Brian Cole Jr.’s location just the latest snag in the DOJ’s evolving Jan. 6 pipe-bomb narrative

The FBI’s narrative about the autistic Virginia man being prosecuted in federal court for allegedly placing two pipe bombs on Capitol Hill keeps running into snags, including suspect Brian J. Cole Jr.’s apparent location during key segments of the pipe-bomb timeline.

After arresting Cole, 30, of Woodbridge, Va., on Dec. 4, the FBI said Cole waived his Miranda rights and made a “detailed confession” with no attorney present. Cole allegedly said he planted bombs at the Democratic National Committee building and the Capitol Hill Club adjacent to the Republican National Committee building on Jan. 5, 2021.

‘At least 10 different USSS agents and two K-9 units came within feet of the pipe bomb.’

Some of the details in Cole’s confession, which his attorneys now question, conflict with newly developed evidence from independent investigations.

Cole’s prosecution does not explain other case details, including years of the FBI altering video evidence, failure to preserve key case evidence, and the dozens of police officers and Secret Service agents who went near the bombs on Jan. 6 but did not act as if they were a threat to the public.

Blaze News examined the charges against Cole to see if his arrest fits with the case history and facts already in the public square. The list of conflicts, problems, and lingering questions is extensive. This is Part 2 of our series. Part 1 was published Jan. 16.

6 minutes of separation

In a court filing in the U.S. Department of Justice’s criminal case against Cole, the FBI said Cole parked his blue 2017 Nissan Sentra SV on the south side of D Street SE sometime prior to 7:34 p.m. on Jan. 5. The FBI claims Cole then walked to the DNC building to place the first of the two pipe bombs he allegedly transported to Capitol Hill.

The section of D Street that runs between Folger Park and Providence Park is just beyond the coverage area of U.S. Capitol Police street cameras.

The pipe-bomber was able to avoid CCTV detection for eight minutes of the more than 50-minute bomb-drop period, possibly due to a familiarity with the location of USCP security cameras. That potential familiarity is evidenced by the suspect’s seeming sudden appearance at 7:35 p.m., disappearance from the bomb route at 8 p.m., and reappearance at 8:08 p.m.

The FBI has theorized that the suspect retreated into or near Folger Park — which is bounded by 2nd Street, D Street, 3rd Street, and E Street — likely to retrieve the second pipe bomb for placement behind the Capitol Hill Club.

In a October 2025 video update, the FBI stated the bomber only carried one device at a time in a backpack. Folger Park, where there are no USCP cameras, appears the likely place to which the suspect retreated during the “missing” eight minutes when the bomber didn’t appear on security cameras.

The hoodie-clad pipe-bomb suspect was first seen on security cameras (at right) at 7:35 p.m. on Jan. 5, 2021. The same scene in daylight hours (left).U.S. Capitol Police CCTV

The suspect first appeared on USCP Camera 5050 walking north across North Carolina Avenue SE at the intersection with 1st Street SE. It is not clear what route the bomber used to reach the intersection, as it is on the edge of Capitol Police CCTV coverage.

After placing the pipe bomb at the DNC building at 7:54 p.m., the FBI says the suspect was last seen at 8 p.m. walking east on E Street toward North Carolina Avenue. This route suggests the bomber walked back to somewhere in or near Folger Park to pick up the second pipe bomb. The suspect was missing from security video for eight minutes.

The walk from the last known location to Folger Park would take about two minutes. That would put the suspect in or around the park from 8:02 to 8:03 p.m.

At that exact time, a blue Nissan Sentra that is a visual match to Cole’s vehicle was seen more than one mile away driving north on 3rd Street SW, as documented by USCP Cameras 3823 and 3821, located on the Ford House Office Building.

The Nissan was discovered by an independent investigator who goes by the social media handle “Armitas” and has asked not to be otherwise named publicly for security reasons. Armitas scrubbed the feeds of dozens of Capitol Police CCTV security cameras and located three blue Nissan Sentras in the Capitol Hill area between roughly 7 p.m. and 8:10 p.m. on Jan. 5.

