Authorities Make an Arrest in 2021 Pipe Bomb Investigation

The FBI arrested a suspect on Thursday in its investigation into pipe bombs planted outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican National Committees the night before the 2021 Capitol riot.

The suspect, Brian Cole Jr., is described in court documents as a 30-year-old who lives with his mother and who works at a bail bondsman’s office in Virginia just outside the capital.

Justice Department officials said the nearly five-year investigation that led to the arrest relied on no new tips or information — just a closer look at evidence already in the government’s possession.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel used that startling point to politicize what could otherwise turn out to be a major victory for federal law enforcement. They accused the Biden administration of fumbling the investigation, allowing the suspect to remain at large for years.

“This cold case languished for four years until Director Patel and Deputy Director [Dan] Bongino came to the FBI,” Bondi said. “Let me be clear: There was no new tip. There was no new witness. Just good, diligent police work and prosecutorial work, working as a team.”

Patel congratulated a renewed effort by a “new team” of FBI agents, saying that new leadership did what the “prior administration refused and failed to do.”

Bondi said Cole is being charged with “use of an explosive device.”

Officials gave little information about Cole beyond that he resided just outside the D.C. area in Woodbridge, Virginia, using that fact to further the point that he remained within law enforcement’s reach during the investigation.

“We were gonna track this person to the end of the Earth. There was no way he was getting away,” said Bongino, who was credited for spearheading the investigation — an unusual arrangement, given his senior position at the FBI.

However, he’s had a longstanding interest in the case. Before Bongino landed the number two spot at the bureau, he had weighed in on the stalled investigation by spreading a conspiracy theory that the incident was an “inside job.”

On his popular right-wing podcast, Bongino railed against the FBI for not solving the case sooner and suggested that the planting of the pipe bombs was part of a secret FBI operation to divert government resources away from the Capitol in the midst of the most tense moments on Jan. 6. During one episode on Nov. 14, 2024, Bongino claimed he had “zero doubt” that “this was a setup.”

“They know who planted those bombs. And I’m telling you, it is the biggest scandal in modern American history. Those bombs were planted by someone they knew,” he said. “It was meant to shut down the January 6th questioning of the certification process by Republicans to set up a fake assassination plot against Kamala Harris. I have absolutely zero doubt about that.”

Bondi, Pate, and Bongino made no reference to those allegations during their press conference on Thursday afternoon. NOTUS approached Bongino afterward and asked if there was any indication that Cole was connected to the FBI. Bongino responded that he would not answer any questions outside the press conference.

The arrest ends nearly five years of investigation that had long frustrated law enforcement agencies. Despite extensive efforts, including analyzing thousands of video files, following hundreds of tips and releasing surveillance footage, no suspect had been identified until Thursday’s arrest.

Surveillance video released at the time captured a hooded, masked individual placing a bomb outside the DNC building, then another in an alley behind the RNC, both just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Complexities, including poor video quality, a lack of reliable witnesses and a dearth of forensic leads made progress difficult. The FBI offered a public reward of up to $500,000.

Though neither device detonated and both were safely defused the next day, the FBI characterized them as “viable and capable of harming anyone nearby.” Their discovery during the early hours of the Capitol riot is widely believed to have diverted law-enforcement resources amid chaotic crowd violence.

The case is being prosecuted by the office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host and New York state judge.

Law enforcement officials on Thursday repeatedly stressed the heavy workload of this investigation, which involved combing through vast amounts of information using what little clues they had. Agents correlated disparate pieces of data, like the purchases of a popular black, gray, and yellow Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneaker that could be tied to someone who matched the alleged bomber’s height of 5 feet 7 inches. Pirro said that investigators had to sort through purchases of 233,000 black end caps like the ones used in the working pipe bombs to see if they could be tied to a person who obtained the steel and 9-volt batteries used to build them.

“It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” Pirro said.

An FBI agent’s affidavit says investigators tracked down several credit card and cash purchases for bomb making equipment, including galvanized pipes at two different Home Depot stores and white kitchen timers at a Walmart through 2020 — several months before the bombs were placed. The FBI said it obtained cellphone records that showed seven pings that night to a mobile phone used by Cole, data that investigators say aligned with the alleged bomber’s movements.

The FBI also pointed to surveillance footage from a license plate reader in Washington that spotted Cole’s 2017 Nissan Sentra at 7:10 p.m. on the night of Jan. 5, 2021.

Darren Cox, who oversaw the investigative team as the assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office, said his team “dove through more than 3 million lines of data.”

This article has been updated with further details.