WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, WUSA9 Chief Investigative Reporter Eric Flack sat down with the new head of the FBI's Washington Field Office for a one-on-one.
During the interview, Flack asked agents if they were any closer to catching the attempted Jan. 6 pipe bomber, and what more the FBI could be doing to help slow the growing gun violence problem in the District.
The new head of FBI's Washington Field Office told us there is no clear timetable on when the Jan. 6 investigation will conclude, as agents continue to gather tips and follow leads.
Assistant Director in charge, David Sundberg, told WUSA9 the FBI remains in the dark as to the identity of the person caught on camera the night before Jan. 6 leaving pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican National Headquarters on Capitol Hill.
“We are still putting significant amounts of effort into that. We’ve conducted somewhere near 1,000 interviews. We’ve had 500 or so tips from the public. We’ve reviewed 39,000 video files. And to date we still have a subject who at least appears on video to be alone, wearing a hood, a mask, gloves, fairly non-descript clothing and has proven very difficult to identify,” said Sundberg.
The FBI recently boosted the reward to half a million dollars for information leading to the pipe bombers' arrest.
Meanwhile, Assistant Director Sundberg said the Washington Field Office continues to partner with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to try to curb the ongoing gun violence problem in the District. But Sundberg said MPD’s officer shortage is impacting the frequency with which agents partner with MPD investigators in a joint task force setting, because, at times, there are fewer D.C. police officers available for the partnership.
On the topic of the FBI’s new headquarters, Sundberg told us the decision to build in Maryland or Virginia won’t impact operations at the Washington Field Office or its mission to fight crime in the D.C. area.
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