One of the Nissans was driven by a white individual, with a white passenger in the front seat, Armitas said. Cole is black. A second Nissan matched the exterior features and appearance of Cole’s vehicle, compared to photos of the vehicle on the street outside his home and in Prince William County Police bodycam footage from a 2024 traffic accident involving Cole. The third Nissan was seen near Folger Park after 7 p.m., but that vehicle had fog lamps, which Cole’s Nissan does not have.

Car a visual match

The Sentra driving on 3rd Street SW at 8:03 p.m. was a visual match for Cole’s 2017 Sentra, with identical 16-by-6.5-inch steel wheels with covers, rear opera window, right rear wrap-around tail light, right side door handles, identical gaps in the brake lights for the reverse light, and the right headlight for the turn signal (see graphic).

Brian J. Cole Jr.’s 2017 Nissan Sentra is a visual match to a Sentra captured on Capitol Police cameras during the time the pipe bomb suspect was planting the devices.Graphic by Armitas

The FBI claims Cole parked along D Street SE between Folger Park and Providence Park before walking to the DNC building to place the first pipe bomb. Because that section of D Street is restricted to one-way eastbound traffic, Cole would have had to enter it from the west. However, his Nissan does not appear on security video driving onto this section of road.

A similar-looking Nissan Sentra was in the Folger Park vicinity at 7:20 p.m., Capitol Police security video shows. That vehicle might have been mistaken for Cole’s Sentra. The vehicle had its fog lamps engaged when it drove past the CCTV cameras. Cole’s Nissan does not have fog lamps, according to Armitas and photographs of Cole’s vehicle reviewed by Blaze News.

According to the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System, Cole’s Sentra does not have the optional fog lights.

Brian Cole Jr. would have had to take a less direct route (in green) from South Capitol Drive to Folger Park. The more direct route (red) would send his vehicle past U.S. Capitol Police security cameras. His vehicle does not appear on any cameras along that route.Map by Armitas

Cole could not have been on 3rd Street SW in his vehicle and on foot near Folger Park at the same time on Jan. 5. The 3rd Street location is a six- to seven-minute drive from Folger Park.

The Nissan that is a visual match to Cole’s drove north on 3rd Street SW to C Street SW, turned west, and came to a stoplight at C Street and 2nd Street, in front of the O’Neill House Office Building, security camera footage showed. From there, the Nissan entered the on-ramp to Interstate 395, traveling south and west, away from Capitol Hill.

‘In some circumstances, absence of evidence actually is evidence of absence.’

The FBI said Cole’s vehicle was photographed by a license plate reader on the exit ramp from I-395 onto South Capitol Drive. That exit would have put Cole traveling south on South Capitol Drive, away from Capitol Hill, at 7:10 p.m.

To reach D Street SE from this location without being detected by Capitol Police video cameras would require detailed knowledge of camera placement and the border of USCP’s territory.

Since Cole’s vehicle does not appear on any public video driving from I-395 to Folger Park, that likely means he would have passed up the most direct route and taken a longer, more circuitous path. The less direct route (see map) avoided Capitol Police cameras, possibly suggesting Cole would have had knowledge of the camera locations.

“Not having Cole’s car on video in locations where Cole’s car should be present is strong evidence Cole was not there,” Armitas said. “In some circumstances, absence of evidence actually is evidence of absence.”

During his interrogation, Cole allegedly said he used Google Maps to find the DNC and RNC sites, indicating he was not familiar with the area. However, the hoodie-clad bomber exhibited behavior that strongly suggests knowledge of the geography and security of the bomb sites.

“He allegedly claimed that he had used Google Maps to look up these locations in advance, and yet the person we see on footage meanders their way to the DNC block,” Armitas said. “When they get to the DNC block, they take the longest way around, and then just before reaching the DNC, they U-turn back up South Capitol Street, turn around again toward the DNC, only to stop and sit there at the destination.”

‘I recognized the government tags immediately.’

