House Republicans sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday outlining concerns about the agency’s handling of the investigation into the suspect who planted the pipe bombs near the RNC and DNC on January 5, 2021.
In the letter, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) detail how the Judiciary Committee conducted a transcribed interview with Steven D’Antuono, the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, who oversaw investigations into the events at the Capitol on January 6.
During that conversation, D’Antuono explained why geofencing technology that would typically help identify a suspect has not been fruitful in this case. One issue is that the agency isn’t even sure if the suspect was using a real phone or whether it was a “ruse.” Secondly, some data from geofencing was “corrupted.”
So the – there's a lot of phone data that came in. Yes, I've seen the same video. I've watched the same video. We put out the same video. It looks like a phone. Was it a real phone, a not a real phone, was it a ruse? Was it a – you know, I picked up my phone several times at meetings going, oh, yeah, I got to take this call, and walk out, right. The phone's not on, right. So was the person just sitting there trying to pretend like they're on a bench taking a phone call? We don't know until we find the person, right, and ask them those questions.
We did a complete geofence. We have complete data. Not complete, because there's some data that was corrupted by one of the providers, not purposely by them, right. It just – unusual circumstance that we have corrupt data from one of the providers. I'm not sure – I can't remember right now which one. But for that day, which is awful because we don't have that information to search. So could it have been that provider? Yeah, with our luck, you know, with this investigation it probably was, right. So maybe if we did have that – that data wasn't corrupted – and it wasn't purposely corrupted. I don't want any conspiracy theories, right. To my knowledge, it wasn't corrupted, you know, but that could have been good information that we don't have, right. So that is painful for us to not to have that. So we looked at everything. (Judiciary Committee)
Another point of concern is that D’Antuono revealed he doesn't even know if the FBI interviewed the person who discovered the pipe bomb at the DNC, though he admitted it would be “investigation 101” to interview such individuals.
Since Wray has thus far failed to respond to the Judiciary Committee’s request for a briefing about the pipe bomb investigation, the lawmakers conclude their letter reiterating that appeal and ask for a number of documents related to the incident.
The lawmakers set a deadline of June 28, 2023, for the information requested.
Unbelievable. Former FBI in charge of Jan 6 investigation tells me phone data that could have been used to identify the person who placed pipe bombs on Jan 5 was CORRUPTED.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) June 15, 2023
Thank you @DarrenJBeattie whose groundbreaking reporting and help was used to formulate my questions. pic.twitter.com/Ga9mK9eSwm