Defense Says Jan. 5/6 Pipe Bombs Weren’t Viable; Grandma Pleads for Suspect’s Release | Headline USA

(James Rogers and Ken Silva, Headline USA) WASHINGTON, DC—The grandmother of the man accused of planting pipe bombs outside the RNC and DNC headquarters the night before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protests has asked a judge to release him from pretrial detention.

The grandmother, Loretta Cole Darnell, told District Court Judge Matthew J. Sharbaugh on Tuesday that she’d make sure the suspect, Brian Cole Jr., would behave himself under her custody. He’s also be under the care of his grandpa, a former Government Services Administration employee who owns a gun in the home.

“Your loyalty would lie with the court would you be able to report a family member? Because I couldn’t,” Judge Sharbaugh pressed the grandmother during a detention hearing in Washington DC.

“Yes, I would … I want to make sure he doesn’t do anything wrong,” she insisted.

This is a ruling re: whether they will detain Cole Jr. or release him into house arrest under his grandmother’s custody

— James Rogers – Cinematographer; Truth@24fps (@ChronoScopeFilm) December 30, 2025

Cole was arrested on the morning of Dec. 4 at his Woodbridge, Virginia, house in what law enforcement officials described as a major breakthrough in their nearly five-year-old investigation. During a search of Cole’s home and car after his arrest, prosecutors say, investigators found shopping bags of bomb-making components. He at first denied having manufactured or placed the pipe bombs, but later confessed during an hour-long interview.

At Tuesday’s detention hearing, prosecutors urged the judge to keep Cole confined as he awaits trial. They said he’s both a flight risk and a danger to the community. Cole allegedly wiped his phone of data 934 times, showing that he has a pattern of hiding and destroying evidence, they added.

Cole’s attorneys begged to differ. They said he’s autistic and has OCD, and that the devices he allegedly built weren’t viable.

Judge Sharbaugh said he’d make a decision within a day or so.

Meanwhile, Cole’s attorneys have filed arguments that he should still be presumed innocent, despite his purported confession.

Pipe Bomb Case History

As Headline USA revealed in March 2024, the FBI had a suspect identified by Jan. 10, 2021 in the pipe bomb case, but didn’t make an arrest at the time.

FBI records released in September revealed that agents didn’t interview the woman who discovered a pipe bomb near the RNC around 12:40 p.m. on Jan. 6 until days later. That woman, former counterterrorism analyst and then-Commerce Department worker Karlin Younger, said she found the bomb while doing laundry.

Meanwhile, former Vice President Kamala Harris continues to be tight-lipped on the subject, despite the fact that her motorcade drove past the DNC pipe bomb on Jan. 6. Harris left the Capitol at 11:21 a.m. arrived to the DNC at 11:25 a.m., but the nearby pipe bomb wasn’t discovered until 1:07 p.m. by a plainclothes Capitol Police officer.

The bizarre circumstances have driven many to suspect that it may have been a false-flag attempt overseen by the feds themselves to divert law enforcement from the Capitol right as the Jan. 6 protest was turning violent.

Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., has said that it may be impossible to successfully prosecute the pipe bomber.

“Here’s what a good criminal defense attorney’s going to say: If you identified the individual who’s believed to place the bomb, then hours go by, and you had a search by the Secret Service at the DNC and the dog didn’t find the explosive—so clearly, the device [the defense attorney’s] client might have left there wasn’t the device that was determined to be the pipe bomb, because it wasn’t picked up by the bomb-sniffing dog,” Griffith argued in March 2024.

James Rogers is a correspondent for Headline USA. Follow him at https://x.com/ChronoScopeFilm.

Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.