An eight-inch-long steel pipe with end caps, a kitchen timer, nine-volt battery, and various wires — planted in plain sight under a bench at the Democratic National Committee building — somehow escaped the notice of two U.S. Capitol Police officers who walked right past it 15 minutes after a dispatcher warned of a pipe bomb at the nearby Republican National Committee building.
The plainclothes counter-surveillance officers instead proceeded straight to the Congressional Black Caucus Institute building, a few hundred feet east of the DNC.
‘Was it placed and picked back up and then put back out again?’
One of them stopped at a large bush along the alley that led up to New Jersey Avenue. At 1:03 p.m., the officer backed up, ducked, and peered under the shrub.
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