Four Years and 345 Days

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As originally scheduled, Magistrate Judge Michael Harvey would have held a detention hearing today for Brian Cole, the guy accused of planting pipe bombs on January 5, 2021.

We might have learned more about evidence and motive at such a hearing, but now we’ll have to wait until December 30, if at all.

Last Wednesday, the AUSA in the case, submitted a filing basically saying, “Regarding your question about whether we still need a detention hearing on December 15, I respond that the defense wants another two weeks to review discovery before such a hearing, and we’d like an exclusion of time under Speedy Trial Act.”

The United States respectfully moves the Court to exclude time under the Speedy Trial Act from the date of defendant Brian J. Cole, Jr.’s arrest on December 4, 2025, through the date of the detention hearing, which the defense has requested to continue. 1

In response to the Court’s inquiry, the government conferred with defense counsel. Defense counsel has requested that the government represent the following to the Court in this motion: The defense requests that the Court continue the detention hearing in this case currently set for December 15, 2025, to allow the defense additional time to review the significant amount of discovery provided by the government to date. The defense consents to the exclusion of time under the Speedy Trial Act from December 4, 2025, through the date of the rescheduled detention hearing.

The government does not oppose a defense continuance of the detention hearing. The parties jointly request that the detention hearing be reset for December 30, 2025.

1 For administrative efficiency, the government is submitting a single motion reflecting the relief sought by both parties.

Before I unpack what this means — and what we can or cannot assume from this — let me point to this WSJ story that explains why it took so long to find Cole: Basically, an FBI Agent wrote code to be able to read cell tower dumps T-Mobile provided, which the government had claimed — for years! — was corrupted.

For four years, a tranche of cellphone data provided to the FBI by T-Mobile US sat on a digital shelf because investigators couldn’t figure out how to read it, people familiar with the matter said. The data turned out to be essential to cracking the case, the people said, a breakthrough that happened only recently when a tech-savvy law-enforcement officer wrote a new computer program that finally deciphered the information. That move led to the arrest of 30-year-old Brian Cole Jr. at his home in Northern Virginia, where he had been quietly living with his mother and other relatives.

[snip]

Increasingly desperate and under pressure to make progress, supervisors urged agents and analysts to take a new look at what they had, including the data from T-Mobile—reflecting phone locations based on internet usage—that investigators had set aside years earlier.

Once investigators were finally able to read the data, they said it led them to Cole’s phone number because his cellphone’s movements tracked what investigators had seen in surveillance footage.

I have no doubt that the government believed they couldn’t access some or most of the T-Mobile data; it is a problem that has shown up in court filings for years. How well-founded that belief was is something we may learn in the months ahead.

WSJ also describes why we’re getting — and why we should expect to continue get  — so much leaking from this investigation: Because Kash Patel is claiming credit and accusing the FBI of sandbagging before now.

In a four-hour interview with investigators, Cole acknowledged placing the bombs, people familiar with the probe said. He expressed support for Trump and said he had embraced conspiracy theories regarding Trump’s 2020 election loss, the people said. He had thrown out the Air Max sneakers, he said. Cole hasn’t entered a plea, and his lawyer didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Inside the Justice Department, agents and prosecutors have privately expressed widespread relief that an arrest has finally been made, but also resentment over FBI Director Kash Patel, who has suggested that they didn’t work doggedly on the probe until Trump administration leadership arrived.

The assertion that Cole is a Trump supporter, which was always the most likely explanation for his actions, adds to the likelihood of leaks. All the people crowing about the Cole arrest — Pam Bondi, Kash, and Dan Bongino — could well get fired if they find proof of another Trump supporting terrorist. So they’re no doubt trying to minimize the chances that becomes public via official channels.

The fact that the FBI had to write code simply to read the T-Mobile data may explain something that I allude to here: The language the complaint uses to refer to location data is not described in the normal way, usually expressed as a percentage likelihood that a device was within a certain rage at the time in question.

The seven transactions between the COLE CELLPHONE and Provider’s towers occurred at approximately 7:39 p.m., 7:44 p.m., 7:59 p.m., 8:14 p.m., 8:23 p.m., and 8:24 p.m. Two transactions took place at 7:39 p.m. During this time period, the COLE CELLPHONE had transactions with five different sectors on Provider’s cell towers.

a. At approximately 7:39:27 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with a particular sector of Provider tower 59323, which faces southeast (approximately 120˚) from its location at 103 G Street, Southwest in Washington, D.C. (“Sector A”). Also at 7:39:27 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with a particular sector of Provider tower 126187, which faces east1 (approximately 90˚) from its location at 200 Independence Avenue, Southwest in Washington, D.C. (“Sector B”). Video surveillance footage shows that at approximately 7:39:32 p.m., the individual who placed the pipe bombs walked westbound on D Street, Southeast and then turned southbound on South Capitol Street, Southeast. These locations are consistent with the coverage areas of Sector A and B.

b. At approximately 7:44:36 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with Sector B of Provider tower 126187. Video surveillance footage shows that at approximately 7:44:36 p.m., the individual who placed the pipe bombs walked east on Ivy Street, Southeast. This location is consistent with the coverage area of Sector B.

Here, the complaint claims only that the cell tower data is consistent with Cole’s presence in a certain cardinal directions from the cell towers; it doesn’t even explain how far that cell site is.

