The FBI on Thursday arrested a suspect believed to have placed pipe bombs near the offices of the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee hours before rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to multiple news reports, marking a major development in a case that has irked investigators for years.
Brian Cole, a 30-year-old from Virginia, has been identified as the suspect, according to multiple reports. Cole is expected to be charged in federal court in Washington later on Thursday, an FBI source told NBC News.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a press conference that Cole has been charged with the use of an explosive device and left open the possibility for more charges to come.
Bondi said the arrest came after the FBI and other agencies redoubled their efforts combing through millions of pieces of data and that “there was no new tip, there was no new witness. Just good, diligent police work.”
Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, also praised the work of the federal government for finding “a needle in a haystack.”
“You hear about government employees, but I don’t know if you realize what it is that they do,” said Pirro, a former Fox News host who made a career out of extensively criticizing government figures.
According to an affidavit submitted by an FBI special agent on the case, prosecutors helped identify Cole by tracking the purchases of individual components in each of the bombs dating back to 2019, including their end caps.
The affidavit alleges Cole purchased 12 black end caps and two galvanized end caps from four different Home Depots in Northern Virginia between Oct. 22, 2019, and Nov. 16, 2020.
One law enforcement official told MS NOW that authorities don’t yet know the motive of the suspect. But the network noted the individual “has been linked to statements in support of anarchist ideology,” citing two sources.
The pipe bombs were placed outside the headquarters of the DNC and the RNC on Jan. 5, 2021, the eve of the Capitol insurrection.
“Both devices were viable and could have been detonated, resulting in serious injury or death,” the agency said previously.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who was a senator at the time, was inside the DNC’s headquarters when police discovered a pipe bomb outside the building, prompting her evacuation.
In the ensuing chaos, police resources were diverted to responding to the pipe bombs and away from the Capitol attack as it was unfolding.
In 2022, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testified before Congress to say as much.
“We were dealing with two pipe bombs that were specifically set right off the edge of our perimeter to, what I suspect, draw resources away,” Sund told lawmakers. “I think there was significant coordination with this attack.”
The case has frustrated the FBI for years. Authorities had conducted over 1,000 interviews and reviewed thousands of video files and hundreds of tips in the case but had failed to identify a suspect as of earlier this year, according to NPR. At one point, the agency also offered a reward of up to $500,000 for tips leading to the arrest of a suspect. But investigators were also limited by some setbacks, including the poor quality of the surveillance video of the suspect who wore a hoodie, gloves and a face mask, making it even harder to identify them, CNN noted.
Some of Trump’s supporters had previously seized on the stalled investigation to claim that the placement of the bombs was an inside job orchestrated to hurt the far right.
Chris Samuels/The Salt Lake Tribune via Getty Images
That theory was also endorsed by Dan Bongino before he became deputy FBI director.
“There is a massive cover-up, because the person who planted those pipe bombs ― they don’t want you to know who it was, because it’s either a connected anti-Trump insider, or this was an inside job,” Bongino said on his show in November 2024, according to ABC News. “Those bombs were planted there. This was a setup. I have zero doubt.”
Last month, the FBI disputed a report published in right-wing outlet The Blaze claiming a former Capitol Police officer was a “94%-98% match” to the person who planted the devices, citing a “gait analysis.”
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump pardoned about 1,500 defendants charged in the insurrection and issued some commutations. But the language included in the pardon did not seem to apply to the person responsible for the pipe bombs, according to NBC News.
Ryan Grenoble contributed reporting.
