inside job<\/a>\u201d carried out by the FBI.\n <\/p>\n\n But at Thursday\u2019s news conference, Bongino praised the FBI\u2019s work and smiled as he recalled the \u201caha\u201d moment when Darren Cox, the assistant director in charge of the FBI\u2019s Washington field office, informed him that they were closing in on a suspect.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe said, \u2018Are you sitting down?\u2019\u201d Bongino said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI said, \u2018Oh boy, why? Is this bad news?\u2019 And he said, \u2018I think we got him.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n
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FBI makes arrest in DC pipe bomber investigation, sources say\n <\/p>\n
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FBI makes arrest in DC pipe bomber investigation, sources say<\/p>\n
4:29 <\/p>\n
\n The FBI has previously released surveillance videos of the suspect that officials said offered some key clues.\n <\/p>\n
\n For one, according to a criminal affidavit filed Wednesday, the videos showed that the two pipe bombs were placed by the same person, wearing dark pants, a gray hooded sweatshirt, dark gloves, and a medical face mask that obscured their face.\n <\/p>\n
\n The suspect was wearing notable sneakers: black and light grey Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers with a yellow logo. Fewer than 25,000 of those shoes had been sold at the time the bombs were placed.\n <\/p>\n
\n The videos also showed the suspect adjusting their eyeglasses. The FBI has said it used the videos to estimate that the suspect was about 5-foot-7-inches tall.\n <\/p>\n
\n Cole, the affidavit notes, wears corrective eyeglasses and is 5-foot-6-inches tall.\n <\/p>\n
\n Asked whether those sneakers had been recovered, Bondi and US Attorney Jeanine Pirro smiled during Thursday\u2019s news conference.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou\u2019ve asked very good investigative questions, but this is ongoing, very active,\u201d Bondi said, declining to offer details.\n <\/p>\n
Alleged bomb-making purchases, location data and vehicle<\/p>\n
\n Dozens of FBI and ATF agents and millions of dollars were spent analyzing every piece of evidence in the case.\n <\/p>\n
\n The criminal affidavit against Cole primarily relies on purchase history of alleged bomb-making materials, cell phone location data and a vehicle license plate reader.\n <\/p>\n
\n In 2019 and 2020, Cole purchased multiple items consistent with the components used to make the bombs at Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe\u2019s and Micro Center stores, according to the affidavit.\n <\/p>\n
\n The FBI assessed that the pipe bombs were made of a 1-inch-by-8-inch pipe, end caps, a 14-gauge red and black electrical wire, a nine-volt battery, a nine-volt battery connector, a white kitchen timer and steel wool, among other parts, the affidavit states.\n <\/p>\n
\n Investigators then went through Cole\u2019s purchase history and determined he bought all of those supplies over 2019 and 2020, the affidavit states. He also purchased equipment that would help put together the bombs, including safety glasses and a wire stripping tool, the document states.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was like finding a needle in a haystack,\u201d Pirro said at Thursday\u2019s news conference of the investigation, noting that 233,000 black end caps were distributed in 2020. \u201cThe FBI had to go through the sale of every one of (the end caps) to try to find commonality with an individual, along with the purchase of the pipe itself, the cap ends, the wires, the steel and the nine-volt batteries.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n As for the cell phone location data, the affidavit states the FBI obtained historical cell site records for January 5, 2021, and records associated with Cole\u2019s cell phone.\n <\/p>\n
\n The records are \u201cconsistent with the Cole cell phone being in the area of the RNC and DNC\u201d that day, according to the affidavit.\n <\/p>\n
\n Finally, Cole\u2019s vehicle, a 2017 Nissan Sentra, was observed driving past a license plate reader at about 7:10 p.m. that same night less than a half-mile from the spot where the pipe bomb suspect was first spotted, according to the affidavit.\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump administration officials said the key to solving this case was their focus and desire to do so, and they accused the Biden administration of failing to sufficiently prioritize it.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis cold case languished for four years until Director Patel and Deputy Director Bongino came to the FBI,\u201d Bondi said. \u201cThe FBI along with US Attorney Pirro have worked tirelessly for months sifting through evidence that had been sitting at the FBI with the Biden Administration for four long years.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Current and former officials, however, said the characterization that the evidence was gathering dust until the Trump administration is false.\n <\/p>\n
\n In May, Bongino said in a post on X<\/a> solving the pipe bombs case was among his and Patel\u2019s top priorities.\n <\/p>\n\n \u201cShortly after swearing in, the Director and I evaluated a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe made the decision to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention, to these cases.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Speaking Thursday, Patel said they brought in a new set of experts this year to dig into the vast evidence collected.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe brought in a team of experts who were the best at what they do in their specific fields to reevaluate that evidence, to dive back in, and to not come back with a \u2018no\u2019 for an answer until they had found the suspect,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n For his part, Cox, with the FBI\u2019s Washington field office, said FBI agents never stopped investigating the case.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt is the resolve and determination of our investigators that ultimately led to the identification and the arrest of this suspect,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThough it had been nearly 5 years, our team continued to churn through massive amounts of data and tips that we used to identify this suspect,\u201d Cox added.\n <\/p>\n
\n And despite the criticisms of previous investigative efforts, there is a lot of value in bringing in a new set of eyes and fresh perspective to a stalled case, said Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cLooking at that information in new ways, that can usually trigger some new leads,\u201d he said. \u201cFresh perspective on an old set of facts can often sometimes lead to breaking open a case like that.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN\u2019s Casey Tolan and Dugald McConnell contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The quiet calm of a weekday morning in a Woodbridge, Virginia, neighborhood was suddenly interrupted Thursday by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-327287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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