Accused DC pipe bomber covered by Trump's Jan. 6 pardons, defense says

Brian Cole, the man accused of planting pipe bombs on Capitol Hill on Jan. 5, 2021, should be set free based on Trump's other Jan. 6 pardons, his defense argued.

Lawyers for Brian Cole, the 30-year-old man accused of planting pipe bombs in Washington in 2021, have asked that the case be dismissed thanks to President Donald Trump's pardons of Jan. 6 defendants.

In a March 16 filing, Cole's defense team contended that his accused actions were fundamentally the same as those committed by Jan. 6 participants who have been pardoned by Trump, saying that Cole should also be covered by the same pardons "as a matter of law."

Though Cole's lawyers maintain his innocence, the filing argued that, "By the government’s own telling, this is exactly the kind of case that President Trump’s January 20, 2025, Presidential Pardon was invoked to reach."

Brian Jerome Cole Jr. of Northern Virginia was arrested in December 2025 and charged with placing improvised explosives near the offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees on the night of Jan. 5, 2021. The explosives did not detonate.

Cole's lawyers said that, by the standards stated by the government, Cole's alleged crime qualifies for a pardon because he drove to D.C. "to attend a protest concerning the outcome of the 2020 election in support of then‑President Trump." He allegedly placed the devices on the eve of the January 6 certification of the electoral vote, and two House committees later classified the bombs as "a serious security failure associated with January 6."