WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — In a twist to the investigation into the alleged bomb threat targeting Vice President Kamala Harris on January 6, 2021, a former FBI official has cast doubt on the incident, suggesting it might have been a hoax orchestrated and concealed by the FBI and the Secret Service.

The FBI is currently offering a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the individual believed to have left two pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican party headquarters in Washington, D.C., the night before the Capitol attack. Despite a public campaign featuring detailed maps, security camera footage, and potential identifying information, the mystery first reported by CNN remains unsolved three years later.

Footage released over two years ago shows the suspect walking through the Capitol Hill neighborhood around the time the devices were thought to have been placed. Additionally, the FBI disclosed that the unknown individual wore Nike Air Max Speed turf shoes, a face mask, glasses, gloves, and a gray hooded sweatshirt.

While the pipe bombs did not detonate, the FBI insists they were “viable” and posed a significant threat to the public. Discovered around 1 p.m. on January 6, as Capitol rioters breached police barricades, the bombs were found near the DNC and RNC headquarters, just blocks away from the Capitol.

Vice President Kamala Harris, then vice president-elect, was evacuated from the Democratic National Committee headquarters when the devices were uncovered. According to a U.S. Capitol Police timeline obtained by CBS News, the U.S. Secret Service and Capitol Police swiftly evacuated a “protectee” at DNC headquarters minutes after the pipe bomb discovery at 1:07 p.m.

The FBI’s claim is that the bombs were placed between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. the night before the attack, with a report from March 2021 suggesting a 60-minute kitchen timer as the sole method of detonation. The National Explosives Task Force, a multi-agency group coordinating explosive expertise, asserted there was no evidence of a second or remote detonation method.

In a closed-door interview, the former FBI official overseeing the investigation expressed the exhaustive efforts made to solve the case, stating, “We put every resource that we could. We did every check, every lab test, every data. We ran this through systems back and forth, up and down, sideways, all over the place.”