US authorities arrest suspect in 2021 Washington, DC, pipe bomb case

Authorities in the United States have arrested a suspect believed to be involved in leaving pipe bombs near two major political headquarters in Washington, DC, during the night before the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

On Thursday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice identified the suspect as Brian Cole Jr in a joint news conference.

“ I know some people have given up on finding the perpetrator. But not the FBI and not our partners,” said Darren Cox, a deputy assistant director in the FBI.

He explained that the investigation involved sorting through “3 million lines of data”.

“We do not forget, we do not give up, and we do not relent. Though it had been nearly five years, our team continued to churn through massive amounts of data and tips that we used to identify this suspect,” Cox said.

Officials under President Donald Trump also touted the arrest as a victory for the current Republican administration — and a sign of the incompetence under Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.

“We did not discover any new information,” FBI Director Kash Patel said on Thursday.

“An investigation spearheaded by the deputy director and the AIC [agent in charge] of our Washington field office brought in a new team of investigators and experts, reexamined every piece of evidence, sifted through all the data — something that the prior administration refused and failed to do.”

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who was also at the news conference, explained that Cole would be charged with transporting an illegal explosive device and attempting “malicious destruction by means of explosive materials”.

She added that the investigation was ongoing and that further charges could be filed at a later date.

A long-running mystery

The arrest potentially ends a nearly five-year-long mystery that underscored the rising threat of political violence in the US.

Law enforcement agencies have said that the bombs, which did not explode, were viable and “could have seriously injured or killed innocent bystanders”. Cox reaffirmed that risk on Thursday.

“Fortunately, these bombs did not explode, although they certainly could have,” Cox said.

“We all know pipe bombs are dangerous, not because of the potential loss of life, the damage the property or injury that they can cause, but also because they are tools that terrorise our community.”

Police and law enforcement had gathered early on Thursday morning in a residential neighbourhood in Woodbridge, Virginia, to take Cole into custody.

At Thursday’s news conference, Attorney General Pam Bondi emphasised that the suspect had remained close to Washington, DC, even after the pipe bomb incident.

“This is in our nation’s capital where this happened,” she said of the attempted pipe bombing. “And now, thanks to the FBI, we know that this defendant was living just miles away from here, in Virginia.”

The targets of the 2021 pipe bombing attempt appeared to be the headquarters for the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee, which represent the two biggest political parties in the US.

Early on, authorities released grainy footage of the person who left the bombs. The suspect, long believed to be a man, was captured on surveillance cameras wearing a mask, gloves and a grey hoodie.

On the night before January 6, 2021, the perpetrator had walked through the densely populated Capitol Hill neighbourhood to arrive near the political party headquarters offices, where he placed the pipe bombs.

The day after the bombs were left, President Trump’s supporters stormed and ransacked the US Capitol to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory in the 2020 elections.

Trump continues to falsely claim that his election loss that year was due to widespread voter fraud.

In one of his first decrees after returning to the White House early in 2025, Trump issued a presidential pardon for more than 1,500 people charged or convicted of criminal offences related to the riot.

Inside the investigation

In the lead-up to Thursday’s arrest, officials had offered $500,000 for information about the suspect in the pipe bomb case, with the warning that he “may still pose a danger to the public”.

Still, more than four years passed before an arrest was made.

Last year, the FBI said it was still working through “thousands of hours conducting interviews, reviewing physical and digital evidence, and assessing tips from the public about who may have placed pipe bombs on Capitol Hill”.

At Thursday’s news conference, Pirro described the process as “like finding a needle in a haystack”.

While the officials at the news briefing declined to say what evidence ultimately pointed them to Cole, Pirro praised the detailed investigative work that FBI agents and local law enforcement had conducted.

She explained that investigators had attempted to match the pipe bomb components to similar parts sold around that time.

“For example, there were 233,000 black end caps of the type that were used in this case,” she said.

“I want you to think about the fact that the FBI had to go through the sale of every one of them to try to find commonality with an individual, along with the purchase of the pipe itself, the cap ends, the wires, the steel and the nine-volt batteries.”

Still, despite the complexity of the case, Trump administration officials said the crucial evidence was there all along — and they blamed the Biden administration for failing to act on it.

“What I will tell you is that evidence has been sitting there, collecting dust. This wasn’t a new tip. It wasn’t some new evidence. It was the hard work of President Trump’s administration,” said Attorney General Bondi.

The lingering mystery surrounding the pipe bombs had fuelled right-wing conspiracy theories that the Capitol riot was an “inside job”.

Some online personalities have maintained, without evidence, that the would-be bomber was a “deep state” government agent who sought to discredit Trump’s supporters.

But even some Trump officials who previously helped spread such theories, like Dan Bongino, have since come out strongly against them.

Last month, Bongino, now the second-in-command at the FBI, denounced rumours about the pipe bombing case, calling them “grossly inaccurate”. He added that the misinformation “serves only to mislead the public”.