Even without the hack of the data needed to read the T-Mobile data, this case might have been vulnerable on Fourth Amendment grounds in any case. While the geofences for the Capitol itself have been sustained in a series of court orders, these tower dumps did not (as the Capitol-focused geofences did) collect data of people who were by definition culprits or victims. But if the T-Mobile data showing Cole’s location comes from some untested code, it would be far more vulnerable to challenge, with the likelihood of dueling experts about whether the software hack faithfully rendered the location data.

Sure, there’s the confession, but any good defense attorney will attempt to challenge any Miranda waiver, particularly in the case (as here) where a suspect is reportedly on the spectrum or is otherwise vulnerable to pressure.

Meanwhile, consider the implications of DOJ finding a way to read T-Mobile data that had been unavailable for years. What else might that data reveal? Might that data reveal a meeting between Cole and someone else on Capitol Hill on December 14?

Approximately three weeks before the pipe bombs were placed, on or about December 14, 2020, COLE made a purchase at a restaurant located near First and D Streets, Southeast. The restaurant is located across the street from the entrance to Rumsey Court on D Street, Southeast.

I think it inconceivable that Cole placed those bombs at the perfect location set to explode at the perfect time for an attack the following day. Which means any investigation into Cole could break open (or reopen) an investigation into the far more coordinated attack that was evident in movement that day but — for whatever reason — not charged.

Imagine the possibility that the FBI could find proof — and a witness — to explain how January 6 was an exceedingly well-coordinated terrorist attack? That would be sure to get Bondi, Kash, and Bongino fired!

As noted, DOJ asked for and got an exclusion of the 15-day delay in detention hearing time from the Speedy Trial Act (STA). That’s actually a very big deal, because when DOJ arrested Cole on December 5, the month they had to indict Cole under the STA coincided with the month that existed before the normal 5-year statute of limitations on most crimes expired.

The charges against Cole, 18 USC 844(d) & (i), actually have an extended (at least ten year) statute of limitations, as would some other charges, but some other possible charges (or conspiracy charges) might not.

So several things are likely going on:

First, while I think it likely FBI got their guy, if Cole’s confession is at all vulnerable to challenge, the case might be exceedingly weak, not least because the data has been manipulated.

Meanwhile, DOJ really is in crunch time regarding both the charges and any further investigation. That likely suits Trump’s appointees, who could be fired if the arrest of Cole provides cause to investigate further.

And that’s all on top of any colorable claim that Cole is entitled to the pardons Trump has already given his mob (not least if he had contact with someone else who has already been pardoned).

That’s the kind of mix that gives DOJ strong incentive to push for a plea, using as leverage the possibility of further charges, on top of an already draconian possible 40-year sentence.

Everyone else may be focused on holidays. But the people involved in this prosecution are likely involved in a very delicate game of chicken, as the ticking clock of dual deadlines threatens to explode.

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Cowardice Like Michael Glasheen’s Is How January 6 Happened

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Yesterday, the guy in charge of FBI’s National Security Branch, Michael Glasheen, exhibited the same kind of cowardice that allowed January 6 to happen, when he delivered the scripted lines that Kash Patel and Donald Trump permit him to say at the Global Threats Hearing. First, he sustained the bullshit claim that Antifa was the greatest threat to the US, then he played dumb when asked about the Proud Boys.

This is precisely the kind of cowardice that allowed January 6 to happen.

To be sure, there are several layers of cowardice built into this. Glasheen shouldn’t have been testifying in the first place; Kash should have been. But unusually for the Global Threats hearing, Kash blew off the committee entirely and Kristi Noem left early after one and then another Democrat personalized the veterans her goons have targeted and the Americans she arrested.

Then early in the hearing, Bennie Thompson (after making a clear misstatement to call the shooting of two National Guards members in DC only to have Noem refuse to admit that Rahmanullah Lakhanwal received asylum under Trump) asked Glasheen about terrorist threats. Here’s how USA Today described the exchange.

“When you look at the data right now, you look at the domestic terrorist threat that we’re facing right now, what I see from my position is that’s the most immediate violent threat that we’re facing on the domestic side,” he said.

But when Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, the ranking chairman of the House Homeland Security committee, asked whether the group is headquartered or how many members it has, Glasheen did not have answers.

“We are building out the infrastructure right now,” Glasheen said.

“So what does that mean?” Thompson replied. “We’re trying to get the information. You said antifa is a terrorist organization. Tell us, as a committee, how did you come to that? How many members do they have in the United States, as of right now?”

Glasheen said the number is “very fluid” and that the investigation into the movement and its members is ongoing, comparing it to al-Qaeda and ISIS.

[snip]

“Well, the investigations are active,” Glasheen responded, pausing before closing his mouth.

Thompson shook his head.

“Sir, you wouldn’t come to this committee and say something you can’t prove. I know you wouldn’t do that. But you did,” the congressman said, ending the exchange.

The exchange was one of the most-reported stories from the hearing yesterday (the advantage Ranking Members have for going first).

But few provided the background.

It was this kind of cowardice — it was precisely this kind of politicized threat focus — that allowed January 6 to happen. Bill Barr, too, was pushing the Antifa myth in advance of Trump’s insurrection. Trump even prepared precisely the kind of terrorist designation in advance that he rolled out in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing, no doubt anticipating clashes that didn’t arise.

