WASHINGTON—Two key U.S. Capitol Police security cameras that were pointed at the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) offices during the Jan. 6, 2021, pipe bomb incident were remotely redirected by police and didn’t record or broadcast critical portions of the police response, The Epoch Times has learned.

A review of yet-unreleased security video footage by The Epoch Times shows Capitol Police Camera 3173—located directly across the street from where the DNC bomb sat—was remotely directed away from the scene at 1:29 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, before the bomb squad arrived.

The Epoch Times discovered that Camera 8020—located high on the nearby Fairchild Building—had been zoomed in showing the bomb squad assembling along E Street Southeast, until the Capitol Police Command Center redirects the camera at 1:44 p.m. just as a bomb robot begins traveling toward the DNC.

A source familiar with the U.S. Capitol Police camera system and response procedures told The Epoch Times that the redirection of key cameras during that type of active event is “really odd.”

For the rest of the day, Camera 3173 points at a small park area on South Capitol Street Southeast. For the next 2½ hours, Camera 8020 points at distant railroad tracks and a highway overpass.

The Epoch Times’ video review revealed that none of the Capitol Police security cameras that cover the DNC show the Secret Service conducting a security sweep of the property just before 11:25 a.m., in preparation for a visit by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. A dog and its handler were seen on video two hours earlier searching the same area in which the bomb was later found.

Capitol Police video also doesn’t show the discovery of the DNC pipe bomb by an undercover police officer at 1:05 p.m. that day.

When Ms. Harris’ entourage arrives at the DNC at 11:25 a.m., two agents stand in the street surveying the scene as three black SUVs pull into the garage, video shows. After the motorcade is safely inside, four agents are seen on the driveway as a Secret Service SUV and a Metropolitan Police Department squad vehicle back into the driveway.

No bomb-sniffing dogs are seen on video just prior to, during, or after the arrival of Ms. Harris’ entourage, the video shows.

The Epoch Times viewed the security video in a U.S. House office building under media access rules first established by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and continued with modifications by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

The rules disallowed screenshots to be taken or video to be recorded. Video clips from the cameras surrounding the DNC were released to The Epoch Times by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight.

“As part of our overall investigation into the events surrounding January 6, critical questions remain unanswered on the DNC/RNC pipe bomb investigation,” Mr. Loudermilk told The Epoch Times in a statement. “As we continue our investigation, my Oversight Subcommittee will continue working with anyone interested in uncovering the truth.

“The American people have a right to full transparency and complete accountability on this matter,” Mr. Loudermilk said.

The new pipe bomb security video is the latest development in the Jan. 6 pipe bombs investigation. A member of the House Committee on the Judiciary recently confirmed an article by Blaze Media that the DNC pipe bomb was discovered by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer and not a passerby.Investigators want to know what kind of security sweep was conducted by the Secret Service near the time of Ms. Harris’ arrival.

Another key question being asked is how the protection detail could have missed the pipe bomb in plain view at the base of a park bench just feet from the DNC building, if the device was indeed present at 9:30 a.m. or 11:25 a.m.

The FBI said it believes the pipe bombs at the DNC and the Capitol Hill Club near the Republican National Committee building were planted between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 5 by an individual wearing a gray hoodie and expensive sneakers.

A three-year investigation and $500,000 reward has led to no arrests.

Security video released Feb. 13 by columnist Julie Kelly shows that just before 9:29 a.m., what appears to be a bomb-sniffing dog at work along the DNC driveway and the building entrance a few feet from where the pipe bomb would be discovered 3½ hours later.

At 9:50 a.m., the dog and its handler search a vehicle in the DNC driveway. After completing the search, the dog crosses the sidewalk just feet from where the pipe bomb would be discovered at 1:05 p.m.

The Secret Service, which hasn’t commented publicly about the DNC pipe bomb, didn’t respond to a request from The Epoch Times for comment.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, which has watchdog jurisdiction over the Secret Service, is expected to release its own investigation of Jan. 6 that will include the DNC pipe bomb response.

Former FBI special agent Kyle Seraphin, who worked surveillance in the Jan. 6 pipe bombs case, said his team was told by an FBI briefing agent that the bombs weren’t real.

“Looked very bomb-like,” Mr. Seraphin said on the Jan. 25 episode of his podcast. “Those are the actual words that I remember, ‘Looked very bomb-like.’”

