Report: Kamala Harris Was at DNC When Bomb Found

If a pipe bomb found outside Democratic National Committee headquarters on the day of the Capitol attack had exploded, the victims could have included Kamala Harris, then the vice president-elect. Politico, citing sources including a former law enforcement official, reports that the person the Secret Service and Capitol Police evacuated from the building seven minutes after the device was recovered was Harris. The evacuation of a "protectee" is mentioned in a Capitol Police timeline of events. The FBI says the DNC bomb and another one found outside Republican National Committee headquarters a few blocks away were "viable" and "could have been detonated, resulting in serious injury or death."

The devices were found around 1pm Jan. 6, soon after large numbers of Trump supporters arrived at the Capitol. Politico describes the bombs as a "crucial driver of the chaos" that day, as they diverted many officers from the Capitol just as Trump supporters were trying to force their way past barricades. Investigators believe the same person planted both bombs the night before the Capitol riot but a year later, no arrests have been made. In remarks Thursday commemorating the attack, Harris didn't mention being evacuated from DNC headquarters but said she had been in the Capitol earlier that day, CNN reports.

"On that day, I was not only vice president-elect, I was also a United States senator," Harris said. "And I was here at the Capitol that morning, at a classified hearing with fellow members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Hours later, the gates of the Capitol were breached," Harris said. She said that while she wasn't in the building at the time, her thoughts turned to her staff, "who had been forced to seek refuge in our office, converting filing cabinets into barricades." (More Kamala Harris stories.)