The confessed Jan. 6 pipe bomber flummoxed former President Joe Biden’s FBI before he was arrested and charged this week with planting the explosives outside the headquarters of both major political parties’ buildings in Washington, DC.
President Trump’s FBI, led by Director Kash Patel, and prosecutors have released few details about the accused 30-year-old’s motivations, but investigative leads that law enforcement officials and congressional committees disclosed in the years preceding the bomber’s arrest point to how agents found it so difficult to apprehend him.
“This case languished. It sat there for four years, collecting dust. No one did anything to solve this,” declared Attorney General Pam Bondi on “Fox and Friends” Friday morning. “Old evidence, new people, great police work, that’s all it is. Good old-fashioned police work.”
“All we can go off at this point is what the FBI has said and that is they put a fresh set of eyes on evidence the FBI has had for almost five years,” added a House Republican aide involved in an investigation into the pipe bomb. “It’s either incompetence or gross negligence.”
Relatives, neighbors and sources familiar with the investigation into Brian Cole Jr. who spoke with The Post have also painted a picture of a “naïve” young man — likely on the autism spectrum — who wouldn’t have thrown up red flags while trotting out a pet chihuahua for walks near his family’s home in Woodbridge, Va.
“He’s almost autistic-like because he doesn’t understand a lot of stuff,” Cole’s grandmother Loretta said when reached by phone Wednesday for comment. “He’s not a terrorist. … He’s very naïve. He would not hurt a fly. He’s just not that kind of person.”
The affidavit filed Thursday highlighted how video surveillance cameras of the suspect, cell phone data and a purchasing history that matched the component materials for the bomb are the only publicly available evidence tying Cole to the act of potential political violence.
Federal campaign finance records and voter data hasn’t pointed to Cole having strong political views either, with some sources indicating he believed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump — but he also made conflicting statements during a four-hour interview with investigators Thursday when he copped to the crime.
A national Republican operative also insisted to The Post on Friday there was “zero indication” that Cole was a Trump voter.
Cole did not appear to have registered with either party in Virginia and did not vote in primary races — but did cast ballots in general elections in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2024. His father’s party identity is unknown but he was once defended by high-profile civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who repped George Floyd’s family.
A “Brian Cole” of Lorton, Va., which sits next to Woodbridge, donated a total $50 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018. The same individual, who lists themself as “not employed,” donated another $50 on the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue in December 2024, per FEC filings.
Another “Brian Cole,” of Fairfax, Va., who listed his employment as “bail bondsman” for “Mr Bail Inc.,” which doesn’t match the name of the accused bomber’s father’s business, contributed $104.10 on the Republican fundraising platform WinRed in March 2024, other FEC filings show.
But the accused bomber evaded being collared by the authorities for nearly five years while living with his parents and siblings just 30 miles southwest of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee HQs that he later targeted.
As of July 2023, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, who served under both Trump and Biden, testified to Congress that the bureau had seemingly exhausted its leads for the case, even as the attack potentially threatened Vice President Kamala Harris, who was at the Democratic National Committee when the explosives were found.
“We have done thousands of interviews, reviewed something like 40,000 video files … 500 something tips,” Wray told Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in a House Judiciary Committee hearing that same month.
“We have conducted all logical investigative steps and interviewed all logical individuals at this point,” the FBI boss added in the July 12, 2023, public hearing.
A senior FBI special agent informed the Judiciary panel the year before that the suspect’s “motive and ideology remain unknown” and urged other agents at the Washington Field Office to “include sources reporting on all [types of] threats,” which Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote “raises questions about the progress and extent of the FBI’s investigation given its tardiness.
Former FBI Washington Field Office Assistant Director in Charge Steven D’Antuono, who ran the investigation for its first two years, maintained in an interview with ABC News in July 2023 that the probe was “still a priority for us” even after so many cold leads.
The month before, D’Antuono had revealed in a congressional interview that the bureau still knew nearly nothing about the pipe bomb suspect other than a physical appearance captured on video surveillance cameras.
“We don’t know. We don’t even know the gender at this point,” he said in a separate exchange with Massie about how the explosives were supposed to detonate.
“Do you think it was technically possible for a kitchen timer,” Massie began in the June 7, 2023, transcribed in the June 7, 2023, interview before the House Judiciary Committee, that has one-hour duration to detonate a bomb 17 hours later?”
“No, I don’t. And I saw the same kitchen timer as you. I agree. I don’t know when they were supposed to go off,” D’Antuono responded, emphasizing the FBI’s forensics lab in Quantico, Va., found the explosives were “viable.”
Massie has since expressed doubt that Cole is even the bomber, joining other people who have leveled alternative explanations as well as conspiracy theories about the suspect’s motivations.
A separate inquiry by the House’s Select Subcommittee on January 6 put out a report in January 2025 showing why so many of those leads — when compared with a federal affidavit identifying Cole that was filed in DC federal court — didn’t identify him as the suspect.
At least seven people purchased the same kitchen timer found on the pipe bomb between Dec. 1, 2020 and Jan. 5, 2021, but the affidavit on Cole reveals he bought his timer on June 3, 2020.
At least 186 “phone numbers of interest” were flagged based on cell phone tower connections in the vicinity of Capitol Hill and the FBI claimed at some points that the data had been “corrupted,” but Cole’s affidavit made no mention of that latter fact.
In fact, few leads the FBI told the House select subcommittee about would have included Cole as a “person of interest” when compared with the affidavit, except one “who owned a pair of Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers and who worked ‘in the area of the crime.’”
Brian Cole Sr. owns and runs the company Brian Cole Bail Bonds, which was raided by the FBI this week amid his son’s arrest. Cole Jr. works at his father’s bail bonds business.
One of those other persons searched for “pipe bomb DC” online before the explosives were placed; another took photos of the RNC on the morning of Jan. 5, 2021; another drove a car by the RNC after the bombs were placed with a passenger matching the suspect’s description and five more had similar cell tower data.
The subcommittee’s Jan. 2, 2025, report faulted law enforcement for associated “security failures” with responding to the pipe bombs discovery on the afternoon of the Capitol riot and suggested that the DOJ and FBI under Biden appeared to prioritize Jan. 6 riot cases over the pipe bomb investigation.
Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said in a statement after Cole’s arrest that his investigation was “ongoing” but thanked the FBI “for their diligence and continued partnership” with his select subcommittee.
“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,” Loudermilk added.
Patel claimed at a Thursday press conference that Biden’s FBI “sat on the evidence for four years. There wasn’t any production of new evidence from five years ago.”
“We looked at three million lines of evidence,” he went on. “We went back and looked at the cell phone tower data dumps. We went back and looked at the providers and what information they provided pursuant to search warrants at the time and asked questions, such as ‘Why weren’t all the phone numbers scrubbed?’ and ‘Why weren’t they connected?’ and ‘Why wasn’t there any geolocational data done?’
“Now that is either sheer incompetence or complete intentional negligence, neither of which is acceptable for this FBI. So, we changed that in the prior eight months, not on just this case, but everyone. And what that did was allow us to narrow the search down,” he explained.
DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro added that Cole from all external signs was also “quiet individual that you would never imagine could put a pipe bomb [and] put it together.”
Cole faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted for transporting an explosive device across state lines with the intent to kill, injure and damage property to attempted malicious destruction by means of explosive materials.
The FBI, DOJ, RNC and DNC did not respond to requests for comment.
The Post reached out to D’Antuono for comment Friday. Wray could not be reached for comment.
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