Ex-Capitol Officer Sues Blaze Media for Defamation Over Pipe Bomb ID

Former Capitol Police officer Shauni Kerkhoff filed a defamation lawsuit on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against Blaze Media, former employees Steve Baker and Joseph Hanneman, and their new publication, Veritas Regnat LLC. The suit stems from a November 2025 article by Blaze Media that identified Kerkhoff as a suspect in the placement of pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on the evening of January 5, 2021, the day before the U.S. Capitol riot.

The article, titled "Former Capitol Police officer a forensic match for Jan. 6 pipe bomber, sources say," claimed that gait analysis of surveillance footage showed Kerkhoff as a 94 to 98 percent match to the masked individual seen placing the undetonated devices. No injuries occurred from the bombs, which federal authorities had investigated for nearly five years without identifying a suspect. Kerkhoff, who was working as a Capitol Police officer on January 6 and fired nonlethal projectiles at rioters while later testifying against two of them in court, was at home with her boyfriend and dog at the time of the...