After the Trump administration announced the arrest of 30-year-old Brian Cole Jr. for the J6 pipe bombs, we learned that the evidence needed to identify the suspect had been available for years, so the legacy press scrambled to protect the Biden administration from embarrassment. They leaned on a convenient deflection, insisting Cole was a Trump supporter driven by election-fraud claims. That storyline has been debunked, but now it’s clear the media pushed a narrative knowing it was false.
Cole was arrested Thursday morning, and by that evening, we’d learned quite a bit about him. For instance, he was employed at his family’s bail-bond business, which sued the Trump administration over immigration policy and was entangled in left-leaning activism. Public records show his family had a track record of defending illegal immigrants and challenging immigration enforcement — hardly the background one would expect for a Trump supporter.
We called out the bogus narrative here at PJ Media quickly, but the narrative was eventually debunked when family members described Cole as politically disengaged. His grandmother told reporters he “has no party affiliation, never votes … he don’t like either party,” and portrays him as socially withdrawn — “borderline autistic,” with the “mind of a 16-year-old.”
It was obvious to anyone who looked at the available information that Cole wasn’t a Trump supporter, and it turns out, even the mainstream media outlets that reported it had all the information they needed to realize they were being duped. In fact, CNN’s own reporting debunked the very narrative that the network was pushing.
In a story headlined “Accused DC pipe bomber told FBI he believed the 2020 election was stolen, sources say,” the network reported:
During interviews with the FBI, the suspect arrested in the pipe bomb probe told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters, people briefed on the matter said.”
Yet hours before that report, CNN revealed the following in a separate report:
The criminal affidavit against Cole primarily relies on purchase history of alleged bomb-making materials, cell phone location data and a vehicle license plate reader.
In 2019 and 2020, Cole purchased multiple items consistent with the components used to make the bombs at Home Depot, Walmart, Lowe’s and Micro Center stores, according to the affidavit.
Investigators then went through Cole’s purchase history and determined he bought all of those supplies over 2019 and 2020, the affidavit states. He also purchased equipment to help assemble the bombs, including safety glasses and a wire-stripping tool, the document states.
Did Cole predict the future and purchase bomb-making materials well before the 2020 election or any claims about its legitimacy? I don’t think anyone believes that. But the mainstream media, desperate to turn this story into another Trump hit piece, pushed forward with the narrative that Cole was not only a Trump supporter, but was motivated by Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
They reported the false narrative throughout the day:
CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller on the accused DC pipe bomber telling the FBI he believed the 2020 election was stolen, according to sources. pic.twitter.com/RbYarZUxoJ
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) December 6, 2025
It was gross negligence for the media to report that Cole was a Trump supporter motivated by claims that the 2020 election was stolen. We could tell it was garbage instantly, and the legacy media knew it, too.
