WASHINGTON, DC - According to FBI officials, Brian Cole Jr., the man accused of planting pipe bombs outside the headquarters of both the Democratic and Republican National Committees, was known to the Biden administration for over four years, but no action was taken to pursue him.
FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News at Night anchor Trace Gallagher last week that the Christopher Wray-led FBI was guilty of “sheer incompetence or complete intentional negligence” in the investigation of the pipe bombs planted on Jan. 5, 2021, only hours before the siege at the U.S. Capitol.
“The prior administration sat on the evidence for four years,” Patel told Gallagher, adding, “There wasn’t any production of new evidence from five years ago,” The New York Post reported.
The Gateway Pundit reported that the Trump FBI identified Cole based on phone pings and credit card transaction history, evidence apparently ignored by the Biden FBI, according to an affidavit.
The affidavit shows that the FBI identified one bank checking account and six credit cards (the “Accounts”) used by Cole. In addition, the FBI obtained records for the checking account and three credit cards for the period of January 2018 to January 2021. Three additional credit card histories were obtained for the period of January 2018 to November 2025. The FBI reviewed the transaction histories for all of the accounts.
The now-Republican-led January 6 Select Committee, chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), compared its pipe bomb report with the new affidavit released by the FBI.
‘[In] April 2021, the case team identified a [redacted] user who was in the area of the DNC at the time the suspect can be seen on video footage using their phone. The FBI requested and received the ‘historical cell tower data’ for the user, and as of April 2021, the case team was attempting to ‘further analyze’ the user’s movements. It is ultimately unclear what happened with respect to this lead,” the J6 committee’s pipe bomb report read.
Recall that after the January 6, 2021, US Capitol siege, the FBI engaged in a widespread criminal investigation to determine who was at the Capitol on that date. That resulted in hundreds of arrests, with the FBI using cell phone data to track down “suspects,” which included elderly grandmothers who were invited into the Capitol.
Meanwhile, they ignored someone who planted viable pipe bombs outside the RNC and DNC, which then-Vice President Kamala Harris visited while the bombs were outside the headquarters.
The affidavit released by Patel indicates Wray’s FBI knew who the pipe bomb suspect was, yet did nothing about it.
Provider records show that the COLE CELLPHONE connected with Provider cell phone towers consistent with the COLE CELLPHONE being in the area of the RNC and DNC on January 2, 2021. The COLE CELLPHONE engage[d] in approximately seven data session transactions with Provider towers between 7:39 p.m. and 8:24 p.m. Provider’s historical cell site data shows the specific tower for each of the transactions along with the sector of the tower that engaged in the transaction with the COLE CELLPHONE,” the affidavit read.
Patel told Gallagher that Deputy Director Dan Bongino led the reinvestigation leading to Cole’s arrest.
“Here’s what we did—we went out to the country, brought in our experts, and Deputy Director [Dan] Bongino led the charge and said, ‘We are going to look at every piece of evidence again.’”
Patel continued, “We looked at three million lines of evidence. 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 just this case, but for everyone. And what that did was allow us to narrow the search down.”
Before being appointed Deputy FBI Director, Bongino was one of the leading critics of the FBI’s “investigation,” with Bongino telling his podcast audience in 2024 that he thought the bomb plot was the work of “either a connected anti-Trump insider or this was an inside job.”
Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity mentioned those comments in an interview with Bongino.
“I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions. That’s clear. And one day, I’ll be back in that space,” Bongino said. “But that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts,” adding that the agency was “pretty comfortable we have our guy.”
Cole is the latest seemingly innocuous person to be caught up in an act of actual or potential political violence, which includes Tyler Robinson, accused in the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk last September, and Thomas Matthew Crooks, who came within a centimeter of assassinating then-candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024.
While some liberal outlets have alleged that Cole was a “Trump supporter,” his grandmother told The Daily Mail that her grandson is apolitical, has no party affiliation, and is not a Trump supporter.
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