A federal judge on Monday refused to throw out the criminal case against Brian Cole Jr., ruling that Donald Trump's Jan. 6 pardons do not shield him from charges tied to the alleged pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali said the pardons were limited to people who had already been convicted of offenses related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Cole, who has pleaded not guilty, was charged last year with interstate transportation of explosives and malicious attempt to use explosives, and federal prosecutors added terrorism and weapons-of-mass-destruction charges in April.
The decision matters now because it keeps alive a federal explosives case that had been tested against the language of Trump's clemency order. The pardon covered around 1,500 rioters accused or convicted of offenses ranging from trespassing to assaulting police, but Ali said that did not extend to Cole because he had not been convicted when the pardon was issued and was not charged until many months later.
Cole's lawyers argued that his conduct was tied so closely to Jan. 6 that the pardon should reach it. They pointed to prosecutors' filing that Cole told the FBI he traveled to Washington, D.C., for a 2020 election-related protest, and they said the bombs were allegedly planted on Jan. 5 and discovered the following afternoon. Ali rejected that reading, writing that even if the conduct was related to events around the Capitol on Jan. 6, the pardon language still applied only to people already convicted of Jan. 6-related offenses.
The unresolved issue is not whether the case survives Monday's ruling — it does — but what evidence prosecutors will use to prove the newer charges now that the pardon argument has failed. For Cole, the case moves forward nearly five years after the alleged pipe bombs were planted, with the Justice Department insisting the clemency order simply does not cover him.
