Kash Patel: Jan. 6th DNC Pipe Bomb Could Be a ‘Government Ruse’
Yet another conspiracy theory regarding the FBI from the man Donald Trump wants to lead it.
KASH PATEL, PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S NOMINEE to serve as FBI director, has suggested that the pipe bomb placed near the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Headquarters on January 6, 2021 could be a “government ruse.” Patel claimed the case files may show an “FBI rogue source” was responsible. And he alleged that evidence was “mounting” of a coverup by the FBI’s “government gangsters.” This extreme conspiracy theory—insinuating that the FBI itself was responsible for the pipe bomb, or covered up the truth—is an important part of the record disqualifying Patel from leading the organization he baselessly denigrates.
Patel made these comments during a January 22, 2024 appearance on Benny Johnson’s YouTube show. The title of that episode is: “Kash Patel BREAKS DOWN Feds January 6th ‘Pipe Bomb’ Lies After DNC Security Video IMPLODES Narrative.”
Johnson asserted that the pipe bomb “bears like really strange resemblance to the pipe bombs that are used inside of the FBI—as their test cases—for trainings.” Patel did not wave Johnson off this claim. Instead, he leaned into it.
Johnson’s segment with Patel began with a screenshot of a post at Darren Beattie’s Revolver News. (Beattie is a blogger known for peddling conspiracy theories about January 6th.) The title of the post is, “Secret Service Foreknowledge or Criminal Negligence? Damning New Evidence Surfaces in FBI’s January 6 ‘Pipe Bomb’ Story.”
In the post, Revolver News claims responsibility for coining the word “Federsurrection” to describe the riot at the U.S. Capitol, writing that there are “elements of January 6 that overwhelmingly point toward government involvement.”
The Revolver News post focused on footage released by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), claiming it “could very well be the breakthrough we need to definitively expose the phony January 6 ‘pipe bomb’ story once and for all.” It could lead “to the unraveling of one of the darkest and most scandalous government coverups in recent history.”
After briefly flashing a screenshot of Beattie’s piece, Johnson shared a series of Beattie’s posts on X. In one, Beattie claimed the video “is the most damning and explosive J6 footage yet released” and “this will end up demolishing the Regime’s J6 narrative and with it a major pillar of Dem’s 2024 strategy.” He added: “You paying attention, Kamala?”
“Darren has done a brilliant job,” Patel said.
Patel claimed that “the evidence is now mounting, thanks to Darren’s great work and your great work, um, and others, that there’s a reason the government gangsters at the FBI under Chris Wray are hiding this information about this investigation.”
Patel then criticized the Republican-majority in Congress for supposedly not pursuing the matter. “And no one in the Republican-led majority Congress is demanding a single case file, a single source file, a single piece of information that’s saying ‘What the heck happened?’ You attacked our center of democracy, if the allegations are true, and how can you not arrest one person,’” Patel said. “Do you think the Federal Bureau of Investigation can’t find a bomber in the United States of America? Has any one bomber ever gotten away?”
“You’ve worked inside the DOJ,” Johnson said.
Patel responded: “Yeah!”
Johnson continued: “You’ve been a prosecutor inside the DOJ. What do you make of this seeing the evidence, uh, before you?
“It’s extremely troubling,” Patel responded. As Patel spoke those words, Johnson displayed a screenshot of a social media post that read: “The RNC and DNC pipe bombs were ‘props’ in the J6 stage production. Prove me wrong.”
Patel told Johnson there were two possibilities. “One, if the allegations are true,” Patel said, then “there is a bomber in the United States of America running wild, who tried to blow up a vice president–elect of the United States.”
But on the “flip side,” Patel claimed, “if the allegations aren’t true, or there were some government ruse, or some FBI rogue source, or whatever—I don’t know because I don’t have the case files—then there’s another corruption scandal in and around an election-time narrative that they’re advancing today that we still don’t know about.”
Patel again criticized Republicans in Congress, saying, “all they’re doing is giving Chris Wray a new FBI headquarters building in Maryland that’s twice the size of the Pentagon.”
