Suspect Brian Cole confessed to planting bomb, parroting Trump’s false claims 2020 election was stolen.

A federal judge in the United States has refused the pre-trial release of a man charged with planting two pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican national parties on the eve of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

On Friday, Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh ruled that 30-year-old Brian Cole must remain jailed before trial. The magistrate concluded there are no conditions of release that can reasonably protect the public from the danger that Cole allegedly poses.

Department of Justice prosecutors say Cole confessed to placing pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters only hours before a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

According to prosecutors, Cole said he hoped the explosives would detonate and “hoped there would be news about it”.

“Mercifully, that did not happen,” Judge Sharbaugh wrote in the order.

“But if the plan had succeeded, the results,” he said, could have been devastating, “creating a greater sense of terror on the eve of a high-security Congressional proceeding, causing serious property damage in the heart of Washington, DC, grievously injuring DNC or RNC staff and other innocent bystanders, or worse.”

After his arrest last month, Cole told investigators that he believed someone needed to “speak up” for people who believed the 2020 election, which Democrat Joe Biden won, was stolen and that he wanted to target the country’s political parties because they were “in charge”, according to prosecutors.

Trump and his allies had spent months baselessly claiming the 202 vote was marred by widespread fraud, a position he has maintained since his election victory in 2024.

The US president was later indicted for his role in fomenting the January 6, 2021, riot, which occurred as Congress met to certify the election results, but the case was abandoned after his election victory in 2024. Under longstanding Justice Department policy, it does not prosecute sitting presidents.

After taking office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of the rioters, including those convicted of violent crimes at the Capitol.

If convicted, Cole faces up to 10 years of imprisonment on one charge and up to 20 years of imprisonment on a second charge that also carries a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence.

Cole’s lawyers asked for him to be released on home detention with GPS monitoring. They said Cole does not have a criminal record, has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and lives in a stable home that he shared with his parents in Woodbridge, Virginia.

“Mr Cole simply does not pose a danger to the community,” his defence lawyers wrote in court filings. “Whatever risk the government posits is theoretical and backward-looking, belied by the past four years where Mr Cole lived at home with his family without incident.”

Cole continued to buy bomb-making components for months after the January 6 riot, according to prosecutors. They said he told the FBI that he planted the pipe bombs because “something just snapped”.

“The sudden and abrupt motivation behind Mr Cole’s alleged actions presents concerns about how quickly the same abrupt and impulsive conduct might recur,” Judge Sharbaugh wrote in the order.