Man charged with planting pipe bombs before the Jan. 6 riot argues Trump's mass pardons apply to him

This image from video contained in a Justice Department court filing shows Brian J. Cole Jr., being interrogated by FBI investigators in Woodbridge, Va., Dec. 4, 2025. (Justice Department via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol also should apply to a man charged with planting pipe bombs near the national headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, the suspect’s attorneys argue in a bid to get his case dismissed.

In a court filing Monday, defence attorneys assert that Trump’s blanket pardons extend to the charges against Brian J. Cole Jr. because his alleged conduct on Jan. 5, 2021, is “inextricably tethered” to what happened at the Capitol on the following day. They’re asking U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to throw out the case before trial.

Justice Department prosecutors didn’t immediately respond in writing to the defence’s request. In a previous court filing, prosecutors said Cole, under questioning by FBI agents, denied that his actions were related to the Jan. 6 proceedings at the Capitol.

On his first day back in the White House last year, Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences and ordered the dismissal of all 1,500-plus people charged in the attack by a mob of his supporters.

Nearly a year later, Cole was arrested on charges that he placed two pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on the night before the riot. The devices didn’t detonate before law enforcement officers discovered them on Jan. 6.

Cole’s attorneys said the Justice Department’s own framing of the case has explicitly linked Cole’s alleged conduct on Jan. 5 to the events of Jan. 6, when rioters disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump.

“That is not happenstance sequencing in time. It is the government’s theory of Mr. Cole’s alleged motive and context,” defence lawyers wrote. ”According to the government, the timing was chosen because of what was scheduled to occur at the Capitol on January 6.”

They also argued that prosecutors’ theory of a possible motive places Cole’s alleged conduct “in the same political controversy that animated the January 6 crowd.”

In court filings, prosecutors have said that Cole confessed to investigators after his Dec. 4 arrest. He told FBI agents that he felt “bewildered” by conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election and “something just snapped” after “watching everything, just everything getting worse,” prosecutors said.

Cole has remained jailed since his arrest. His attorneys have appealed Ali’s refusal to order Cole’s pre-trial release from custody. The judge hasn’t set a trial date yet.

Cole, 30, of Woodbridge, Virginia, has been diagnosed with autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder. His attorneys say he has no criminal record.

Authorities said they used phone records and other evidence to identify him as a suspect in a crime that confounded the FBI for over four years.

Michael Kunzelman, The Associated Press