More troubling, a bunch of people in the Proud Boys network were treated as informants on Antifa rather than used to collect awareness of the militia. There was Jenny Loh, as Brandi Buchman described in her coverage of the trial.

Tarrio’s next witness is teed up for Monday after much commotion: FBI informant Jennylyn Salinas, also known as “Jenny Loh.”

Loh’s anticipated appearance threw proceedings into disarray last week as defense attorneys claimed they had no idea Loh was an informant. Loh maintains she told her handlers nothing about her interactions with the Proud Boys and that once the government became aware that she could be called to testify in the case, her informant relationship ended completely. Prosecutors say Loh, who was associated with Latinos for Trump, was an informant from April 2020 through this January and only received a single payment from the bureau after sharing footage with agents of people harassing her at home. Loh has said that her communications with the FBI were not about Proud Boys but the threat that antifa posed.

More troubling still, there was “Aaron,” whose participation in the Kansas City cell made it incredibly difficult for prosecutors to prosecute those participants. WaPo described his testimony while describing the larger problem.

[A]t least four FBI sources were approached by the defense. Two others are on trial. And it was federal prosecutors who undermined the credibility of a federal informant, suggesting that the man — who only pronounced his name as “Aaron” — had deleted evidence and eliciting testimony that he repeatedly understated his own participation in the riot.

[snip]

On cross-examination, “Aaron” — who did not spell his name into the trial record — acknowledged that a member of his Kansas City Proud Boys chapter “had said some pretty wild things” about violence in advance of Jan. 6 that he did not share with the FBI. He admitted entering the Capitol without FBI authorization and not revealing that he helped prop open a gate for other rioters.

He later tried to justify his actions to agents by saying he thought he could help stop the destruction of “items of historical significance or historical artifacts,” according to the testimony.

The evidence shown in court indicates that many of the FBI sources inside the Proud Boys were asked only about their ideological opponents on the left, even as the right-wing group was implicated in threats and violence at protests across the United States.

[snip]

“Aaron” testified Wednesday that before Jan. 6, the FBI never asked him to look for information about the Proud Boys. When he informed his handler that he was coming to D.C. for the protest, he was asked only “to try to see if I could locate someone in D.C. that had nothing to do with the Proud Boys,” he testified.

The FBI missed an attack on the Capitol in significant part because they treated right wing threat actors as informants rather than a far more urgent threat.

I have no doubt Glasheen knows he’s chasing ghosts, which explains his discomfort. I have no doubt that Glasheen, as Chris Wray did before him, is treading carefully to avoid being fired. He probably calculates, correctly, that if he gets fired, a less competent whack job would replace him.

This is all by design: The fearmongering at FBI did, already, and will, again, blinds the FBI to real threats.

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Trump’s Terrorists

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Things could get a bit awkward with two of Trump’s terrorists in the days ahead. Trump has done such a great job of memory-holing his insurrection, and yet it won’t entirely go away.

Start with Taylor Taranto. I’ve written about the mentally ill Navy veteran who trespassed on January 6 — just one of thousands of Trumpsters who invaded the Capitol — but then took up with the DC Jail crowd in the aftermath, growing increasingly unstable until when, after Trump posted Barack Obama’s address on Truth Social, Taranto started stalking Obama, as prosecutors described in a footnote of a motion to gag Trump this way:

[T]he defendant’s public targeting of perceived adversaries has resulted in threats, harassment, or intimidation. The public record is replete with other examples. See, e.g., United States v. Taranto, No. 1:23-cr-229, ECF No. 27 at 4-6 (D.D.C. Sep. 12, 2023) (affirming detention order for Taranto and explaining that, after “‘former President Trump posted what he claimed was the address of Former President Barack Obama’ on Truth Social,” Taranto— who had previously entered the Capitol on January 6, 2021—reposted the address, along with a separate post stating, “‘See you in hell, Podesta’s and Obama’s’” [sic], and then proceeded, heavily armed, to the area the defendant had identified as President Obama’s address, while livestreaming himself talking about “getting a ‘shot’ and an ‘angle,’” adding, “‘See, First Amendment, just say First Amendment, free speech’”) (quoting Taranto, ECF No. 20).

Like everyone else, Taranto was pardoned for his Jan6 trespass and his gun-related crimes were downgraded along with the rest of America’s defense against gun crimes. Trump appointee Carl Nichols sentenced him to time served on October 30, but not before Jeanine Pirro’s office tried to hide the sentencing memo (and prosecutors) who described Taranto’s role in Trump’s insurrection and Trump’s role in inciting Taranto’s stalking.

So he was free to go home to Seattle and attempt to rebuild his life from the chaos that Trump made of it.

Only he didn’t.

In recent days he has been back stalking DC, and specifically Jamie Raskin. The very same prosecutors who attempted to bury Trump’s role in inspiring Taranto’s crimes were stuck asking he be jailed again.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Travis Wolf said Taranto’s return to D.C., his erratic behavior and renewed livestreaming raised serious alarms that he was “on the path” to the same conduct that led to criminal charges against him two years earlier and urged that he be returned to jail.

Wolf described acute mental health concerns, a series of alleged violations of Taranto’s supervised release conditions, and alarming social media posts, including one from the parking lot of the Pentagon. The prosecutor discussed other details of Taranto’s case during a closed court session.

