Washington, D.C., pipe bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr. was not connected to the FBI, his defense lawyer told NOTUS on Friday, swatting away conspiracies that have been spread by a top official within President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice.
“Oh, no. This is not a political case,” John Shoreman said on his way out of the D.C. federal courthouse, saying Cole is a data-entry employee at his father’s bail bonds company in Virginia.
That assertion is the first direct counter to the conspiracy theory that the FBI was involved in planting bombs outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee on the eve of Jan. 6, 2021. One of the top proponents of that claim was the FBI’s deputy director, Dan Bongino, who hosted a popular right-wing podcast before he was tapped to co-lead the bureau and oversee this investigation.
Bongino refused to address that issue when approached by NOTUS on Thursday following a press conference at Justice Department headquarters announcing the arrest. Attorney General Pam Bondi described the pipe bombing investigation as “a cold case” that “languished for four years” until Trump-administration-appointed leadership put new FBI agents on the case to reexamine a large trove of evidence with few leads.
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Bongino distanced himself from his past comments on Thursday evening when asked about them by Fox News host Sean Hannity.
“Listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions,” he said. “That’s clear. And one day I will be back in that space, but that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director and we base investigations on facts.”
In court on Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya read Cole the two criminal charges he faces, one for handling a bomb “with the intent to kill” and the other for attempting “malicious destruction.” She said those charges come with a five-year minimum mandatory prison sentence but could land him behind bars for up to two decades.
As the judge described the charges, at least one person watching in the courtroom broke into tears.
Cole appeared in court unshackled, wearing a tan-colored prison jumpsuit and orange sneakers. He adjusted his thick, rimless glasses as he sat next to his lawyer. Cole’s right leg shook rapidly as the judge described the next steps in the case. He will remain in jail until his detention hearing on Dec. 15, when prosecutors will formally request that he remain imprisoned until a potential trial.
Charles Jones, an assistant U.S. attorney on the prosecution team, said in court that Cole “spoke with law enforcement more than four hours yesterday.”
The issue of potential motive wasn’t addressed. CNN and NBC News reported that Cole told FBI agents he believed in Trump’s conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
As Cole exited the courtroom, several family members shouted encouraging messages.
“We love you, Brian!” one said.
“We’re here for you, baby!” another cried.
Cole’s defense will be led by Mario Williams, an Atlanta attorney whose website describes him as a “zealous human rights advocate” who has also served as an opposition researcher and political strategist for the late congressman John Lewis.
Williams will be up against a mountain of evidence that the FBI says points directly to Cole — even though agents were not able to tie it back to him until recently.
Darren Cox, the assistant director in charge of the bureau’s Washington Field Office, said on Thursday that his team “dove through more than 3 million lines of data.” A special 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.
The court filing also cites cell phone records that law enforcement says show seven pings that night to a mobile phone used by Cole that align with the alleged bomber’s movements, along with license-plate-reader surveillance footage they say captured Cole’s 2017 Nissan Sentra at 7:10 p.m. on the night of Jan. 5, 2021.
There was a heightened state of security during Cole’s appearance, with a U.S. Marshals agent conducting two sweeps of the second-floor courtroom to search for any weapons or explosives. Security officers checked to ensure that no cell phones were on, and a squad of U.S. Marshals walked the hallways shortly before the arraignment began.
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