The man accused of planting pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees in Washington almost five years ago has been indicted on federal charges and will remain in jail pending trial, a judge ruled Friday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Sharbaugh said in a written ruling that Brian Cole Jr.’s alleged actions showed “a startling and significant capacity for dangerousness.” The indictment, in U.S. District Court in Washington, charges Cole with transporting the two pipe bombs across state lines and attempted malicious destruction with explosive devices.
Cole, 30, has been jailed since his arrest Dec. 4, when he admitted to FBI investigators that he planted the pipe bombs outside the DNC and RNC headquarters, giving a detailed confession over more than an hour after waiving his right to remain silent, according to federal prosecutors.
“By his own admission, the defendant committed these chilling acts because he was unhappy with the response of political leaders on both sides of the political aisle to questions raised about the results of the 2020 election,” the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia said in a court filing requesting pretrial detention.
The arrest came almost five years after the explosive devices were discovered underneath a park bench and in an alley on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election while a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
“The suspect’s intended actions were a serious threat to public safety that could have caused devastating harm,” the District’s U.S. attorney, Jeanine Pirro, said in a statement Friday. “This order to hold the defendant protects the community as the judicial process plays out. Public safety must always come first.”
A prosecutor in Pirro’s office, Charles R. Jones, said at a court hearing this week that Cole led “an essentially monastic lifestyle,” living at his mother’s home and working for his father’s bail bondsman company in Northern Virginia.
Prosecutors said Cole taught himself how to make black powder from a video game and watched science videos to round out his bombmaking knowledge, buying components at local stores including Lowe’s, Walmart and Home Depot, while keeping his family in the dark about his activities.
In his FBI interview, Cole said “I really don’t like either party at this point” and “something just snapped,” prosecutors said. Jones said Cole was radicalized online, largely by consuming content on YouTube, Reddit and Discord.
Defense attorneys said that Cole was autistic and should be released from jail pending trial, requesting home detention at his grandmother’s home in Virginia and a GPS ankle monitor. “No device detonated, no person was injured, and no property was damaged,” Cole’s attorneys said in a court filing.
Mario Williams, an attorney for Cole, said a hearing Tuesday that Cole “wasn’t conspiring with anybody” and had lived without incident in the years since the bombs were discovered.
FBI agents said they found bombmaking materials last month as they searched Cole’s vehicle and his mother’s home in Woodbridge, Virginia, where he lived with relatives. Cole routinely wiped his phone of all data, prosecutors said.
“His ongoing retention of and access to the same components used to construct the explosive devices recovered outside the DNC and RNC headquarters in January 2021 raise substantial red flags in the Court’s mind about a prospective risk to public and community safety,” Sharbaugh said in the written ruling.
At the hearing last week, the judge said the devices could have caused injury and mayhem on the eve of Congress’s certification of the 2020 election results. “Thankfully, but for the grace of God, no one was hurt, no one was killed,” Sharbaugh said.
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