A former FBI agent said that the Bureau quickly believed that it tied the person who planted pipe bombs at the Democrat National Committee and the Republican National Committee to a particular Metro fare card and license plate, but did not allow him to interview the person of interest and pulled his team off of the lead.

The allegation raises more questions about the pipe bombs, which were by far the most violent aspect of the January 6 protests, but which Democrats and authorities have seldom mentioned since.

Kyle Seraphin, who led FBI surveillance teams, told The Daily Wire that shortly after January 6, a counterintelligence team met him at a firehouse in Falls Church, Virginia to brief him on his next surveillance target: They had used security footage to follow the person into a Metro station after he planted the bombs, and identified the fare card that was used.

That fare card then allowed them to determine that the person got off at a Metro stop in Northern Virginia, where surveillance footage showed the person entering a car. Both the car and the fare card were in the name of the same person — a retired Air Force chief master sergeant who was now working as a contractor with a security clearance, they said.

Seraphin and his team were assigned to stake out the person’s row house for days, but the FBI blocked his request to interview the person, he said. Then they were called off the target completely and told to pore through low-priority leads about minor January 6 participants, he said.