Trump appointee Carl Nichols tried to give Taranto one more chance to go back to Washington and get some help. But he continues to lurk around DC, figuring he still has time before he has to report to Probation in Washington on Wednesday.

The man needs help, and jail is not going to get him what he needs, but until he leaves DC, he remains a real concern.

He’s a reminder of what Trump does to people, driving around DC broadcasting as he goes.

According to the standards DOJ has used with ICE protestors, Trump should have been charged right along with Taranto.

Then there’s the possibility that efforts to prosecute alleged pipe bomber Brian Cole will backfire, at least on those — Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino — who crowed about the arrest on Thursday.

Since he was arrested there have been a series of leaks, starting with Ryan Reilly (who literally wrote the book on the January 6 investigation, with all that suggests about his possible sources) followed by Evan Perez (one of the best-sourced journalists at FBI), told the FBI he believed Donald Trump’s bullshit.

The man charged with planting two pipe bombs near the Democratic and Republican party headquarters on the eve of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol told the FBI he believed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Brian Cole Jr., 30, is cooperating with the FBI, NBC News has reported, citing a separate person familiar with the matter. Cole appeared in court Friday, one day after he was charged with leaving pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee in the hours before Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Trump has falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.”

Cole confessed to planting the devices outside the parties’ headquarters in the hours before the Capitol attack, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News. A federal prosecutor said in court on Friday that the suspect spoke with the government for more than four hours, but did not reveal the contents of those discussions.

Pirro has been out trying to disclaim the obvious: that Cole is one of Trump’s terrorists, not the insider threat that people like Dan Bongino and Ed Martin have been claiming since the attack.

Anna Bower tracked Martin’s effort to stoke conspiracy theories about the pipe bomber, including this screen cap.

Kash Patel who has fired people for claiming that Jan6ers were a terrible threat to the country, said that when you do what Cole did, “you attack the very being of our way of life”  — and he did so after Pam Bondi hailed his hard work to make the case.

And then Bongino went on Sean Hannity and confessed he was making shit up before.

Hannity, during his interview with his former colleague, gave Bongino an opportunity to criticize prior iterations of the Justice Department and FBI for failing to arrest anyone in the case, and praise his own colleagues for getting the job done. But then he asked Bongino about the FBI deputy director’s own role in promoting conspiracy theories about the bomber during Bongino’s past career as a right-wing commentator.

“You know, I don’t know if you remember this — this is before you became the deputy FBI director,” Hannity said. “You put a post on X right after this happened and you said there’s a massive cover-up because the person that planted those pipe bombs, they don’t want you to know who it is because it’s either a connected anti-Trump insider or an inside job. You said that, you know, long before you were even thought of as deputy FBI director.”

Bongino’s response was astounding. He looked down, as if embarrassed, and replied: “Yeah, that’s why I said to you this investigation’s just begun.” But after hemming and hawing about the confidence he and FBI Director Kash Patel have that they arrested the right person, he got real.

“Listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions,” he explained. “That’s clear. And one day, I’ll be back in that space. But that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”

And when you peruse the possible explanations about why FBI didn’t find Cole before this week (I suspect it’s because FBI had far less evidence against Cole when they arrested him on Thursday than against virtually every other Jan6er; they just got fucking lucky that they got the right guy), they all feed left wing concerns.

Did Steve D’Antuono take steps to distract from Cole back in 2021, as some right wingers are now suggesting? If so, he did that between the time he took insufficient steps to prevent the attack and those times in 2022 when he attempted to kill any investigation of Trump.

Did Chris Wray intentionally stall this investigation? Then what does that say about the rest of the January 6 investigation?

And what if Cole says he qualifies for one or both of the pardons Trump already gave to people, like him, who responded to Trump’s false claims by attacking the Capitol. After all Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of sedition and adjudged a terrorist at sentencing, was gone from the Capitol a whole day before Cole allegedly placed those bombs, and Tarrio got a full pardon. What is Pardon Attorney Ed Martin going to say to conclude that Cole is somehow different from the hundreds of others, including a good many who brought incendiary devices, who have been running free since January?

It’s still possible Jocelyn Ballantine will manage to bury Cole’s pro-Trump leanings — or at least avoid implicating anyone who worked with Cole to plant the bombs in the precisely perfect place to create a distraction on January 6. Ballantine has played such a role before, and emails that Dan Richman submitted in his bid to get his data back before the FBI can violate his Fourth Amendment rights again suggest she was part of the process that led to that violation in the first place.

But until then, the lesson Dan Bongino just learned could be devastating. When you follow the facts, even the most rabid Trump supporter may discover that Trump’s terrorists are the ones threatening America.

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Fridays with Nicole Sandler

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Listen on Spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

Update: Here are the photos of James Joyce’s Martello Tower I mentioned.

Looking towards the sea from the strand.

A tie Joyce gave Samuel Beckett, which is exhibited in the Martello Tower.

Me, pretending to be Buck Mulligan, spying the ship named the Samuel Beckett.

 

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What’s Not Being Said about the Alleged Pipe Bomber

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The arrest affidavit for Brian Cole, the 30 year old guy charged as the pipe bomber today, is here.

