No arrests had been made for nearly five years.
FBI agents have arrested a man who allegedly placed pipe bombs in Washington on Jan. 5, 2021, officials announced on Dec. 4.
The man, Brian Cole Jr., a 30-year-old employee of a bail bondsman, is accused of placing bombs consisting of a pipe, endcaps, electrical wire, a battery, and other materials near Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee buildings in Washington. He was charged with transporting explosive devices in interstate commerce and attempted destruction with explosive material.
Cole purchased items such as pipe and kitchen timers in 2019 and 2020 at stores, including Home Depot and Walmart, and used these materials to manufacture the devices, according to records obtained by investigators and described in an affidavit filed in federal court in support of the charges.
Cellphone records placed Cole in the vicinity of the buildings on Jan. 5, 2021, and a Nissan Sentra he owns was spotted driving in the area that evening, an FBI agent wrote in the affidavit.
“Today’s arrest happened because the Trump administration has made this case a priority,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a briefing in the nation’s capital.
“There was no new tip, there was no new witness, just good, diligent police work and prosecutorial work,” she noted later.
FBI Director Kash Patel said at the briefing that there was no new information but that a new team of investigators and experts had sifted through existing evidence and generated new leads that ultimately resulted in Cole’s arrest.
Patel said 3 million “lines of information” were pored over and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said the investigation included going through 233,000 sales of the type of black endcaps used to build the bombs and find a common link with purchases of pipe, wires, and other materials.
Cole resides in Woodbridge, Virginia, with his mother and other relatives, officials said. He did not have a lawyer listed on the court docket. Emails sent to addresses associated with him went unreturned.
Search warrants are being executed at places associated with Cole, officials said. The overall investigation is active and additional charges may be brought.
“The FBI’s arrest of the alleged January 6 pipe bomber is a tremendous breakthrough in a mystery that has haunted the country for nearly five years,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of a House of Representatives select subcommittee investigating Jan. 6, said in a post on X.
“I want to thank the FBI for their diligence and continued partnership with my Select Subcommittee in sharing documents, informant information, and other evidence.”
Pipe Bombs and Investigation
The FBI has for nearly five years been investigating the pipe bombs but had made no arrests until Dec. 4, even with the $500,000 reward it was offering for information on the person who placed them outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee offices.
Surveillance footage captured of a person the FBI said was the individual who placed the bombs revealed few characteristics. The person was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, a mask, and black gloves.
Neither bomb went off. Law enforcement officers found them the following day as Congress convened in the U.S. Capitol to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The FBI has stated that the bombs could have detonated.
“Fortunately, these bombs did not explode, although they certainly could have,” Darren Cox, assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office, said on Dec. 4.
Former FBI official Steven D’Antuono told members of Congress in 2023 that the timers on the bombs were such that they could not have detonated.
Congressional panels said in January that the FBI had identified some persons of interest in the case but had still not identified any suspects and had declined to give members additional information about the leads it had followed.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino wrote on X in the spring that after he and Patel were sworn in, they made the decision to allocate additional resources to certain cases, including the pipe bomb investigation.
Patel said on X on Dec. 4: “When Dan Bongino and I came to the FBI in March, the pipe bomb investigation had been stalled for going on 5 years. We rebuilt it from scratch—re-running every lead, re-testing every piece of evidence, bringing in top experts, and deploying new technology to engineer the break that finally nailed the suspect.”
Savannah Pointer contributed to this report.
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