Suspect Brian Cole confessed to planting bomb, parroting Trump’s false claims 2020 election was stolen.
Printed On 2 Jan 2026
A federal choose in the USA has refused the pre-trial launch of a person charged with planting two pipe bombs exterior the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican nationwide events on the eve of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
On Friday, Justice of the Peace Choose Matthew Sharbaugh dominated that 30-year-old Brian Cole should stay jailed earlier than trial. The Justice of the Peace concluded there are not any situations of launch that may moderately shield the general public from the hazard that Cole allegedly poses.
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Division of Justice prosecutors say Cole confessed to putting pipe bombs exterior the Republican Nationwide Committee (RNC) and the Democratic Nationwide Committee (DNC) headquarters solely hours earlier than a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election outcomes.
In line with prosecutors, Cole stated he hoped the explosives would detonate and “hoped there can be information about it”.
“Mercifully, that didn’t occur,” Choose Sharbaugh wrote within the order.
“But when the plan had succeeded, the outcomes,” he stated, may have been devastating, “making a better sense of terror on the eve of a high-security Congressional continuing, inflicting severe property harm within the coronary heart of Washington, DC, grievously injuring DNC or RNC employees and different harmless bystanders, or worse.”
After his arrest final month, Cole instructed investigators that he believed somebody wanted to “communicate up” for individuals who believed the 2020 election, which Democrat Joe Biden gained, was stolen and that he wished to focus on the nation’s political events as a result of they have been “in cost”, in line with prosecutors.
Trump and his allies had spent months baselessly claiming the 202 vote was marred by widespread fraud, a place he has maintained since his election victory in 2024.
The US president was later indicted for his function in fomenting the January 6, 2021, riot, which occurred as Congress met to certify the election outcomes, however the case was deserted after his election victory in 2024. Underneath longstanding Justice Division coverage, it doesn’t prosecute sitting presidents.
After taking workplace, Trump pardoned greater than 1,500 of the rioters, together with these convicted of violent crimes on the Capitol.
If convicted, Cole faces as much as 10 years of imprisonment on one cost and as much as 20 years of imprisonment on a second cost that additionally carries a five-year obligatory minimal jail sentence.
Cole’s attorneys requested for him to be launched on dwelling detention with GPS monitoring. They stated Cole doesn’t have a felony document, has been recognized with autism spectrum dysfunction and obsessive-compulsive dysfunction, and lives in a secure dwelling that he shared together with his mother and father in Woodbridge, Virginia.
“Mr Cole merely doesn’t pose a hazard to the group,” his defence attorneys wrote in courtroom filings. “No matter danger the federal government posits is theoretical and backward-looking, belied by the previous 4 years the place Mr Cole lived at dwelling together with his household with out incident.”
Cole continued to purchase bomb-making elements for months after the January 6 riot, in line with prosecutors. They stated he instructed the FBI that he planted the pipe bombs as a result of “one thing simply snapped”.
“The sudden and abrupt motivation behind Mr Cole’s alleged actions presents issues about how shortly the identical abrupt and impulsive conduct would possibly recur,” Choose Sharbaugh wrote within the order.
