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Prosecution of Brian J. Cole Jr. for Jan. 6 pipe bombs raises more questions than it answers
The criminal case against Brian Jerome Cole Jr. for the alleged January 2021 placement of two pipe bombs on Capitol Hill raises more questions than it answers about Cole’s movements that night and why the FBI appears not to have addressed notable actions in its case documents, as well as the strange behavior of Capitol Police investigators that immediately followed.The government alleges that Cole, 30 — who the defense says is an autistic man with obsessive compulsive disorder — was a lone wolf who somehow evaded the FBI’s massive dragnet for nearly five years. Blaze News examined the charges against Cole to see if his arrest fits with the case history and facts already in the public square. The list of conflicts, problems, and questions is extensive. This is Part 1.‘I’m pretty confident that we're closing in on some suspects.’The defense disclosure that Cole suffers from Level 1 autism spectrum disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder recast the prosecution’s case and called into question the FBI’s four-hour interview of Cole on Dec. 4 and his alleged “detailed confession” without an attorney present."I know that the government has come out and claimed that Mr. Cole has made confessions,” defense attorney Mario Williams said in an interview with WTTG. “Not true. ... That interview, we do not consider a confession at all,” Williams said. While Williams asserted his client’s innocence, he declined to comment on whether his client is the hoodie-wearing person depicted in the footage of the bomber.On Jan. 9, Cole pleaded not guilty to two felony charges in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.: transportation of explosives and malicious attempt to use explosives. His defense has pointed out that the five-year statute of limitations on the charge for transporting explosives expired a day before a federal grand jury handed up the two-count indictment. The status of that charge is not clear.Disbelief and muted praiseCole’s arrest was greeted by skepticism and disbelief by the Cole family, by an FBI whistleblower who worked on the pipe-bombs case, and by officials inside the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice, and White House, who all spoke privately to Blaze News. Cole’s grandmother, Loretta R. Cole Donnette, told a reporter that her grandson operates on the mental level of a 16-year-old.While FBI Director Kash Patel went out of his way to credit then-Deputy Director Dan Bongino for assembling a new FBI team that solved the pipe-bomb case using only the evidence and tips the bureau had already compiled, the White House remained silent. Even the FBI’s initial self-congratulations have been muted since the initial press conference.After Bongino left the FBI in early 2026 to return to his podcasting career, Patel’s farewell comments failed to mention his most high-profile success.“Dan heads back to the private sector after helping orchestrate a record year for the FBI,” Patel wrote on X on Jan. 4. The director cited eight examples, from the U.S. murder rate to Operation Summer Heat, but nary a mention of the pipe bombs.This stands in contrast with the attention the two brought to the case in the months leading up to the arrest and in its immediate aftermath. In May, Bongino listed the Jan. 6 pipe bombs as one of the top three cases he and Patel planned to focus on. “We made the decision to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention to these cases,” Bongino wrote on X May 25. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino (L), accompanied by Attorney GeneralPam Bondi (C) and FBI Director Kash Patel (R), speaks during a news conference on an arrest of a suspect in the January 6 pipe-bomb case at the Department of Justice on December 4, 2025.Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Bongino said in May 2025 that the FBI had been working anew on the pipe-bombs case ever since Patel was sworn in as the ninth director the previous February. He told Fox News: “The second we got in, I put a team on it and I said, ‘I want answers on this.’ And I’m pretty confident that we're closing in on some suspects.”It’s not clear what became of any other suspects — plural — Bongino mentioned this past spring, as there was no further word about the case for more than five months, and the FBI now alleges Cole acted alone.Two months later, in July, Bongino garnered more than 20 million views with a single post on X, writing that he was “shocked” by the things he had learned about the FBI during his brief tenure. He made the remarks in the context of a pledge that he and Patel were “committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations” and later told radio host Vince Coglianese they were specifically in reference to anti-Trump corruption he uncovered investigating the Obama FBI’s 2016 Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence operation that alleged Russian interference in the election.