Attorneys deem themselves special, but are clueless about science generally and physical laws.
You can't transmit explosions or even fire via pipelines. Period.
The only way this might have worked is if the muslim darlings opened many valves in heavily populated areas long enough to produce vapors and enough fuel to cause real damage once exposed to atmospheric oxygen. I can't see this happening in a couple of hundred locations simultaneously with no one noticing.
Hyperbole is the only territory where this could have been "one of the most chilling plots imaginable."
I can think of several actual really chilling scenarios, but I will let the clueless do their own work.
Also, I’d have to bet there must be some kind of automatic valves in the lines that would close if the system sensed a pressure drop or surge. Like the kind on ordinary gas pump nozzles, where half the time you have to keep your hand on them because the auto-shutoff is too sensitive. If they didn’t, just an ordinary error or malfunction would lead to a huge spill at the rate those things pump. Not to say a terrorist couldn’t do something, as you say, but this story sounds a little overblown on what “could have happened.”