After dropping the device along the rear wall of the Capitol Hill Club near the RNC building at about 8:16 p.m., the bomb suspect walked an escape route east on Rumsey Court toward 2nd Street SE, the FBI has said. The suspect would have come up to a solid plank fence at the end of Rumsey Court where it borders the garden of St. Peter’s Church on Capitol Hill, a senior congressional source told Blaze News

That fence appeared to be a single contiguous piece with no visible entrance or way of egress, the source said. Armitas said a law enforcement source told him there was a hidden gate latch built into the fence. Only someone who was very familiar with the area — or who had done a test run of the bomb route — would have known there was a hidden gate leading into the church garden.

Although the fence has been replaced since Jan. 6, Blaze News confirmed that the new fence has the same hidden-gate feature.

Surveillance of Cole only began Nov. 13

An FBI whistleblower who lives in the same area of Woodbridge, Va., as Cole and his family, said the bureau only began FISUR — or physical surveillance — of Cole on or around Nov. 13, 2025. He said this indicated that the investigation of Cole was very new.

“I recognized the government tags immediately. I saw they were set up on it,” the whistleblower said. “I can tell you that they weren’t there before.”

The FBI told congressional leaders in December that the bureau empaneled a “red team” in October 2025 that included law enforcement sources from outside the FBI.

A briefing by the FBI was conducted via Zoom and in person for congressional leaders on Dec. 5. The meeting was led by Darren Cox, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, and Joshua Stone, special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office’s Counterterrorism Division.

Officials from the FBI’s Evidence Response Team and the Special Operations Branch walk toward the home of Jan. 6 pipe-bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr. in Woodbridge, Virginia, Dec. 4, 2025.Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

That red team “analyzed the FBI’s evidence and identified Cole as the suspect within six weeks,” U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) wrote in a Jan. 22 letter to FBI Director Kash Patel. Loudermilk is the chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Remaining Questions Surrounding Jan. 6.

Loudermilk asked the FBI if Cole’s phone number was among the 186 phones identified in February 2021 as being on Capitol Hill about the time the bombs were dropped on Jan. 5. The FBI previously said that Cole’s arrest was not based on any new investigative leads or information.

“As new data was produced to and evaluated by the [Christopher] Wray FBI, was Cole’s phone number ever among the ‘numbers of interest’?” Loudermilk asked. “If so, when was Cole’s cell phone number first recognized as of interest? What prompted the FBI to cease investigating that phone number? If not, how was his cell phone number overlooked?”

Loudermilk asked Patel to provide answers to those and other pipe-bomb questions by Feb. 5.

Loudermilk said former FBI Supervisory Special Agent John Nantz, a 20-year FBI veteran, testified at a Jan. 14 House hearing “that it was ‘likely’ the FBI knew Cole’s identity in February 2021.”

‘The defendant did not plant prop bombs filled with sand or sugar, or constructed with Legos.’

A January 2025 House report said the FBI identified 186 phone numbers of interest on Feb. 3, 2021, based on a geofence warrant and cell-tower dumps.

Thirty-six of those numbers were assigned to agents for interviews. Nearly 100 numbers “required additional investigative steps,” and 51 numbers “were identified as ‘not needing further action’ because the phones ‘belong[ed] to law enforcement officers or persons on the exclusion list,’” the report said.

The 186 cell numbers of interest have not been divulged publicly, nor have details on how the individuals behind each phone number were cleared. The names and numbers of the 51 individuals on the law enforcement list, whom the FBI did not investigate, have also remained hidden.

FBI didn’t evacuate Cole’s neighbors

A neighbor told the BBC that when the FBI went to arrest Cole on Dec. 4, it did not evacuate the nearby homes on the cul de sac in Woodbridge, Va. A whistleblower told Blaze News that given that the original FBI affidavit accused Cole of manufacturing powerful “viable” explosives at his home, a bomb squad should have evacuated the neighborhood while it searched the Cole home.