“It is a priority for us. But what I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters, has shocked me down to my core,” he wrote on X. “We cannot run a Republic like this. I’ll never be the same after learning what I’ve learned.”A rough start for the DOJThe prosecution got a sloppy start during Cole’s initial court appearance on Dec. 5.Despite having placed so much importance on the years-long investigation, the Department of Justice did not have an indictment of Cole when he was arrested — only a criminal complaint.A magistrate judge set Dec. 15 for a detention hearing but did not establish a date for arraignment, where Cole would have an opportunity to enter pleas to the charges. The detention hearing was later moved to Dec. 30 by joint agreement.Cole’s right to a speedy trial meant federal prosecutors had until Dec. 19 to obtain a federal indictment or face an adversarial preliminary probable-cause hearing, where the government would have had to present its evidence to the judge showing that Cole is likely guilty of the charges and defense attorneys could question the case against their client.While Cole agreed to delay the detention hearing until Dec. 30, he refused to waive his right to a preliminary hearing within the 14-day window his speedy-trial rights demand, his attorneys said in court filings. FBI, Prince William County Police Department The DOJ did a bit of an end run on Dec. 29 by obtaining an indictment of Cole in the local D.C. Superior Court. It is not a standard practice for federal courts to accept indictments from the local or municipal-level D.C. court. A test case on that question is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, though a decision on that case is unlikely in time to affect the Cole case.While the DOJ finally went back to the district court to get a federal grand jury indictment of Cole on Jan. 6, the statute of limitations on one of the charges had expired — by a single day. Now, Cole’s attorneys are arguing that the DOJ missed both the window for that charge and the deadline for a speedy trial.After a magistrate judge ruled that Cole must remain locked up until trial, defense lawyers filed an emergency motion for review of the decision with U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, who was assigned to the pipe-bombs case.Cole’s “emergency motion seeks release because the government failed to follow the law, and it does not get to detain Mr. Cole now because the magistrate judge failed to properly release him on Dec. 30,” attorney J. Alex Little wrote in a motion supporting his client’s release.Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has worked tirelessly to solve the pipe-bombs case, decried the DOJ’s ongoing efforts to keep Cole in jail until trial.“No credible motive, presents danger to no one, flimsy evidence, no priors, willing to wear a tracker under house arrest, family will vouch, and DOJ botched the legal work,” Massie wrote on X the day before Cole’s Jan. 7 detention hearing. “Irreparable harm to him otherwise.”Independent case discoveriesBlaze News outlined shocking case discoveries on Oct. 9 in a feature story on the work of an independent investigator who goes by the social media handle “Armitas” and has asked not to be otherwise named publicly for security reasons.Armitas tracked the hoodie-wearing bomb suspect by scrubbing the feeds of dozens of U.S. Capitol Police CCTV security cameras. He discovered that the suspect visited two locations apart from where the bombs were found on Jan. 6, 2021.At the first, the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, the suspect sat down cross-legged in front of a bush on the north side of the building. The suspect leaned into the bush and appeared to attempt to place something under the shrub around 7:47 p.m. After 77 seconds, the suspect got up, grabbed the suspect's backpack, and walked off toward the DNC a few hundred feet away.The bomber also visited a C Street rooming house near the Capitol Hill Club at about 8:15 p.m. Security video shows the suspect visited the front garden of a congressional rooming house known as the C Street Center, 133 C St. Southeast. Photos by U.S. Capitol Police The suspect was standing behind some bushes when a Capitol Police squad car pulled over directly across the street about 8:15 p.m. The suspect then walked south on Rumsey Court and, according to the FBI, placed a bomb along the rear wall of the Capitol Hill Club.The FBI has never publicly addressed the two Capitol Police squad cars parked across the street from the pipe bomber just as the suspect was moving into place to drop the second pipe bomb. It is not known whether the two patrol officers were ever identified or interviewed.Armitas said he presented the information about the possible other bomb-drop locations to the FBI and the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Remaining Questions Surrounding Jan. 6. The FBI has not publicly acknowledged the information or explained whether it has investigated the possibility that the bombs were originally intended to be placed and explode at other sites.Williams said the defense has an expert prepared to testify that the pipe bombs were not explosives and could not have detonated.