The FBI has arrested a Virginia ‘anarchist’ suspect named Brian Cole in connection with several pipe bombs laid near Capitol Hill on the eve of the January 6, 2021 riots.
Cole was identified as the suspect on Thursday morning – as sources told MS Now has been linked to support for anarchist ideologies.
The suspect has been charged with laying explosives outside the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters, which did not detonate.
Cole is a resident of Woodbridge, Virginia, and he was arrested in the early hours of Thursday morning. The exact charges are not yet clear, and Cole is expected in court later Thursday.
The arrest marks the first major breakthrough in the five-year investigation that had baffled the agency and sparked a wave of conspiracy theories.
It comes weeks after the FBI offered a $500,000 reward for leads to identify the suspect, when authorities shared previously unreleased footage of the perp stalking the streets of Washington DC the night before the infamous riots.
However, the arrest was reportedly not the result of a new breakthrough in the investigation, but came after the FBI reviewed existing evidence it had collected in 2021 and 2022.
Law enforcement sources said that Cole’s arrest may cause embarrassment for the FBI because the suspect could have been arrested years ago if investigators had pieced together existing evidence.
(…) While the arrest could cause embarrassment for investigators who failed to identify the suspect for years, it is likely to be lauded by the Trump White House after it poured new resources into the case earlier this year.
In particular, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino has often spoke of his desire to solve the case, including previously speculating that it may have been an ‘inside job.’
The hunt for the suspect was one of the largest in FBI history, and investigators struggled for years to piece together evidence collected in the chaotic aftermath of the January 6 riots.
This included subpoenaing box store retailers for credit card data to find customers who bought specific kinds of battery connectors used to manufacture the bombs.
Agents tracked down purchasers of the battery connectors to those whose phones were locate near the DNC and RNC headquarters at the time the bombs were planted, but the FBI found there was no credible match. (Read more: Daily Mail, 12/4/2025) (Archive)
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