Trump's Intelligence Office Circulated Unchecked Pipe-Bomb Claim Against CIA Campus Security Officer; FBI Later Cleared Her

An Office Created to End Weaponization Circulated a Claim It Could Not Check

In late October 2025, journalist Steve Baker brought Trump's Office of the Director of National Intelligence an accusation: a CIA campus security officer was the January 6 pipe bomber.¹ A unit there wrote the claim into a memo without trying to corroborate it, the office's principal deputy shared the memo with his CIA counterpart, and within hours it had circulated to senior administration officials, according to Senate testimony from James E. Erdman III, an officer detailed to the unit.¹ The office gave official circulation to a claim its own unit could not corroborate.¹

The employee, Shauni Kerkhoff, says the accusation brought FBI searches, a polygraph interrogation lasting roughly three hours, administrative leave and two weeks in hiding.²³ Kerkhoff also alleges that after Cole's defense lawyers disclosed her home address, an anonymous person emailed her lawyer threatening to kill her. She says she paid for additional alarms, flood lights and cameras to secure her home against that threat.³ Prosecutors later said the FBI found no evidence connecting her to the bombs.⁴ Kerkhoff defended the Capitol on January 6 as a Capitol Police officer, her complaint says; prosecutors said she served on duty that day and testified in the resulting prosecutions before taking a job in CIA campus security.³⁴

The tie to Trump is the people he chose. He appointed Tulsi Gabbard to lead national intelligence and, at her February 12, 2025 swearing-in, entrusted her with reforms "to protect the rights and the civil liberties of all Americans."⁵ On April 8 she created the Director's Initiatives Group, or DIG, to carry out his intelligence-related executive orders, restore trust and end the weaponization of government against Americans, under her direction.⁶ Trump later selected Aaron Lukas, the deputy who passed the memo to the CIA, to take over as acting intelligence director after Gabbard's departure, Axios reported.¹⁷

Erdman, a CIA senior operations officer, testified to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee under subpoena in May 2026.¹ He defended Gabbard and accused the CIA of undermining the group's work, and described plainly where the memo came from.¹

Baker's theory identified a current CIA campus security officer and former Capitol Police officer as the person who planted the bombs outside the Democratic and Republican national committee headquarters on January 5, 2021.¹ Erdman testified: "DIG members could not and did not attempt to corroborate Baker’s allegations; the group did not have the means or legal authority to do so."¹

The Best Defense: Passing a Lead to Agencies That Could Investigate

Erdman's strongest defense is that ODNI is a coordinating agency: the DIG consulted senior leadership, including the general counsel's office, about sending the information to agencies that could investigate it.¹ He also said the decision to circulate the memo formally was apparently reversed after internal deliberations.¹

But canceling formal distribution did not keep the memo from traveling.¹ According to Erdman, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Aaron Lukas requested a hard copy as talking points for a call with CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis, then shared it with Ellis between that evening and the next morning.¹ Within hours it reached senior officials across several agencies.¹

Erdman traced the drafting instruction to colleagues' recollections, without naming the person who gave it, and neither his account nor Axios's report shows that Trump ordered or knew about the memo, that Gabbard personally directed it, or that Trump's choice of Lukas was connected to it.¹⁷ Erdman's coordination defense explains passing the lead to appropriate agencies; his account does not identify the later recipients or establish whether they had an investigative role. It does establish that a draft containing an accusation DIG had not corroborated reached senior officials across several agencies.¹ That is the amplification at issue.

Searches, Interrogation and Two Weeks in Hiding

Kerkhoff's account comes from her federal defamation suit against Blaze Media, Baker, Joseph Hanneman and Veritas Regnat, filed April 21, 2026 and amended July 23; prosecutors have confirmed parts of it.²³⁴

She alleges that on November 6, 2025, FBI agents questioned her at work, searched her phone and car with her consent, and told her to return home.³ She says a caravan of armed agents arrived with a bomb-disposal truck and a helicopter, swept the house and reentered with bomb-sniffing dogs without her or her boyfriend's consent.³ Prosecutors acknowledge the searches but say she consented to the home search too.⁴

