DC pipe bomb suspect says he should be covered by Trump's Jan. 6 pardons

Lawyers for Brian Cole say he is innocent — but if he weren't, they said, he'd be covered by President Donald Trump's blanket pardon for Jan. 6, 2021.

Lawyers for the man charged with planting pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic national committees’ headquarters on Jan. 5, 2021, said in a new court filing that he should be covered by President Donald Trump’s blanket pardon of Jan. 6 defendants.

The attorneys for Brian Cole maintained his innocence but also argued that if he did place the pipe bombs, Trump’s pardon of people involved in “events ... at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” would cover his alleged actions.

“The devices at issue in this case were discovered and neutralized on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, at the national party headquarters on Capitol Hill—literally ‘at or near’ the United States Capitol—as the day’s larger events unfolded,” attorney Mario Williams wrote in a motion to dismiss the case.

Brian Cole's family leaves the federal courthouse in Washington on Dec. 30.Heather Diehl / Getty Images fileWilliams argued that, like many of the Jan. 6 defendants, Cole was “motivated by grievances about the 2020 presidential election,” adding that his grievances were “directed at the headquarters of the two national political parties on Capitol Hill,” with the timing of “the January 6 certification of the electoral college vote.”

Cole’s lawyers compare him to two Jan. 6 defendants in particular — Kenneth Harrelson and David Dempsey.