According to the U.S. Bomb Data Center, of the 348 hoax-device incidents in 2021, the most common hoax bomb was an improvised explosive device (IED) such as a pipe bomb. The IED accounted for 88 percent of the hoaxes. Of the 381 actual bombings in 2021, 126 used IEDs.

During a House hearing in April 2023, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Steven Dettelbach, wouldn’t comment when asked if the pipe bombs were operable.

“I’m not accepting that answer,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in response.

The ATF denied a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by The Epoch Times in 2023 for details on the bombs.

Video Shows Destruction of Bomb

While two security cameras were turned away from the DNC bomb site, two other cameras—8021 and 4205—captured much of the detection, removal, disarming, and eventual destruction of the DNC device by a bomb robot at 2:11 p.m. and 2:31 p.m.

In the video captured by those cameras, the bomb robot was on the extreme edge of the screen and was occasionally partially obscured.

Camera 8019 showed the bomb squad beginning to assemble at 1:13:44 p.m. on E Street Southeast just east of Canal Street Southeast.

At 1:35 p.m., Camera 8020 shows a Capitol Police bomb squad truck staged on E Street. A ramp extends from the rear of the truck down to the street. About a dozen police officers stand nearby.

At 1:34:32 p.m., the bomb robot—also known as a tactical unmanned ground vehicle (UGV)—rolls down the ramp to the street.

At 1:43:38 p.m., the UGV emerges from between the USCP truck and a nearby police pickup truck. The rubber-track UGV turns west on E Street and starts traveling northwest up Canal Street toward the DNC.

At 1:44:33 p.m., just as the UGV turns onto Canal Street, Camera 8020 is directed away from the bomb squad and its gaze is fixed to the south on a set of railroad tracks and part of a highway overpass. The camera stays in that fixed position until 4:14:44 p.m., when it pans back to show the dwindling police command center along E Street west of New Jersey Avenue Southeast.

The UGV reaches the DNC property at 1:49 p.m. and leaves the street to travel northwest on the sidewalk toward two park benches. It stops at the benches and inches forward to examine the pipe bomb at 1:50:22, video shows.

After remaining stationary for several minutes, the UGV creeps closer to the pipe bomb. At 1:58:05 p.m., the UGV backs away from the bench with a silver object in its grasp. The robot spins to its left and moves toward the street. On the way, it rotates 360 degrees before continuing into the street.

By 2:00:51 p.m., the UGV with the pipe bomb had traveled south on South Capitol Street and stops near the intersection with Canal Street. It remains in the street, just feet from the curb. Rotation and movement of the robot’s manipulator arm are visible on the CCTV feed over the following 10 minutes.

With the pipe bomb now on the ground near the curb, the robot fires its disruptor—a water cannon—at 2:11:55 p.m. A small plume of dust is kicked up from the street after the disruptor shot but there’s no explosion from the pipe bomb.

A disruptor is designed to disarm a pipe bomb by targeting high-velocity liquid such as water at the device to break it apart without triggering detonation, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate. Homeland Security supplies a patented disruptor called the ReVJeT to bomb squads across the United States through the FBI’s Hazardous Device School.

At 2:25:52, the UGV sets the remaining section of the pipe bomb down in the street near the curb. The robot’s manipulator hands hover over the device, retracting and extending.

At 2:31:16, the UGV fires another disruptor shot at the pipe bomb, the video shows. A piece of debris shoots approximately 10-12 feet in the air, clearing the top of the street signs in the direction of the DNC. A second chunk of the device flies backward into the street.

A technician wearing a protective bomb suit walks onto the scene at 2:50 p.m., kneeling to examine some of the bomb debris in the street. The tech is later seen stretched out on his stomach, searching the bushes next to the building. At 3:12 p.m., four officers arrive to comb the scene, picking up and bagging the debris as evidence.

The Epoch Times reached out to U.S. Capitol Police for comment on the two cameras that were directed away from the pipe bomb scene, but did not receive a reply by press time.

New Questions Raised

Details on the bomb squad’s handling of the device are the latest developments in the investigation of pipe bombs found at the DNC and in an alley between the Capitol Hill Club and the Republican National Committee.

Fresh questions have been raised about the DNC pipe bomb due to security video that shows what has been described as a lack of urgency by the Secret Service and police after the bomb was discovered near a park bench at 1:05 p.m.

The video shows it took Secret Service agents nearly two and a half minutes to emerge from their vehicles to investigate after they were tipped off about the bomb by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer.