The evidence consists of:

Phone records placing him on Capitol Hill at the time the FBI believes the bombs to have been placed.

The seven transactions between the COLE CELLPHONE and Provider’s towers occurred at approximately 7:39 p.m., 7:44 p.m., 7:59 p.m., 8:14 p.m., 8:23 p.m., and 8:24 p.m. Two transactions took place at 7:39 p.m. During this time period, the COLE CELLPHONE had transactions with five different sectors on Provider’s cell towers.

a. At approximately 7:39:27 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with a particular sector of Provider tower 59323, which faces southeast (approximately 120˚) from its location at 103 G Street, Southwest in Washington, D.C. (“Sector A”). Also at 7:39:27 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with a particular sector of Provider tower 126187, which faces east1 (approximately 90˚) from its location at 200 Independence Avenue, Southwest in Washington, D.C. (“Sector B”). Video surveillance footage shows that at approximately 7:39:32 p.m., the individual who placed the pipe bombs walked westbound on D Street, Southeast and then turned southbound on South Capitol Street, Southeast. These locations are consistent with the coverage areas of Sector A and B.

b. At approximately 7:44:36 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with Sector B of Provider tower 126187. Video surveillance footage shows that at approximately 7:44:36 p.m., the individual who placed the pipe bombs walked east on Ivy Street, Southeast. This location is consistent with the coverage area of Sector B.

c. At approximately 7:59:36 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with a particular sector of Provider tower 147990 which faces south (approximately 180˚) from its location at 200 Independence Avenue, Southwest in Washington, D.C. (“Sector C”). Video surveillance footage shows that at approximately 7:59:38 p.m., the individual who placed the pipe bombs walked southbound on New Jersey Avenue, Southeast then turned eastbound on E Street, Southeast. These locations are consistent with the coverage area of Sector C.

d. At approximately 8:14:36 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with Provider tower 45111 which faces west (approximately 255˚) from its location at 101 Independence Avenue, Southeast in Washington, D.C. (“Sector D”). Video surveillance footage shows that at approximately 8:14:15 p.m., the individual who placed the pipe bombs exited Rumsey Court and walked westbound through an alley between the Capitol Hill Club and the RNC then walked northbound onto First Street, Southeast. This location is consistent with the coverage area of Sector D.

e. At approximately 8:23:59 p.m. and 8:24:06 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE interacted with Provider tower 144340, which faces west (approximately 295˚) from its location at 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Southeast in Washington, D.C. (“Sector E”). Video surveillance footage last captures the individual who placed the pipe bombs at 8:18 p.m. walking eastbound on Rumsey Court in the direction of tower 144340, which is approximately 1/2 mile east of the individual’s last recorded location. The last recorded location is consistent with the coverage area of Sector E.

A license plate reader showing his car arriving at Capitol Hill that evening.

On January 5, 2021, at approximately 7:10 p.m., COLE’s Nissan Sentra was observed driving past a License Plate Reader at the South Capitol Street exit from Interstate 395 South, which is less than one-half mile from the location where the individual who placed the devices was first observed on foot near North Carolina and New Jersey Avenues, Southeast at 7:34 p.m. Approximately 5 minutes later, at 7:39:27 p.m., the COLE CELLPHONE began to interact with Provider towers in the area.

Purchases of components consistent with the construction of the pipebombs, including paying cash for a battery connector consistent with the pipe bombs in 2019.

Both pipe bombs were manufactured using a nine-volt (9V) battery connector with attached red and black wires. The nine-volt battery connectors used in the pipe bombs had identifying information on the black and red insulated wires that were consistent with those distributed in North America by a known company and its predecessors (the “Nine Volt Distributor”). COLE purchased five of the Nine Volt Distributor’s nine-volt battery connectors from Micro Center in northern Virginia on or about November 12 and December 28, 2019, including cash purchases made during the December transaction. Fewer than 8,000 of Nine Volt Distributor’s nine-volt battery connectors were distributed in the United States between December 2017 and January 5, 2021. [my emphasis]

A purchase made across the street from the alley way on December 14.

Approximately three weeks before the pipe bombs were placed, on or about December 14, 2020, COLE made a purchase at a restaurant located near First and D Streets, Southeast. The restaurant is located across the street from the entrance to Rumsey Court on D Street, Southeast.

There’s nothing that ties those weird sneakers to Cole at all. [Corrected]

Certainly, he’s a candidate, and should have been IDed as such in 2021. But the affidavit lacks the kind of thing we saw all the time in real January 6 affidavits: Personal communications. Signs of planning in the period after Trump announced the rally. While there are a bunch of components purchased in November 2020, after the election, there’s not a single data point in the affidavit between when Trump announced the rally on December 19 and when Cole was on Capitol Hill on January 5, 2021.

Surely, FBI has already obtained warrants for all that and it is at least consistent with someone who had been playing with bomb-making for two years before placing these bombs.

But they’re not telling what’s in them.

You get the feeling they might not tell the story Kash Patel and Pam Bondi want to tell. What if finding the pipe bomber gets them fired, just like responding competently to COVID got Anthony Fauci fired and targeted?

DOJ has assigned Jocelyn Ballantine to this case. You may recall that she made false claims in support of efforts to throw out the Mike Flynn case in 2020.

