Then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was only a hair’s breadth away from danger on the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, law enforcement officials told CNN.
As Harris was arriving at the Democratic National Committee’s D.C. headquarters at around 11:30 a.m. ET that day, her motorcade reportedly drove within several yards of a pipe bomb that had been planted right outside the building.
Harris stayed inside the headquarters for almost two hours until she was evacuated at 1:14 p.m. ET, according to CNN. Law enforcement officers had reportedly started investigating the bomb seven minutes before then.
The U.S. Secret Service, which oversaw the security detail for Harris and then-President-elect Joe Biden, told CNN that the agency would not discuss its protective measures “in order to maintain operational security.”
In addition to the bomb at the DNC building, officers also discovered a similar pipe bomb at the Republican National Committee’s headquarters on Jan. 6. as law enforcement was already being stretched thin at the Capitol building where Trump supporters were breaking in.
The FBI has released surveillance camera footage of the suspected would-be bomber planting the explosives at the buildings the night before the Capitol attack. However, the suspect has not been identified and remains at large more than a year later.
