A federal magistrate judge said he will soon decide whether the man accused of planting the pipe bombs in Washington the night before the 2021 attack on the Capitol should remain in custody pending a trial.
Judge Matthew J. Sharbaugh of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia declined to make an immediate ruling on Brian Cole Jr. at a hearing Tuesday but said he hoped to make a ruling within the next day or so.
Sharbaugh asked probing questions of both prosecutors and Cole’s defense attorneys and at one point heard from Cole’s grandmother, who could be assigned to oversee Cole if he was released pending trial, with the judge asking certain details about her residence.
The judge also pressed the government on what evidence they had that Cole would be a danger if released. In court, federal prosecutor Charles Jones emphasized evidence that Cole continued to buy bomb-making components — even after the pipe bombs were placed on Jan. 5, 2021 — and that a cellphone seized from Cole had been wiped hundreds of times since December 2020.
Jones said Cole was radicalized and “turned to violence” in planting the bombs and releasing Cole now would return him to the same circumstances he was in during the lead-up to early January 2021.
“That’s not entirely true,” Sharbaugh said, noting that Cole would be subject to court-imposed conditions.
Prosecutors said in a court filing that the suspect confessed to planting the pipe bombs after his arrest earlier this month, and cellphone location records and Cole’s purchasing history connected him to the crime. The prosecutors said he should be kept in custody pending his trial because of the serious nature of the crimes, as well as “the intolerable risk that he will again resort to violence to express his frustration with the world around him.”
Cole’s legal team argued for his release pending trial, saying in a court filing that the question at hand was whether there was a present danger, “a contention the government never actually makes, and something belied by the past four years in which Mr. Cole has lived without incident.”
According to the filing, Cole has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder Level 1, has lived in the same community since his childhood, has a job waiting for him if were to be released and can have “a vetted custodian where he will live upon release.” Cole also has no criminal history and has never been previously convicted, the defense argued, emphasizing Cole’s ties to the community of Woodbridge, Va., where he’s lived with his parents for more than two decades.
The defense also pushed back on arguments from the prosecution that Cole spent almost five years trying to evade detection.
“Not true: Mr. Cole lived with his parents the entire time, never moved, and followed his same routine daily. Avoiding the litany of statutory factors that favor Mr. Cole only highlights the weakness of the government’s position for detention,” the filing argued.
In court on Tuesday, his attorney Mario Williams said Cole lived his life in plain sight and went through the same routine every day. And for the post-January 2021 materials cited by the prosecution, Williams said it had been years since one of those purchases had been made.
“Three years — no purchases,” Williams said.
Prosecutors, in a filing arguing that Cole remain detained pending trial, provided new specifics on a confession they said he provided to authorities after his arrest. The filing said Cole told federal agents about the construction, transportation and placement of the pipe bombs, which were found outside the offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees.
As agents asked about his motive, Cole said that “something just snapped” after “watching everything, just everything getting worse,” according to the documents.
“The defendant wanted to do something ‘to the parties’ because ‘they were in charge,’” and the idea to use pipe bombs stemmed from his interest in the Troubles in Northern Ireland, prosecutors said.
Before confessing, Cole initially told authorities he was in Washington on Jan. 5, 2021, for a protest about the 2020 election, authorities said.
“The defendant ‘has never really been an openly political person’ and does not discuss politics often with his family to avoid conflict,” the filing said. “According to the defendant, ‘no one knows’ his political views, including his family. The defendant stated that he does not align politically with his family members and did not tell them that he ‘was going to a protest in support of [then President] Trump.’”
The arrest marked a stunning break in one of the most enduring mysteries of the days before and after the 2021 Capitol attack, a case that frustrated lawmakers and spurred right-wing conspiracy theories.
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