Update: Per Ryan Reilly, Cole (who wouldn’t have been assigned an attorney yet) told the FBI that he believed in 2020 election fraud claims.

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Murder

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In the last few days, we’ve got allegations of murder against two men who worked in counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, Whiskey Pete Hegseth and Rahmanullah Lakanwal.

We don’t yet know why Lakanwal drove from Bellingham, WA, across the country, to allegedly ambush two members of the West Virginia National Guard, Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe. Spencer Ackerman noted that if Lakanwal came to the US committed to terrorism, he learned that commitment — and a great deal of military skills — from Americans.

[T]he most sobering fact about Wednesday’s slayings is that the alleged killer, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was all too compatible with Western Civilization.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe issued an extraordinary statement revealing that the 29-year-old Lakanwal was a “member of a partner force in Kandahar.” While a knowledgeable source with deep experience in Afghanistan cautions that the US sponsored a variety of proxy forces in southern Afghanistan, much additional reporting has identified Lakanwal as a member of the Zero Units, death squads used by the CIA during the US’s longest overseas war.

In other words, contrary to Miller and Trump, Lakanwal’s shooting spree is not the result of importing Afghan culture to America. While much will surely be revealed in Lakanwal’s upcoming trial, it looks more like the result of importing American culture to Afghanistan. The realities of blowback – the violence America experiences as the unintended consequences of the violence of US foreign policy – are what the US needs to examine in the wake of this horrifying murder if it expects to prevent the next one.

But even Ackerman doesn’t consider the possibility that something happened since — quite possibly in the last year, as Trump keeps dicking around allies of all sorts who’ve helped the United States in the past — that led Lakanwal to drive across the country only to target members of the Guard who had been uprooted from their homes to avenge Ed “Big Balls” Coristine.

The list of Republican governors who will uproot Guardsmen from their home, family, and (for many of them) regular jobs to go to DC continues to grow:

  • Ohio Governor Mike DeWine
  • South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster
  • West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey
  • Tennessee Governor Bill Lee
  • Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves
  • Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry

All of these men believe protecting Big Balls is a higher priority than protecting their own constituents.

How soon we forget that the entire reason why Trump invaded DC is that Ed “Big Balls” Coristine, one of the DOGE boys hired by the richest man in the world to snoop through the private heath and social security data of Americans, got beat up by unarmed teenagers?

Contrary to what Trump and his propagandists keep squealing, Lakanwal was vetted over and over again.

The Afghan national accused of shooting two National Guard members near the White House this week underwent thorough vetting by counterterrorism authorities before entering the United States, according to people with direct knowledge of the case.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, arrived in the U.S. through Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), a Biden-era program that helped resettle Afghan nationals after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

[snip]

A key question from critics has been whether any evacuees managed to enter the U.S. without proper vetting. Lakanwal, however, would not have been among them, according to the individuals, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation. One of the individuals said Lakanwal was vetted years ago, before working with the CIA in Afghanistan, and then again before he arrived in the U.S. in 2021. Those examinations involved both the National Counterterrorism Center as well as the CIA, the person said.

Lakanwal was also granted asylum earlier this year, a process that would have brought its own scrutiny, according to #AfghanEvac, a coalition that supported the relocation effort — an assertion the White House did not dispute.

But no amount of vetting can forestall every awful possibility of violence.

Similarly, we can’t even say what led our Crusader-tatted Secretary of Defense to personally order the murder of two men who survived the first murderboat operation on September 2.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said.

A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.

The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack — the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere — ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water.

Trump claims these murderboat operations combat drug trafficking. That was always suspect. Not only are many of the people killed at most low-level shippers, but killing traffickers was less useful than capturing them.

And Trump’s promise to pardon former President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was a major drug trafficker, suggests Trump is not so much opposed to drug trafficking, he just wants a cut.

What we do know about Hegseth, the man who ordered defenseless men to be murdered, is that the Fox News host repeatedly failed efforts to vet him — first when he was excluded from defending the Capitol after January 6, and then the multiple warnings of abuse, incompetence, and addiction reviewed during his confirmation process.

And so it was that Pete Hegseth happily uprooted Sarah Beckstrom from her home to serve as a prop for Trump’s authoritarian theater, where she was as predicted, targeted.

[M]ilitary commanders had warned that their deployment represented an easy “target of opportunity” for grievance-based violence. The troops, deployed in an effort to reduce crime, are untrained in law enforcement; their days are spent cleaning up trash and walking the streets in uniform. Commanders, in a memo that was included in litigation challenging the high-visibility mission in D.C., argued that this could put them in danger. The Justice Department countered that the risk was merely “speculative.” It wasn’t. There are costs to performatively deploying members of the military—one of which is the risk of endangering them.

Hegseth kept Beckstrom deployed even after Judge Jia Cobb ruled, six days before Beckstrom was shot, that state governors, including WV’s Patrick Morrisey, don’t have the authority to send their Guard to DC without being invited by DC.

[T]he out-of-state National Guards are likely operating in the District in a manner contrary to law. Under section 502(f), state law defines the permissible use of the National Guard under state control—i.e., which missions the governors can order their units to conduct. Here, the state governors whose units are currently operating in the District lack authority to order these missions because the District has not properly sought their aid under D.C. law and the EMAC.

