Brian Cole, age 30, of Woodbridge, Virginia, in Prince William County, about 36 miles west of Washington, D.C., resides in a single-family residence with his mother and other family members.
Cole is described as 5 feet 6 inches tall (168 cm) and wears corrective eyeglasses. He has ties to Antifa and his entire family is staunchly anti Trump.
Where does Brian Cole work?
Brian Cole, 30, is employed by a bail bondsman in northern Virginia. A bail bondsman is a person or company that provides a financial promise to a court; they guarantee a defendant released from jail will appear at all required future court hearings.
What is Cole Being Charged With?
Cole has two primary federal counts against him regarding the bombs. The first is transportation of IEDs in interstate commerce with intent to kill, injure, and intimidate any individual, or unlawfully to damage or destroy property in this case, moving the bombs from Virginia to Washington, D.C. The second charge is attempted malicious destruction by means of fire and explosive materials.
What is Cole Alleged to Have Done?
It is alleged that Cole placed two IEDs in Washington, D.C., on the evening of January 5, 2021. The first suspected IED was placed near the RNC headquarters.
Approximately 15 minutes thereafter, a second IED was placed near the DNC headquarters, a couple of blocks away. Both were homemade pipe bombs: made out of 1-inch by 8-inch pipes, homemade black powder, a nine-volt battery, and a white kitchen timer.
Both of these potentially lethal bombs were safely deactivated by the USCP on January 6, 2021, before either of them could explode.
How was Cole identified?
The evidence used to identify Cole was gathered over years with the use of multiple pieces of footage. Surveillance cameras recorded the same person, masked, placing both bombs.
The FBI initially released the footage and offered a $500,000 reward. Cellphone records tied Cole’s phone to cell towers on Capitol Hill exactly at the time the bombs were placed.
Additionally, bank and credit card information tied him to the purchase of bomb components, such as electrical wire, end caps, and kitchen timers, from purchases made in 2019 and 2020 from retailers in northern Virginia.
Was Anyone at the White House Affected by the Pipe Bomb?
While the White House itself was unscathed, both then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came “within feet” of the two potentially lethal devices.
They were in the area around the DNC headquarters on South Capitol Street at the time when the bombs were discovered on January 6th.
Why the Case Took Years
The pipe bomb investigation was confronted with a number of significant and very complex challenges that prolonged it for nearly five years.
First, the suspect wore a mask and gloves, making identification exceptionally difficult from the very outset. Moreover, there was very little physical evidence immediately available after the bombs were neutralized safely.
It required law enforcement to go through a huge quantity of data, including hundreds of tips from the public, tens of thousands of video files, and numerous interviews, most of which yielded few concrete leads to a suspect’s identity in the beginning.
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