FBI Arrests Virginia Man in J6 Pipe Bomb Case—But Did They Get the Wrong Person?

The Trump administration's Justice Department announced the arrest of Brian Jerome Cole Jr., a 30-year-old Virginia man with no prior criminal record, charging him with planting viable pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic national committee headquarters on the eve of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed the breakthrough as closure to a five-year mystery, crediting a fresh review of existing evidence under their leadership.

Yet just 36 hours after Cole's arrest, serious questions are mounting about whether federal investigators got the right person, or rushed to pin a high-profile case on a vulnerable suspect while ignoring a stronger match.

Independent reporting from Blaze News journalists Steve Baker and Joe Hanneman, amplified in a viral piece on the site 459 Crimes, contends the real bomber is former U.S. Capitol Police officer Shauni Rae Kerkhoff, now employed in a CIA security role.

Forensic gait analysis, body proportions, and other evidence, they argue, point overwhelmingly to Kerkhoff, suggesting the FBI under Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino may have botched or deliberately misdirected one of the most consequential unsolved cases from January 6.

As 459 Crime reports:

Composite overlays and proportional modeling identify Kerkhoff as a 94–98 percent match. The height, shoulder-hip geometry, and lumbar curvature align. Even the gait tells a story: the suspect displays a distinctive right-leg hitch, mirroring a documented injury Kerkhoff sustained in 2015.

...

Additionally, the hooded suspect adjusts their sweatshirt in a manner that appears to mimic adjusting the straps of a sports bra. The motion is seamless, moving from one shoulder to the next with fluidity and rapidity as if it was an ingrained behavior.

...

Kerkhoff’s footprint screams ‘protected asset.’ ... Prior to January 6, Kerkhoff secured a position with the CIA. In federal law enforcement, ‘de-confliction’ is often a synonym for immunity. When a CIA asset’s timeline bleeds into an FBI investigation, the investigation blinks.

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Internal FBI memoranda reviewed by House investigators show that by early February 2021 the case team had flagged 186 phone numbers from geofence and tower data as worth follow-up. ... Fifty-one were simply parked as ‘not needing further action’ because they ‘belong[ed] to law enforcement officers or persons on the exclusion list.’

The 459 Crimes report portrays Cole as a neurodivergent, naive individual swept up by algorithmic dragnets and a four-hour unrecorded interrogation that produced a confession critics call suspiciously tailored.

It accuses the FBI of relying on flawed cell-tower data, impossible device viability given the timers, and no direct forensic links, while shielding Kerkhoff and others on protected lists.

The piece frames the arrest as political damage control ahead of the 2026 midterms rather than a genuine resolution.

With Cole in custody and the investigation ongoing, defense attorneys are preparing challenges to the surveillance methods used against him.

Whether this case delivers justice or exposes deeper institutional failures remains an open and explosive question—one that could reverberate far beyond the courtroom.

Meanwhile, the public is not buying the FBI's saga.

A recent poll by FBI whistleblower Phil Kennedy on X indicates the public strongly believes the FBI mishandled the investigation into Brian Cole and would pursue his prosecution even if new evidence clears him, to avoid embarrassment.