A federal judge ruled Monday that President Donald Trump’s expansive pardon of January 6 rioters does not apply to a Virginia man accused of planting two pipe bombs in Washington, DC, the night before the 2021 US Capitol insurrection.
Prosecutors say Brian Cole Jr. placed bombs near the Republican and Democratic national committees’ headquarters on the night of January 5, 2021. His attorneys argued in March that Cole should be covered by Trump’s pardon because the alleged conduct is “is so inextricably and demonstrably tethered to” the events at the Capitol on January 6.
On his first day back in office last year, Trump issued a pardon to nearly every person who was convicted of attacking the US Capitol, marking the end of a sweeping four-year Justice Department probe.
In a three-page order, US District Judge Amir H. Ali, an appointee of President Joe Biden, rejected Cole’s argument that he should be included in that pardon.
“Even assuming that the conduct Cole is charged with is ‘related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,’ the pardon is expressly limited to people who had been ‘convicted of offenses’ related to those events,” Ali wrote. “Cole had not been convicted of the conduct at issue when the President issued the pardon; indeed, he was not charged until many months after the President’s proclamation.”
