The arrest of the alleged January 6 pipe bomber has only raised more questions. Court documents and media reports reveal that the suspect, Brian Cole Jr., is a 30-year-old black man living in his mother’s basement in Woodbridge, Virginia. Family members describe him as borderline autistic and essentially incapable of carrying out such a crime. His grandmother says he's “very naïve,” “almost autistic-like,” and has the “mind of a 16-year-old.” Yet we are expected to believe he evaded the FBI for nearly five years.

Former Trump official Kash Patel suggested a possible explanation: the Biden-era FBI may have had “intentional negligence” when handling the investigation.

Cellphone Data the FBI Somehow “Missed”

This is the same FBI that tracked down 1,500 Trump supporters from January 6 using cellphone pings and video surveillance. Yet when it came to the pipe bomber—seen on camera wearing a gray hoodie and white mask, apparently talking on a cellphone near the DNC and RNC on Jan. 5—the bureau supposedly couldn’t locate the phone.

But according to a filing presented in court, Cole’s cellphone actually connected to towers seven times between 7:39 p.m. and 8:24 p.m. in the exact area where the bombs were planted. The FBI had this data within weeks of Jan. 6.

Investigators identified 186 cellphone numbers of interest. By early February 2021:

• 36 were assigned to agents for follow-up interviews

• 98 needed “additional investigative steps”

• 51 were labeled as needing no further action because they belonged to law enforcement officers or people on an “exclusion list”

What happened to those leads? The FBI never told Congress.

The Myth of “Corrupted Data”

Steve D’Antuono, head of the FBI’s Washington field office during the first year of the investigation, later told Congress that cellphone data from one provider was “corrupted,” supposedly hindering the search. But all three major cellphone carriers reported:

• They never sent corrupted data

• The FBI never reported any issue with corrupted data

Unusable Videos and Pixelated Footage

Despite having 39,000 surveillance videos, the FBI never released a single clear image that could help identify the suspect. All footage released was low quality. Former State Department official Mike Benz claimed there appeared to be a “blur bar” or pixelation over the suspect’s eyes in one clip. Whether intentional or just goggles, the effect ensured no one could recognize the person.

The FBI Shifted Resources—Away From the Bomber

According to a House report by Reps. Barry Loudermilk and Thomas Massie, the FBI initially pursued promising leads and had “multiple persons of interest.” But by late February 2021, the bureau diverted resources away from the pipe bomb case.

At the same time, leadership dramatically increased resources for prosecuting minor J6 offenders—including elderly trespassers.

The political priority of the Biden administration and Nancy Pelosi was to portray January 6 as a catastrophic “insurrection” by “white supremacist MAGA extremists.” That narrative became more important than identifying the real pipe bomber.

The inconsistencies, delays, and excuses leave one unavoidable impression:
something about this case does not add up.