D.C. Pipe Bomb Suspect Explains Why He Turned to 'Extreme Acts of Violence' in New Court Filing
The man suspected of planting pipe bombs by the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties a day before the infamous Jan. 6 incursion has confessed to the authorities that he’d “just snapped.”
The suspect, Brian J. Cole, said that he’d “never really been an openly political person” but that “something just snapped” in him after “watching everything, just everything getting worse,” according to a court document filed Sunday by investigators.
Seeing everything “getting worse” prompted him to want to do something “to the parties” (both of them) involving “extreme acts of violence” because “they were in charge.”
“I really don’t like either party at this point,” he told investigators.
United States v. Cole
(J6 Pipe Bomber case)A new filing by prosecutors states,
“Following his December 4, 2025 arrest, the defendant waived his Miranda rights and gave a detailed confession to the charged offenses.” pic.twitter.com/oH9VHTO1e9
— Just Human (@realjusthuman) December 29, 2025
The confession came after Cole initially denied his involvement in the pipe bomb attack, telling investigators that he’d driven alone to D.C. on Jan. 5, 2021, to attend the Stop the Steal rally, according to Axios.
Once he admitted to the crime, he also alleged that he’d been “pretty relieved” after discovering that his bombs hadn’t detonated. He further insisted that he’d purposefully placed the bombs at night to potentially avoid killing anybody.
“According to the defendant, he was not really thinking about how people would react when the bombs detonated, although he hoped there would be news about it,” the Sunday court filing read. “The defendant stated that he had not tested the devices before planting them.”
Cole also maintained that his decision to set up pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties had nothing to do with the certification of the 2020 presidential results that was scheduled for Jan. 6.
Prosecutors are detailing the confession they say Brian Cole Jr. gave after his arrest in connection with pipe bombs planted outside Republican and Democratic offices in Washington the night before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. @OliviaRubinABC reports. pic.twitter.com/N5STcbBuvX
— Good Morning America (@GMA) December 29, 2025
Despite the pipe bomb attack allegedly being unrelated to the 2020 election, Cole did admit his frustration with the election.
He said that if people “feel that, you know, something as important as voting in the federal election is being tampered with, is being, you know, being — you know, relegated null and void, then, like, someone needs to speak up, right, someone up top, you know, just to, just to at the very least calm things down.”
He added that “the people up top,” including “people on both sides, public figures,” shouldn’t “ignore[e] people’s grievances” or call them “conspiracy theorists, bad people, Nazis, or fascists.”
“If people feel that their votes are like just being thrown away, then… at the very least someone should address it,” he continued.
As to why he chose pipe bombs as his form of attack, Cole pointed to his interest in history, namely the Troubles in Ireland. But this admission, investigators argued, seemed to contradict his earlier statements.
“The defendant’s invocation of the Troubles in Northern Ireland is telling; bombings were used frequently throughout that period to kill officials and civilians for political purposes,” the court document read.
“The Court should consider the gravity of the defendant’s targets in assessing the nature of the charged offenses,” it continued.
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