January 6, 2021 is far from having revealed all its secrets. More than a year after the attack on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump refusing to admit defeat, the revelations continue on this day when American democracy wavered. The latest, published this Monday by the CNN channel, concerns Kamala Harris, at the time vice-president-elect of Joe Biden and, for a few days yet, senator from California.
As such, she participated on the morning of January 6 in a confidential meeting of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Two kilometers to the west, Trump supporters flock near the White House, where the incumbent is due to address them around noon. At the end of the morning, Kamala Harris leaves the Capitol, still peaceful, to go to the headquarters of the Democratic Party, nearby. His convoy, reveals CNN, enters there around 11:30 a.m. And then passes a few meters from a homemade bomb deposited the night before, but not yet discovered.
A quick search on Google Maps reveals the extent of the danger. Barely 7 or 8 meters separate the bench at the foot of which the explosive device was deposited from the entrance to the parking lot used by the convoy of Kamala Harris, placed under the protection of the secret services since her appointment as running mate by Joe Biden , in the summer of 2020.
Unanswered questions
According to the American channel, which relies on the anonymous testimonies of “numerous leaders of the security forces”, However, the secret services carried out the traditional inspection of the area that day, prior to the visit of the highest personalities. “The interior of the building, the access road, the parking lot, the entrances and exits have been checked before arrival” by Kamala Harris, says CNN. But surprisingly, the homemade bomb, located a few meters from one of the doors of the building, was not spotted.
It will be shortly after 1 p.m., just when, a few hundred meters away, the assailants of the Capitol, white-hot by Trump’s speech, begin to break through the fragile security perimeter. A few minutes earlier, another explosive device was discovered near the Republican Party headquarters in the same neighborhood. At 1:07 p.m. precisely, the Capitol police launched the alert on these bombs. Seven minutes later, Kamala Harris is evacuated from the building through another exit and transported to an unknown location. In total, she will have spent nearly two hours in the Democratic building, at the foot of which was a bomb.
“Viable” and dangerous according to the FBI, the two devices, composed of steel pipes of about twenty centimeters filled with an explosive powder and equipped with a timer, will be triggered a few later by the police. Why didn’t they explode before? Who filed them, and for what purpose? Did the bomb placed in front of the Democratic Party specifically target Kamala Harris, whose presence there had not been publicly announced, and was only revealed at the beginning of January by the specialized site Politico? All these questions remain unanswered.
Two days after the fact, the FBI had published photos and videos of the person who deposited the two devices the previous evening, between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. For any information leading to his arrest, the federal police first offered 50,000, then quickly 100,000 dollars in reward (90,000 euros). She conducted over 900 interviews and received over 400 pieces of information. No result. Camouflaged from head to toe, wearing a mask, goggles and a gray hoodie, the suspect – who the FBI does not even know is male or female – remains nowhere to be found.
A pardon from Trump?
Another fundamental question persists: was there a connection between these two explosive devices and the assault by Trump supporters? Auditioned in February by Congress, the former Capitol police chief, forced to resign in the wake of the events of January 6, seemed convinced. “We had to deal with two homemade bombs placed precisely just beyond our perimeter, with the aim, in my opinion, of diverting our resources. […] I think there was significant coordination with that attack.” he told parliamentarians.
Interviewed in early January by ABC, on the first anniversary of the assault on Congress, the FBI’s deputy director in charge of the Washington bureau, Steven D’Antuono, stressed that the arrest of the suspect remains “a priority”. And renewed its call for witnesses: “This person planted two viable explosive devices in a residential and commercial area, which could have injured people. We want to catch him before he hurts someone else.”
Since January 6, 2021, more than 730 people, including members of the “white power” militias and far-right groups Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, have been arrested and charged federally for their part in the attack on the Capitol. , which claimed the lives of five people, according to the tally by George Washington University. During a meeting on Saturday evening in Texas, Donald Trump hinted that he could pardon some assailants if he wins the 2024 presidential election. “If I show up, and if I win, we will treat those on January 6 fairly. And if it requires graces, we will grant them graces, because they are treated in such an unfair way”, launched the former president.