According to her complaint, a senior FBI official said his orders came from "higher up" and offered a polygraph interview as a way to resolve the matter that night.² She agreed, and by her account faced approximately three hours of questioning and repeated accusations that she had planted the bombs.³ She says the examiner told her she had failed the test and threatened her security clearance; she denied planting the bombs.³

Prosecutors confirm that the examiner indicated deception, and acknowledge that the investigation also included surveillance, electronic-account records and a gait comparison that reached no conclusion.⁴ But they said the polygraph deserved no weight: hours of questioning and searches preceded an examination that ended after midnight, making stress responses an unreasonable basis for linking her to the bombs.⁴ They also argued that polygraph results are inadmissible as substantive evidence even under ordinary circumstances.⁴

The cost she describes extended beyond that night: administrative leave, threats on social media and her mother's obituary page, and two weeks hiding at home in fear of an attacker.³ She says the CIA ended her administrative leave on November 19, 2025, and she returned to work two days later, although the accusation damaged friendships and left her afraid that strangers would recognize and hurt her.³ Kerkhoff also alleges that after Cole's defense lawyers disclosed her home address, an anonymous person emailed her lawyer threatening to kill her. She says she paid for additional alarms, flood lights and cameras to secure her home against that threat.³

Where It Stands on October 10, 2026

The accusation did not survive the FBI's investigation.⁴ Kerkhoff's amended complaint says then-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino publicly called the reporting grossly inaccurate and misleading on November 12, 2025.³ On December 4 the FBI announced charges against someone else, Brian J. Cole Jr., and a federal prosecution followed.²⁸ Blaze retracted its article the same day, saying the arrest required it, while maintaining that its sources stood by their information and that it had reported in good faith.⁹

In August 2026, prosecutors stated in court that the investigation of Kerkhoff had "yielded zero evidence connecting Kerkhoff in any way to the construction, transportation, or planting of the pipe bombs."⁴ They said it established that she was at home on the evening of January 5, 2021, citing work records, text messages, her boyfriend's account and restaurant receipt, and a 7:37:48 p.m. video capturing her voice at home.⁴

Being cleared did not end it: Cole's lawyers renewed their request for Kerkhoff's records, relying on the polygraph that prosecutors said deserved no weight.¹⁰⁴ Three of those lawyers represented Baker and Hanneman in her defamation suit. Prosecutors expressed concern that they were using criminal discovery to advance those clients' civil defense, and NBC reported that the government raised a possible conflict at a September hearing.⁴¹¹

As of October 10, 2026, Cole had pleaded not guilty and his lawyers disputed his reported confession; trial was set for February 16, 2027, NBC and the Associated Press reported.¹¹¹² Judge Amir Ali had also rejected Cole's argument that Trump's January 6 pardons covered him and refused to dismiss the case on that ground, the Associated Press reported.¹² Kerkhoff's lawsuit was unresolved: the defendants filed replies supporting dismissal on October 5, and the public docket listed no decision through its latest known filing, October 6.¹³

The DIG did not survive: Erdman testified that the memo and its aftermath helped prompt a pause in December 2025 and the group's dissolution in January 2026.¹ Gabbard announced her resignation on May 22, 2026, effective June 30, saying she needed to support her husband during cancer treatment, Axios reported.¹⁴⁷ She had promised timely, apolitical, objective intelligence and an end to abuses of power.⁶ Her office circulated an accusation its unit could not check.¹ That outcome failed the unit's own promise.

It was not the only time intelligence powers were directed at named Americans: Trump's March 22, 2025 memorandum directed agencies to rescind classified access for fifteen named people, including Letitia James and Alvin Bragg, and any other member of Joe Biden's family, naming no misconduct and citing the national interest.¹⁵

The abuse was official amplification: Trump's intelligence office gave an unchecked accusation about a named American the reach of a government memo.¹ Kerkhoff says the accusation brought armed agents to her home and two weeks in hiding, and that a death threat after disclosure of her home address led her to pay for alarms, flood lights and cameras; prosecutors say the FBI found zero evidence connecting her to the bombs.³⁴ Trump appointed the chief whose unit produced the memo, then selected the deputy who passed it to the CIA to take over as acting intelligence director.⁵¹⁷ The case for impeaching Trump is presidential responsibility for those choices: intelligence leaders entrusted to protect Americans spread an unchecked accusation against one. That misuse of public power is the charge.