Kamala Harris, then the US Vice President-elect, was at the Democratic National Committee headquarters when a pipe bomb was found outside on January 6, 2021, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News on Thursday.
"She was there until she was evacuated," said a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
As Harris said in a speech Thursday memorializing the attack, she was in a classified briefing room at the Capitol the morning of January 6.
"She left to the DNC with plans to come back when proceedings started," said a second source, who was inside the party's main office with Harris. "Then [stuff] hit the fan. She called repeatedly to make sure staff was okay."
Politico, which first reported that Harris was at her party's main offices, cited a Capitol Police timeline showing that the bomb was discovered at 1:07 p.m. and that Harris was moved out about seven minutes later. At the time, rioters were already clashing with police outside the Capitol.
The FBI still has not identified a suspect in the planting of bombs outside the DNC and the Republican National Committee the night before rioters stormed into the Capitol to stop lawmakers from certifying the election of President Joe Biden and Harris.
Reached by telephone, Tom Perez, who was chairman of the DNC at the time, said he did not know who was at the headquarters that day.
"I don’t keep records on who was at the building when," he said. "I need to talk to people on the security team who were there at the time. We were all working from home."
Biden slammed former President Donald Trump on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the January 6 capitol riot, accusing him of putting a “dagger to the throat of democracy” by watching the unfolding chaos on TV while not stopping it.
In a speech marking the occasion, Biden tore into Trump, saying that “for the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol.”
“Close your eyes. Go back to that day. What do you see? Rioters rampaging, waving for the first time inside this Capitol a Confederate flag that symbolized the cause to destroy America, to rip us apart,” Biden said. “Even during the Civil War, that never, ever happened. But it happened here in 2021.”
Biden directly blamed Trump for the events that transpired on January 6, saying he “rallied the mob to attack” and blasted him for “sitting in the private dining room off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives at risk, and the nation's capital under siege.”
He also accused Trump of spreading a “web of lies about the 2020 election.”
Trump, meanwhile, issued a statement attacking Biden and accusing his successor of using the violence of January 6 to divide Americans.
"Biden, who is destroying our Nation with insane policies of open Borders, corrupt Elections, disastrous energy policies, unconstitutional mandates, and devastating school closures, used my name today to try to further divide America. This political theater is all just a distraction for the fact Biden has completely and totally failed. Our Country no longer has Borders, has totally and completely lost control of Covid (record numbers!), is no longer Energy Independent, Inflation is rampant, our Military is in chaos, and our exit, or surrender, from Afghanistan was perhaps the most embarrassing day in the long and distinguished history of the United States—and so much more,” Trump said.
“Why is it that the Unselect Committee of totally partisan political hacks, whose judgment has long ago been made, not discussing the rigged Presidential Election of 2020? It’s because they don’t have the answers or justifications for what happened. They got away with something, and it is leading to our Country’s destruction. They want all conversation concerning the Election “Canceled.” Just look at the numbers, they speak for themselves. They are not justifiable, so the complicit media just calls it the Big Lie, when in actuality the Big Lie was the Election itself," he added.
"The Democrats want to own this day of January 6th so they can stoke fears and divide America. I say, let them have it because America sees through theirs lies and polarizations," the former president stated.