“First of all the lackadaisical response to the notification that there’s a bomb nearby,” Mr. Massie said on Jan. 30, describing the significance of the security video that his office released.

“They mill about, they finish their lunch in their cars after the guy with the backpack comes up and says, ‘Hey, there’s a bomb over here.’”

The first mention of the DNC pipe bomb on Capitol Police radio occurred at 1:07 p.m., according to audio obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times.

“987-Adam, I’m going to declare a 10-100 at the DNC as well,” an officer broadcast on the OPS2 radio channel.

“Similar device as was found at the RNC as well. Advising the units on scene what’s going on.”

It took some 11 minutes after the report of the bomb for the Secret Service to evacuate Ms. Harris from the DNC.

According to CCTV reviewed by The Epoch Times, Ms. Harris’ entourage pulls away from the front of the building at 1:16:16 p.m.

The vehicles in Ms. Harris’ protection detail emerge from a garage door located mere feet from the pipe bomb at 1:13:40 p.m. before heading to the building’s front entrance.

A man identified by Mr. Massie as a plainclothes Capitol Police officer is seen on security video approaching two sport utility vehicles parked in the DNC driveway at the intersection of Canal Street Southeast and South Capitol Street Southeast. The SUVs were part of Ms. Harris’ protection detail.

According to guidelines developed by the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security, the minimum evacuation perimeter for a pipe bomb is 70 feet, while the preferred evacuation zone is at least 1,200 feet.

In the nearly seven minutes after the undercover officer approached the Secret Service detail to report the bomb, the streets aren’t closed, the sidewalks aren’t cordoned off, and pedestrians are allowed to walk right past the bomb for five minutes, security video shows.

An official familiar with Washington police operations said the Secret Service response at the DNC is puzzling.

“The whole reaction to the pipe bomb, I’m just baffled by it,” the source told The Epoch Times.

Agents walk back and forth on the driveway and sidewalk near the bomb, and one officer walks close enough to snap a photo of the device with his cell phone before waving at the other officers. Two agents stand outside of the building’s rear entrance, a few feet from the bomb.

Just before 1:10 p.m., a group of teenagers or young adults crossed the street and traversed the DNC sidewalk, feet from the bomb, video shows.

Just before 1:13 p.m., a blue passenger vehicle drives down Ivy Street Southeast, turns onto Canal, and sits at the stoplight adjacent to the DNC. Someone approaches the driver and gestures before the vehicle drives off toward Washington Avenue Southwest.

Four trains coming from and going to Union Station travel over the railroad trestle right next to the DNC between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., the video shows.

At 11:22 a.m., an Amtrak train traveling east toward Union Station rolls over the trestle. At 1 p.m., a Virginia Railway train with six passenger cars crosses the trestle. At 1:20 p.m., a regional commuter train traveling west with 13 passenger cars ambles past. An Amtrak train traveling east pulling seven passenger cars passes the DNC at 1:22 p.m.

Capitol Police Discovery

Mr. Massie said Capitol Police confirmed to him on Jan. 30 that the DNC pipe bomb was discovered by a Capitol Police officer.

“They say it was a Capitol Police officer who found this bomb, and he told them it was a bomb,” Mr. Massie said on the podcast “Firebrand With Matt Gaetz.”

“He radioed it in and said, ‘We’ve got the device, we found another device.’”

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testified in February 2021 that after the pipe bomb was found at the Capitol Hill Club at 12:43 p.m., USCP sent countersurveillance officers to the DNC. Those officers usually work in pairs.

In the video, The Epoch Times noticed a man—dressed nearly identical to the officer who reported the pipe bomb to the Secret Service—walking past the bomb scene about a minute before the bomb was reported. Dressed in a dark vest, lighter pants and shirt, and a cap, the man strolls past the Secret Service vehicles, along South Capitol Street under the railroad trestle, then crosses the road and disappears off camera.

At 1:09 p.m., Camera 3173 pivots and zooms in on the bench, indicating that the Capitol Police Command Center is aware of the bomb. A portion of the bomb’s white kitchen timer is visible on the far left corner of the video screen.

Mr. Massie, who has repeatedly pressed the FBI and the ATF to release more details in the case, said there has been “an ongoing coverup” of the pipe bombs by federal officials.

“It looks identical to the training pipe bombs they build or train with, that the FBI uses ... right down to the 60-minute kitchen timer,” Mr. Massie said on Jan. 30.

“They all still claim these were viable pipe bombs.”