The man accused of planting pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters on the eve of January 6, 2021, has asked a federal court to dismiss all charges against him, arguing that President Trump’s sweeping pardon for Jan. 6 defendants applies to his case.
Attorneys for Brian J. Cole Jr. filed a 23-page motion to dismiss in U.S. District Court. Defense lawyers Mario Williams and John Shoreman argue that the government’s own account of the case “inextricably” ties Cole to the events at and around the Capitol that day.
“By the government’s own telling, this is exactly the kind of case that President Trump’s January 20, 2025 Presidential Pardon was invoked to reach,” the attorneys wrote, adding, “The Pardon, like it or not, applies to Mr. Cole, based on the ordinary and plain meaning of the Pardon’s language as applied to the relevant facts in this case.”
Cole’s legal team argues the pardon’s language covers him because Cole drove to Washington “to attend a protest concerning the outcome of the 2020 election,” and the DOJ itself linked the timing and location of the explosive devices to that protest activity. Cole’s devices never detonated, and the defense notes that no physical injuries resulted from the incident.
To support their argument, Cole’s attorneys pointed to the case of David Dempsey, a Jan. 6 defendant sentenced to 20 years in prison for what prosecutors called “vicious and protracted” assaults on law enforcement officers. Despite being publicly described as a domestic terrorist by some officials, Dempsey received a full pardon under Trump’s Jan. 20 action.
Cole was arrested in late 2025, more than four years after the devices were planted at the RNC and DNC offices in Washington, D.C. The FBI had been searching for the suspected bomber since January 2021, and the Justice Department later acknowledged that key evidence had been “sitting there” for years before it was acted on.
The defense says prosecuting Cole while men like Dempsey walk free would be a “grave injustice.”
Trump issued the pardons on his first day back in the White House, granting clemency to individuals convicted or charged in connection with “offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.” The scope of that language has been the subject of ongoing litigation, as courts have grappled with how broadly the pardon applies to conduct connected to that day.
The government is expected to oppose the motion. Prosecutors have not yet filed a response, and no hearing date has been set.