FBI agents and technicians search the 2017 Nissan Sentra belonging to Jan. 6 pipe-bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr. outside his Woodbridge, Virginia, home on Dec. 4, 2025.Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images

An elderly couple who live next door to the Cole residence were not allowed to leave their home during the FBI operation. This caused the husband to miss a doctor’s appointment, the source said.

According to the FBI’s Counter IED Unit and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a pipe bomb requires a mandatory evacuation distance of 70 feet and a preferred evacuation distance of at least 1,200 feet. Discovery of a pipe bomb or similar improvised explosive device requires people in buildings or outside to proceed to the preferred evacuation distance.

Expert: Devices weren’t bombs

Cole’s defense team contends that what the FBI has for five years called “viable” pipe bombs were not bombs at all. The devices lacked the needed chemicals and proper fusing system that would have made them explosives, according to Brennan Phillips, a 20-year veteran of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“Based on my review of the materials provided, the two suspected pipe bombs in question do not contain an explosive filler capable of causing an explosion,” Phillips wrote in a report filed by the defense.

“Beyond the lack of a viable explosive filler for the two pipes, neither device has a functional fuzing and firing system capable of igniting a flame-sensitive explosive filler,” he wrote. “Based on my experience and testing, a single 9-volt battery attached to a 1.5-inch square of steel wool will not generate enough heat to ignite Black Powder.”

Above: the Capitol Hill pipe bombs before they were rendered safe by a bomb robot. Below: One of the devices reconstructed by the FBI. FBI images

Prosecutors fired back on Phillips’ report, noting that black powder retrieved from the bomb scenes produced a flame in one of the samples tested.

“The FBI explosives chemistry examiner who conducted the flame test detailed in his case file that this powder sample, when heated, ‘sizzled, produced flying burning embers, and sustained a flame,’” Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Jones wrote in a reply memo.

“The defendant did not plant prop bombs filled with sand or sugar, or constructed with Legos,” Jones wrote. “The defendant assembled two improvised explosive devices, he planted them, and he set each to explode.”

“Each device,” Jones noted, “contained all the components necessary to explode and was viable.”

One former FBI special agent and a current supervisory special agent who worked on the pipe-bombs investigation in 2021 said they received a briefing on the devices in January 2021. An official from the federal Joint Program Office for Countering Improvised Explosive Devices told the agents that the bombs were “inert devices.” The former agent said the devices “just looked good.”

Two bombs and the Keystone Kops

Perhaps the thing that drew the most suspicion in the five-year pipe-bombs case was the shocking, cavalier attitude of U.S. Secret Service agents who were outside the DNC building during a visit of then-Sen. Kamala Harris, the vice president-elect.

The Secret Service did not find the bomb that the FBI insists was sitting in public view at the DNC building from 7:54 p.m. the night before. It was one of numerous egregious failures identified in a report by the Homeland Security Inspector General.

“Prior to Vice President-elect Harris’ 11:25 a.m. arrival, at least 10 different USSS agents and two canine units came within feet of the pipe bomb yet never discovered the device,” the 2025 Subcommittee on Oversight report said. “In fact, at least one USSS agent spent five hours posted near the garage entrance throughout the morning and early afternoon before the pipe bomb’s discovery.”

Security video shows 10 Secret Service agents walking onto the DNC driveway after walking past the bomb just before 8:22 a.m. After about two minutes, most of the agents walked back toward the bomb in the direction of a building entrance.

A group of 10 Secret Service officials gathers outside the Democratic National Committee building in Washington D.C. just before 8:30 a.m. Jan. 6, 2021. A bomb-sniffing dog (right) sweeps the area just before 9:30 a.m. before a visit by Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris.U.S. Capitol Police CCTV

Harris’ motorcade pulled into the DNC garage at 11:25 a.m., driving just feet away from the park bench and the pipe bomb. Harris had left the U.S. Capitol at 11:22 a.m. Federal prosecutors used her presence at the Capitol to seek harsher penalties for Jan. 6 criminal-case defendants. Some indictments and charging paperwork had to be reissued after it was discovered by Politico that Harris slipped away from the Capitol to the DNC.

