Delicia Cole's son Brian Cole Jr. didn't care about politics. His hobbies, in his mother's words — from her first-ever public sit-down interview — were "walking to 7-11, watching YouTube, spending time with his dog and family, and enjoying spaghetti, noodles and Coca-Cola." That's the profile of the man the federal government says built and planted pipe bombs outside both the RNC and DNC headquarters the night before January 6th.
The bombs were inoperable.
Brian Cole Jr. is an autistic young man from Virginia. The FBI arrested him in December. He has been held in pre-trial detention since, with trial scheduled for February. His mother has not been allowed in-person visits thus far.
Read that sequence without the politics attached. A special-needs man whose mother describes him as apolitical, whose daily routine revolved around convenience-store walks and YouTube — sitting in federal custody for months, his family locked out of the facility where he waits for trial. The government's position is that this man, with no known political involvement, no training, and no documented motive, constructed explosive devices and planted them at two of the most surveilled locations in Washington, D.C.
The pipe bomb case has been the loose thread of January 6th since the beginning. The FBI identified, tracked, and prosecuted hundreds of people who entered the Capitol that day using cell phone data, facial recognition, social media posts, and family tips. Grandmothers who walked through open doors got federal charges. A man in a viking hat became the face of an insurrection.
But the person who allegedly planted actual explosive devices outside both major party headquarters — in a city blanketed with surveillance cameras — remained unidentified for years. The Biden administration never explained why the most serious physical threat connected to January 6th received the least investigative urgency.
The FBI that surveilled parents at school board meetings, that sent agents to track down meme-posters, that mobilized an armored column to arrest a former president at his home — that FBI somehow needed years to crack a pipe bomb case in a two-square-mile radius of federal Washington.
Delicia Cole says the FBI got the wrong person — and she's not the only one saying so. Investigative journalist Steve Baker has reported that the person who actually planted the bombs was a federal employee. Tucker Carlson went further: "The parents of Brian Cole Jr. say their son was framed by the federal government. We believe them."
See more of Tucker's interview with Delicia Cole
The U.S. Attorney overseeing the prosecution, Jeanine Pirro, says her office "worked around the clock to ensure that this defendant is charged with the right crimes for his dangerous acts." Baker's reporting and the family's specific claims go unaddressed in that statement. So does the question of why the most serious physical threat connected to January 6th somehow warranted the least investigative urgency of anything that happened that day.
The bombs didn't go off. They couldn't have gone off. Brian Cole Jr. sits in pre-trial detention anyway, and his mother gave her interview at the Capitol because that's the closest she can get.
What do you think? Did Cole do it or is he a patsy for the real culprit? Reply to the Bearded Patriot email to tell me your ideas.
