices and the failure to identify and apprehend the individual responsible, despite video evidence.
Additionally, it revealed that law enforcement did not maintain a secure perimeter around the bombs once they were located.
This oversight resulted in then-Speaker Pelosi and numerous unsuspecting pedestrians, motorists, and train commuters breaching the perimeter, potentially compromising the crime scene during an ongoing investigation.
“The perimeter that was set up around the DNC — it looked chaotic because it was chaotic,” Capitol Police Assistant Chief Sean Gallagher admitted during testimony before the subcommittee in March, per The Times. “We were dealing with a pipe bomb a couple blocks away at the RNC. We were dealing with a pickup truck that had 11 Molotov cocktails, machetes, rifles, handguns, ammunition in it. And at the same time, our officers were suffering injuries on the west front of the Capitol. It was mentioned that we didn’t have enough Capitol Police officers. We did not.”