“We have an expert that's well recognized, and we have an expert report,” he said. “Now, these devices that are alleged to be explosive and this or that by the government, what's the key point that you need to focus on? [They] were not viable, by their [the government’s] own data.”Either a ‘device’ or a hoaxThe first responders to the discovery of the Capitol Hill Club/RNC device had serious doubts that the contraption was a real bomb. This included the head of RNC security and then-Capitol Police Officer Michael Riley, who exchanged looks of disbelief but had no choice but to treat the device as real, Riley told Blaze News.The devices had 60-minute kitchen timers attached, but were ostensibly placed 17 hours before they were found. Under questioning by Massie in June 2023, former FBI Assistant Director Stephen M. D’Antuono said it was not technically possible for a device with a 60-minute timer to detonate 17 hours later.The House Subcommittee on Oversight also took issue with the FBI’s description of the pipe bombs as “viable.”‘By the way, they didn’t go look for a third pipe bomb.’“According to an FBI bomb technician who agreed to speak to committee staff on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, the FBI’s use of the term ‘viable’ is a deviation from the standard description used by bomb technicians,” read a January 2025 Subcommittee on Oversight report.“Traditionally, bomb technicians deliberately avoid using vague language,” the report continued, “choosing instead to refer to a bomb as a ‘device’ if it would ‘function as designed,’ or as a ‘hoax.’”Did Cole set the bomb timer for 60 minutes?According to the FBI, Cole told agents he set the kitchen timer on the DNC bomb for 60 minutes before he placed the device near a park bench behind the building. However, the video released by the FBI doesn’t show the suspect even attempting to set the timer before placing it under the DNC bush.Armitas said the surveillance video released by the FBI from a DNC security camera shows that the bomber took the device out of a backpack and immediately placed it under the bush near the base of the park bench. Setting the timer would have required two hands. “Video from 2 different angles shows that the timer was never set,” Armitas wrote on X.“This device requires 2 full turns of the dial to set it,” Armitas wrote, “not to mention you have to unclip and re-clip all the alligator clips, otherwise turning the dial will close the switch across those clips, shorting the detonator — kaboom. As we can see in the video, the device is pulled out of the backpack and immediately placed.”Counter-surveillance behavior One of the two-man Capitol Police counter-surveillance teams dispatched after discovery of the Capitol Hill Club bomb on Jan. 6 exhibited odd behavior in their search for other devices.The counter-surveillance agents chose to walk all the way from the Capitol South Metro Station near the RNC, despite the urgency of the search. Capitol Police CCTV footage did not show them conducting any searches along the way.They walked along South Capitol Street Southeast, not stopping at the park bench where the FBI has since insisted the device sat for 17 hours, and proceeded to the north side of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute building a few hundred feet from the DNC. Two U.S. Capitol Police counter-surveillance officers walk toward the Democratic National Committee on Jan. 6, 2021. One of the officers would discover a pipe bomb under a park bench behind the DNC. U.S. Capitol Police The agents walked up a sidewalk to the front of the CBCI building before returning. One of the agents stopped, leaned down, and looked under a bush beside the sidewalk. It was the same bush where security video shows the alleged bomber stood and sat for 77 seconds the night before, appearing to attempt placement of something under the shrub. What did the agent see? Was it the same thing noticed by a construction worker who peered under the bush at 1:00 p.m., just minutes before?The CBCI shrub and the bomber’s visit were unknown to police at midday on Jan. 6, and the counter-surveillance agents had not yet discovered the DNC device. Why did the bush draw their attention? How could they have known the shrub could be an important part of the forthcoming investigation?51 of them 'were identified as "not needing further action" because the phones "belonged to law enforcement officers or persons on the exclusion list."'The appearance of the bomb suspect at the CBCI bush was not even mentioned in an Oct. 22 video update from the FBI. The animated map shown in the FBI video does not show the bomber walking down a sidewalk north of the CBCI building and spending 77 seconds standing and sitting in front of the shrub.Once the counter-surveillance agents found a device in the bushes at the DNC, it appears that they stopped searching for other bombs, even though the risk should have been heightened by discovery of a second bomb within just 25 minutes of the first. They later could not account for this when questioned by Rep. Massie.