Police arrest suspect in DC pipe bomb incident, ending years-long manhunt

Authorities arrested a Virginia man in connection to two pipe bombs placed outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees on the eve of the 6 January Capitol riot nearly five years ago.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI officials said Brian Cole Jr, 30, was arrested without incident early Thursday morning. He is charged with use of an explosive device and could face other charges as the investigation continues.

The arrest caps a years-long hunt for the assailant who planted the bombs, which involved an extensive investigation and a $500,000 (£375,000) reward.

The pipe bombs were safely deactivated and did not explode.

The FBI did not receive new information or a tip that cracked the case, officials said. Investigators sifted through existing evidence gathered over the years – including some three million lines of data – to identify Cole, a 30-year-old from the community of Woodbridge, roughly 25 miles (40km) from Washington, DC.

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said the Trump administration had made solving the case a priority.

“It was like finding a needle in a haystack,” she said.

Court documents filed in the case show investigators determined Cole allegedly bought multiple bomb-making components in 2019 and 2020.

He purchased metal “end caps,” wires and steel wool at Home Depot and Lowes hardware stores, batteries at another retailer and timers at a Walmart in northern Virginia, an FBI affidavit states.

Investigators found mobile phone data that showed Cole was near the locations of the pipe bombs when they were planted between 19:39 and 20:24 local time on 5 January 2021.

His car – a 2017 Nissan Sentra with a Virginia licence plate – was also seen by a licence plate reader less than half of a mile (0.8km) from the location where the individual who placed the devices was first observed in the area.

Bondi said at a news conference on Thursday that authorities were unable to provide a possible motive for the crime yet and, because the FBI had just executed a search warrant of the suspect’s home during the morning arrest, many details could not yet be made public.

FBI officials praised investigators’ perseverance and said they never gave up on finding a suspect.

“We continued to churn through massive amounts of data”, said Darren Cox, deputy assistant director of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division.

Earlier this year, the FBI released CCTV footage of an individual with a backpack and light grey hooded sweater placing something near a bench outside the Democratic National Committee building in Washington. The person was shown later walking to place the second bomb.

Both were placed the night before the 6 January riot, and were only discovered as rioters began to storm the US Capitol.

At the time, US senators were meeting there to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden had won, defeating Donald Trump.

Trump, who was president at the time, addressed a large crowd of supporters at a rally near the White House, where he urged them to march “peacefully” to the US Capitol, but also made unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud.

The crowd numbered between 2,000 and 2,500 people, and included members of far-right groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Many were carrying weapons.

Hundreds then forced their way into the building through windows and doors, overwhelming police. It took law enforcement almost four hours to restore order.

As the riot began, a passerby discovered the two pipe bombs, police said at the time. The items allegedly left behind included pipes, wires, kitchen timers, and homemade black powder, according to the FBI.

According to a CBS report, the bombs had one method of detonation: a 60-minute kitchen timer. But they ultimately did not explode for unknown reasons.

Police had been searching for a suspect ever since.

Many of those convicted or charged in relation to the riot have since been pardoned by Trump earlier this year, shortly after he took office for his second term in January.

Pardons or commutations were issued for more than 1,500 people. Trump also ordered the US Department of Justice to drop all pending cases against other suspects.

At the time, Trump referred to the accused and convicted as “the hostages”, and said that their lives had been “destroyed”.

“What they’ve done to these people is outrageous. There’s rarely been anything like it in the history of our country,” he had said.

Patel said during the news conference that “when you attack American citizens, when you attack our nation’s capital, you attack the very being of our way of life”.

“We will provide the safest country the nation has ever seen,” he added

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said the case showed people are not able to “walk into our capital city”, plant devices and “walk off into the sunset”, adding that US law enforcement will “track you down to the end of the earth”.