‘Somebody’s not doing their job.’

If the Secret Service agents thought the bomb was real, they did not act like it. Agents and police stood calmly just feet from a bomb that could have potentially killed them all had it detonated. The response was so bad that a key lawmaker compared it to the bumbling Keystone Kops of silent-film-era fame.

Capitol Police security video showed that it took Secret Service agents nearly two and a half minutes to emerge from their vehicles to investigate after they were told about the bomb by a plainclothes Capitol Police counter-surveillance officer, who discovered it under a bush near a DNC park bench.

No one moved with urgency. A blast perimeter was not established. Pedestrians were allowed to stroll past the device. More than 40 vehicles were allowed to drive near the DNC building, and 10 civilians walked close to the bomb or otherwise breached the security perimeter, the January 2025 House report said.

Commuter trains rumbled by on a nearby trestle for 15 minutes after the bomb discovery. Even after multiple warnings on Capitol Police radio for officers to maintain a blast perimeter, pedestrians and vehicles were allowed near the DNC building, contaminating the crime scene, the Subcommittee on Oversight report said.

The Secret Service motorcade of Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris drives past the Democratic National Committee pipe bomb (left). Agents rush Harris into a dark SUV (right) and the motorcade moves out at 1:16 p.m. — 11 minutes after discovery of the device.U.S. Capitol Police CCTV

Harris was not evacuated from the DNC for 11 minutes after discovery of the bomb. If the FBI’s timeline is accurate, her security detail drove into the DNC garage at 11:25 a.m., mere feet from where the device sat. Harris never publicly mentioned what could easily have been viewed as an assassination attempt.

The motorcade of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was allowed to drive within feet of the pipe bomb as Pelosi was evacuated from the Capitol to Fort McNair. Just before 2:30 p.m., Pelosi’s motorcade was allowed inside the blast zone and drove right past the device, just as a Capitol Police bomb robot prepared to blast the device with a water cannon.

There were also security lapses outside the Capitol Hill Club, where a pipe bomb was found about 12:40 p.m. Jan. 6. More than 40 minutes after the bomb discovery and three minutes after Capitol Police dispatched a bomb robot to the scene, a couple crossed C Street and walked south on 1st Street toward the Capitol Hill Club entrance. A police officer shouted to them to reverse course and leave the area.

“Sir, I have people walking down First Street right in front of the Republican Club,” a USCP officer said over police radio. “Somebody’s not doing their job.”

Two civilians walk onto Capitol Hill Club property and toward the building entrance more than 40 minutes after a pipe bomb was discovered behind the club at 12:40 p.m. Jan. 6, 2021.U.S. Capitol Police CCTV

A senior D.C. law enforcement official told the Epoch Times in February 2024 that the deadliness of pipe bombs should be known by anyone working in law enforcement, and milling about near a live bomb would be “stupidity.”

“If a pipe bomb goes off, shrapnel from that pipe bomb travels — it’s going to travel at about anywhere from 18,000 to 23,000 feet per second,” the official told The Epoch Times. “There’s nothing you can do. By the time you hear the boom, the shrapnel is going to be hitting you.

“That’s just stupidity. Unless, for some reason, they had no reason to be concerned.”

Cole ostensibly could not have known the planned timing and movements of Harris that were scheduled for Jan. 6.

Even taking Cole’s confession at face value that he intended the devices to detonate on Jan. 5 — and planting the devices had nothing to do with Jan. 6 — the result still put the lives of two top Democrat politicians in peril. Yet Harris and Pelosi have not publicly acknowledged that the DNC device could have maimed or killed them.

The Jan. 6 Select Committee appointed by Pelosi in 2022 barely mentioned the pipe bombs in its final report.

“Their 845-page final report only referenced ‘pipe bomb’ five times,” Loudermilk said in March 2024. “These references are situational, and as far as I can tell, no investigation was conducted.

“In contrast,” Loudermilk said, “‘President Trump’ is mentioned in the report one thousand, nine hundred and one times.”

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