“How did they know exactly where to look, including the place [Congressional Black Caucus Institute bush] where the pipe bomber tried to place a bomb?” Massie asked. “It was police, it was Capitol Hill Police that found these bombs, and they got there. But … I hope they went and bought lottery tickets after finding these, after going to these two locations.Bomb orientation different on J6 than night before?According to Armitas, the hoodie-wearing bomb suspect placed the DNC pipe bomb under the bench with the kitchen timer facing out toward the sidewalk. But when the bomb was discovered by a Capitol Police counter-surveillance agent at 1:05 p.m. Jan. 6, the device’s orientation was 180 degrees different, with the timer facing under the bush and the long end of the pipe facing toward the sidewalk. That could indicate that the bomb was removed after being placed on Jan. 5 and re-placed shortly before its discovery on Jan. 6.Corrupted cellular data?In testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary in 2023, the former head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office said some of the data turned over by cell carriers was “corrupted” and that “the corrupted data may have contained the identity of the suspect,” according to a January 2025 U.S. House report.“We have complete data,” former FBI Assistant Director D’Antuono told a Judiciary committee in June 2023, before correcting himself. “Not complete, because there’s some data that was corrupted by one of the providers. Not purposely by them, right. It just — unusual circumstances that we have corrupt data from one of the providers.”In later correspondence with the Judiciary Committee, representatives for AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile said they did not supply corrupted data and that the FBI never notified them with concerns about the integrity of the information they supplied.The Subcommittee on Oversight said in its January 2025 report that the FBI “has refused to comply with multiple requests from the subcommittee regarding this claim.”Of the 186 phone numbers of interest identified by the FBI, 51 of them “were identified as ‘not needing further action’ because the phones ‘belonged to law enforcement officers or persons on the exclusion list,’” according to the January 2025 U.S. House report. The names associated with those 51 protected numbers have not been made public.FBI identified possible suspect using AdID Case agents developed eight potential targets from subpoenas issued to 10 AdTech companies, which use anonymized trackers to help target advertising to customer prospects. The information collected by AdTech includes “the websites a user visited, their internet activity and a user’s location,” a 2025 House report stated.Unlike the vague location information from cell phone tower pings, AdTech uses GPS technology to pinpoint a user’s exact location in order to tailor advertising based on the user's location. Anyone with online-purchasing apps, maps, or applications like DoorDash and Uber Eats can be tracked using AdID technology.‘The user associated with this AdTech ID was a significant lead.’According to AdTech, the company’s software tools allow advertisers to reach qualified customer prospects, control how and where advertisements are shown, and optimize advertising spending “in real time.”The FBI Counterterrorism Advanced Projects Unit initially identified three potential AdID targets, but “none of these targets were ‘particularly high-confidence candidates,’” the 2025 House report stated. By March 2021, the FBI identified one AdID “whose movements matched the suspect’s movements as outlined by the video the FBI released tracking the suspect’s whereabouts.”The pipe-bombs case team requested that the FBI’s Special Operations Group conduct surveillance on the person of interest tied to the AdID. The House reports called this a “significant lead.”“It ultimately remains unclear what happened to this lead; however the allocation of resources for surveillance purposes suggests the user associated with this AdTech ID was a significant lead,” the report said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
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