“You get rewarded for your criminal coverup, government gangster operations if you are in government,” Patel said. “And this Congress continues to let you do it.”
PATEL ALSO USED his Truth Social account to encourage the Republican-majority Congress to investigate the possibility that a confidential human source working for the FBI was responsible for the failed pipe-bomb attack.
In a May 27, 2023 post, Patel wrote the words “Pipe Bomber” in quotes, as if to question the veracity of that description. He added: “Congress—Subpoena ALL documentation the FBI has on this and see if it doesn’t lead to a government confidential human source file.”
Nearly two years later, on January 2, 2025, House Republicans released their report on the pipe-bomb investigation. The report was posted online by Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) and Rep. Thomas Massie. It was Massie’s release of video footage of the DNC pipe bomb that led to Patel’s conspiracy-mongering on Johnson’s show. But the Republican congressmen did not endorse Patel’s conspiracy theory in their report.
For example, Loudermilk and Massie did not claim it was possible that an “FBI Rogue Source” or a “confidential human source” working for the FBI may have been responsible for the DNC pipe bomb, as Patel suggested. Nor did they allege the failed attack could be a “government ruse.” Nor did they allege that the FBI had been caught up in a “corruption scandal,” as Patel opined may be the case.
While Patel and Johnson made it seem like there was something fishy about the FBI’s approach to the investigation, Loudermilk and Massie praised the bureau’s initial work. The Republican congressmen write:
In the early weeks and months of the investigation, the FBI took significant investigative steps to identify the suspect, including issuing geofence warrants, analyzing cell tower data, conducting forensic analyses of the devices, tracking the devices’ components, and reviewing hours of security camera footage.
Loudermilk and Massie add that the FBI “identified multiple persons of interest during the initial weeks and months of the investigation.” The bureau simply hasn’t solved the case.
The Republican congressmen have other criticisms of the FBI, including for failing “to provide substantive updates to Congress about the status of the investigation,” and for making “little meaningful progress toward the apprehension of the suspect” since the initial days of the investigation. They criticize the response by the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Capitol Police. They also used their report to launch a partisan attack on the House January 6th Committee, which was disbanded two years ago. But even these two congressmen—who desperately want to whitewash January 6th on behalf of President Trump—stopped short of Patel’s conspiracy-mongering.
PATEL’S APPEARANCE ON JOHNSON’S PROGRAM shows just how seamlessly he fits into the online conspiracy world. He went far beyond any reasonable criticism of the FBI. He did not merely question the bureau’s investigative methods, or its failure to share information with Congress. Nor did he confine himself to chastising the bureau for failing to definitively identify and arrest the pipe bomber. Instead, Patel floated an extreme and baseless conspiracy theory blaming the FBI itself.
And this was not the only time Patel has spread conspiracy theories about the FBI and January 6th. As we reported previously, he has repeatedly insinuated or argued that the FBI used its confidential human sources or employees to instigate the January 6th attack on the Capitol and entrap Trump’s supporters. As in the case of the pipe bomber, he has failed to substantiate that conspiracy theory.
We also reported that Patel helped produce “Justice for All,” a song by the so-called “J6 Prison Choir.” The choir consisted of a group of January 6th inmates who performed the Star-Spangled Banner from inside a Washington, D.C. jail. While publicly promoting the song, Patel claimed the choir’s members were “political prisoners” and the track was produced by “like-minded Americans who wanted to . . . destroy the two-tier system of justice that is rotting America.” As Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office revealed in a motion on presidential immunity and its final report, however, the “J6 Prison Choir” included at least several January 6th defendants who pleaded guilty to attacking law enforcement officers. Yet Patel declined to identify the choir’s members when asked by reporters.
Taken together, this evidence should be disqualifying. Patel has suggested that the FBI “planned” January 6th, has portrayed violent January 6th rioters as victims of the justice system, and has openly questioned whether the pipe bomb outside the DNC was a “government ruse.”
While such conspiracy theories might be expected on the fringes of the internet, they should not be promoted by the nominee to head America’s premier law enforcement agency.
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