This vetting failure, Pete Hegseth, happily obeyed Trump’s order to bring even more Guard troops to DC, whose mission of “crime deterrence and passive patrolling” will now require more Metropolitan Police Department effort to protect the Guard from being targeted again.

Two alleged murderers brought demons with them from Afghanistan to the US. Both together got a young woman with all her dreams and life ahead of her killed.

And yet we’re not removing the more obvious vetting problem to prevent further disasters.

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Fridays with Nicole Sandler, Thanksgiving Wednesday Edition!

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Listen on Spotify (transcripts available)

Listen on Apple (transcripts available)

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In Dismissing Georgia RICO Case, Peter Skandalakis Fabricates Jack Smith Conclusion

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I am not surprised that Peter Skandalakis asked to dismiss the Georgia prosecution against Donald Trump. The fault for its dismissal lies primarily with Fani Willis for giving him the opportunity to dismiss it.

But Skandalakis’ dismissal is dishonest in many places and outright false in one case: notably, in his claim that Jack Smith concluded that he could not prosecute the case after SCOTUS interfered.

The strongest and most prosecutable case against those seeking to overturn the 2020 Presidential election results and prevent the certification of those votes was the one investigated and indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Although Special Counsel JackSmith’s federal case encompassed evidence from multiple states, he ultimately concluded the federal case could not be prosecuted because of the U. S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States and the re-election of President Donald J. Trump.

Special Counsel Jack Smith wrote in his report, “Conversely, a select few of Mr. Trump’s agents and elector nominees had insight into the ultimate plan to use the fraudulent elector certificates to disrupt the congressional certification on January 6 and willingly assisted…. In each of the targeted states, Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators successfully organized enough elector nominees and substitutes to gather on December 14, cast fraudulent electoral votes on his behalf, and send them to Washington, D.C., for the congressional certification.”28

The criminal conduct alleged in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit’s prosecution was conceived in Washington, D.C., not the State of Georgia. The federal government is the appropriate venue for this prosecution, not the State of Georgia. Indeed, if Special Counsel Jack Smith, with all the resources of the federal government at his disposal, after reviewing the evidence in this case and considering the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v.United States, along with the years of litigation such a case would inevitably entail, concluded that prosecution would be fruitless, then I too find that, despite the available evidence, pursuing the prosecution of all those involved in State of Georgia v. DonaldTrump, et al. on essentially federal grounds would be equally unproductive.

The evidence had nothing to do with Smith’s decision to drop the case when Trump was reelected. Indeed, before the election he had laid out how he still planned to do so, as he laid out in his immunity brief.

This motion provides a comprehensive account of the defendant’s private criminal conduct; sets forth the legal framework created by Trump for resolving immunity claims; applies that framework to establishthat none of the defendant’s charged conduct is immunized because it either was unofficial or anypresumptive immunity is rebutted; and requests the relief the Government seeks, which is, at bottom, this: that the Court determine that the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes as would any other citizen.

This was a cowardly and partisan dodge by Skandalakis, one that sacrifices the integrity of Georgia’s democracy.

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Donald Trump Owns Christopher Moynihan’s Alleged Death Threat against Hakeem Jeffries

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It has taken longer than I expected, but the pardoned Jan6ers have begun to get back in legal trouble.

In May, Zach Alam (the guy who busted open the door through which Ashli Babbett jumped) was arrested and, last week, convicted, of larceny for a burglary in Henrico, VA.

In his opening statement, Alam said he had moved to Richmond after being lost in Washington, D.C. He claimed that after being abruptly evicted, he began looking for an Airbnb but had no phone service, and mistakenly entered the Smith family’s home instead.

The first person to discover Alam was the family’s son, a barber who had just finished work and gotten out of the shower. He found personal items spread across the guest-room bed with Alam standing there. When asked why he was in the house, Alam said he was with Xfinity to fix the Wi-Fi.

The Smith family testified that they were Verizon customers, not Xfinity. Once they realized Alam wasn’t who he claimed, they persuaded him to leave. Later that night, they discovered valuables missing, including a tablet and a diamond necklace, along with a broken window.

A neighbor told the family he’d seen Alam taking items from outside that same window.

That evening, Henrico Police located Alam less than two miles away. He never mentioned an Airbnb but told officers he was lost trying to take a train back to Washington, D.C.

[snip]

During cross-examination, Alam suggested to the Smith family that they weren’t being truthful about the burglary even asking the father whether he was sure he’d closed the door every time he went outside that day.

At one point, Alam asked Officer Minter whether the items found on him included the family’s missing tablet or necklace. When Minter began listing all the recovered objects, Alam interrupted: “Objection. Stop talking.”

Alam was always unbalanced; had he remained in prison he might have gotten badly needed treatment.

The case of Christopher Moynihan, who was arrested Sunday in New York after threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries, is less predictable (though not in any way surprising).

Court documents obtained by CBS News said Christopher Moynihan was arrested Sunday after saying in text messages that he planned to “eliminate” Jeffries when the top House Democrat spoke at an event in New York City on Monday.

Jeffries spoke at the Economic Club of New York on Monday.

According to a court filing by prosecutors in the New York state criminal case, Moynihan wrote, “Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live.”

Moynihan also allegedly stated: “Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future,” the filing said.

Moynihan faces a felony charge of making a terroristic threat, according to court filings shared by prosecutors.

While FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force reportedly provided the lead to local cops, thus far these charges are state charges; Trump cannot pardon Moynihan this time.

Unlike Alam, Moynihan was not detained pre-trial nor charged with assault for January 6 (though he remains detained now).

After crowding in the East side of the Capitol and rushing directly to the Senate floor, he rifled through Ted Cruz’ desk, describing that he was looking for “something we can fucking use against these scumbags.”

Moynihan continued to search through the papers, growing frustrated, and saying “[t]here’s gotta be something in here we can f*cking use against these scumbags.”

[snip]

As he reviewed the documents, Moynihan said, “This is Cruz’s sh*t. This is a good one. Him and Lawler, or whatever. Hawley, Cruz.” Ex. 13 at :24 – :46; Ex. 14 at :30 – :51. Another rioter said, “I think Cruz would want us to do this.” Moynihan responded, “Yeah. Absolutely.” Ex. 14 at :53 – :54.

Along with everyone else who breached the Senate with the clear intent of obstructing the vote certification, Moynihan was charged with and convicted, in August 2022, in a stipulated trial of obstruction under 18 USC 1512(c)(2) — one of the same crimes with which Trump was also charged. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison in February 2023 — Judge Christopher Cooper recommended he get mental health and drug treatment while in prison. But he only served a year, after which he was released pending the SCOTUS opinion that would ultimately throw out the obstruction charges against many defendants.

Moynihan might have been one of the January 6 defendants against whom the obstruction charge might still have stuck — after all, he had paper relating to the vote certification in his hands and he explicitly sought to use that information against “these scumbags.”

But he was pardoned along with everyone else.

And now, he is repeating the same kind of eliminationist language about Democrats — calling Jeffries a terrorist — that Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi have been pushing of late.

It’s only a matter of time until one of Trump’s pardonees succeeds in carrying out the violence so many continue to support. And when that happens Trump and his lackeys will own that crime, too.

Updated: Added note that this is a state charge. Trump cannot pardon Moynihan out of it.

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The Erasure of January 6th Continues, US Mint Edition

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If you bought this bronze January 6th commemorative medal from the US Mint, its value just went up.

While everyone was watching as Trump and Vance were taunting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, other things were happening.

From last Friday at the rather niche publication Numismatic News:

The U.S. Mint has removed the bronze medal commemorating law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, from its website. The removal appears to have been done without prior notice or explanation, leaving collectors and observers speculating about the reason behind the decision.

The medal was originally created as part of a congressional initiative to honor the U.S. Capitol Police, the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police, and other first responders who helped secure the Capitol during the events of January 6. Congress authorized gold medals to be awarded for their service, with bronze replicas made available to the public for purchase through the U.S. Mint.

[snip]

While the medal has been available for purchase for some time, its product page on the U.S. Mint’s website now returns an error message indicating it has been removed.

NBC News adds a few more details:

Former Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who was injured by the mob on Jan. 6, told NBC News that he tried to purchase a number of the replica medals this week, planning to hand them out as gifts, and was surprised to see they were no longer available.

Gonell said the erasure of the medals fits in a broader pattern, pointing to the failure of Congress to place a memorial for law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol up in the building before Trump’s second inauguration last month.

Justice Department webpages that listed the cases and featured summaries of the work of the federal prosecutors who brought Jan. 6 cases were also removed from the web after Trump took office.

“Not only do Republican members of Congress refuse to put up the plaque, but they are even erasing and removing the ability to purchase the coin for the Congressional Gold Medal,” Gonell said.

Before the listing was erased from the Mint’s website, a description noted that the medal was struck under the authority of Public Law 117-32, an act passed in August 2021 to honor the “sacrifice of heroes including Capitol Police Officers Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, Metropolitan Police Department Officer Jeffrey Smith, and those who sustained injuries, and the courage of Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman.”

Tonight, Donald Trump will enter the US Capitol to address a joint session of Congress, entering the House chamber through the same door that Ashli Babbitt tried to climb through before being shot by US Capitol Police on January 6th.

George Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning, and Ray Bradbury did the same with Fahrenheit 451; Trump is using them both as instruction manuals. Trump and his minions are going after the FBI agents who played a part in the January 6th investigation, and also the DOJ lawyers who prosecuted the hundreds of the January 6th insurrectionists, declaring them to be workers of injustice. Trump has pardoned those hundreds – some who had pleaded guilty and others who were found guilty by a judge and/or jury – and declared them to be innocent victims of a political plot against him. Trump launched primary challenges against members of Congress who voted to impeach him, and threatens to do the same to any who stand in his way today. Up is down, declares the leader, and woe to any who dare to disagree.

And in this context, reports emerged last Friday that the US Mint has joined the effort to “disappear” the January 6th insurrection. We don’t know whether they were ordered to stop selling these medals by the White House or whether they decided this on their own as a way of trying to keep their heads down during the Trump/Musk purge of the government. Either way, the result is the same: the history of January 6th is being slowly erased.

The wording on those January 6, 2021 commemorative medals is simple and direct: “Honoring the service and sacrifice of those who protected the US Capitol.” The US Mint may have stopped selling the medals, and Trump may have pardoned those who stormed the Capitol, but the service and sacrifice which the medals recognize cannot be erased.

It can be forgotten, though – and nothing would please Trump more than that.

 

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