An aide to Tulsi Gabbard linked an innocent ex-cop to the Jan. 6 pipe bomber in a secret memo that got leaked—leading MAGA devotees to smear the woman.
The memo blindsided the FBI, which investigated the woman, then cleared her because a video of her playing with puppies proved her alibi. The innocent woman was a Capitol Police officer who fought off MAGA rioters on Jan. 6.
The bizarre saga cast new light on Gabbard’s tenure as Donald Trump’s director of National Intelligence and how her hand-picked aides operate.
The memo was written by Paul McNamara, a shadowy Army veteran tasked by Gabbard with running her “director’s initiatives group.” The unit, known as DIG, is dedicated to a series of MAGA talking points, including targeting the so-called “weaponization” of intelligence against Trump and his allies and “rebuilding trust in the intelligence community.”
But sources told CBS News that McNamara inserted himself into the high-profile FBI hunt for the attempted pipe bomber who left two devices outside the Democratic and Republican National Committees on the eve of Jan. 6. The extraordinary series of events started when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) received a “tip” from what it described as a “U.S. citizen”—but who sources told CBS was a member of the media—about potential wrongdoing by a former Capitol Police officer who now works in the intelligence community. It is highly unusual for a member of the mainstream media to pass tips to the ODNI.
McNamara, sources told CBS, investigated the tip himself, accessed “confidential files,” and obtained the woman’s Social Security number. He then drafted a memo that outlined the allegations of her potential criminal activity and circulated it inside intelligence agencies. But the classified, unsigned document got leaked, the ODNI told the Daily Beast. The woman was then named by The Blaze, which is owned by the conservative radio host Glenn Beck, as the bomber in an article that caused a MAGA firestorm and was treated seriously by far-right members of Congress.
The article primarily relied on “gait analysis” to make its claim about the woman.
The woman was voluntarily identified as Shauni Kerkhoff in a statement sent by her lawyer, Steve Bunnell, to the Washington Post. She was part of the U.S. Capitol Police’s Civil Disturbance Unit at the time of the violent riot and testified about the attack in 2022.
The Blaze story falsely painting Kerkhoff as the pipe bomber was boosted by Trump appointee and infamous election-denier Kari Lake and far-right Republican representatives Barry Loudermilk and Thomas Massie. Her identity reached Trump, too, CBS reported, although it was unclear when.
The FBI poured cold water on the report quickly after it was published. Deputy Director Dan Bongino wrote in an X post that “some of the media reporting regarding prior persons of interest is grossly inaccurate and serves only to mislead the public.”
Kerkhoff cleared her name by providing a video of her playing with her puppies at the time that the bombs were placed, according to CBS. The FBI has ruled her out as a suspect in the four-year-old mystery, three sources told the outlet.
“These shameful allegations are recklessly false, absurd, and defamatory. Ms. Kerkhoff categorically denies them,” her lawyer Bunnell said in an earlier statement to The Post.
The memo was in its initial stages and had not been reviewed or approved by the agency’s leadership, an ODNI official told the Daily Beast.
“The facts are simple and clear — ODNI followed its obligation to report information received concerning the alleged activities of a member of the Intelligence Community to that person’s employing agency,” DNI Press Secretary Olivia Coleman said in a statement.
“There were no predetermined conclusions or assessments made, and every action taken was done so in consultation with legal counsel,” she added, accusing “a deep state actor” of leaking a classified document to the media.
The Daily Beast has reached out to The Blaze for comment.
