The arrest of alleged pipe bomb suspect Brian Cole Jr. raises new questions about how federal investigators and the House Jan. 6 committee handled the case, according to Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., on Newsmax.
"Now we've got to take it further," Loudermilk Saturday's "The Count." "Were there co-conspirators? What was the purpose for doing this? Was it to draw sources, law enforcement sources from the Capitol to make it a softer target, or were they just trying to make a political point?
"Also, questions I have that we've been exploring is how is it that the Secret Service bomb sniffing dog walked by the location where one of the devices was supposed to be and never did hit on it?
"So there's still a lot more that needs to be answered, and we're going to continue to pursue it."
The Biden administration Justice Department failed to get to the bottom of the investigation, too, begging even more questions, according to Loudermilk, who leads a Republican-formed House subcommittee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol investigations.
"I think it was definitely a lack of willingness to complete the investigation, whether it was that they were seeing that the person that likely did this didn't fit the narrative they wanted or they really just wanted to refocus their resources," Loudermilk Saturday's "The Count."
He also accused the House Jan. 6 select committee of downplaying the pipe bombs in its final report, noting Trump's name was referenced repeatedly while pipe bombs were mentioned only briefly.
Loudermilk further claimed the FBI quickly pulled resources from the pipe bomb inquiry and redirected them toward Jan. 6 prosecutions, describing the shift as a "lack of willingness" to complete the investigation.
Cole Jr. allegedly planted a pair of pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democrat national parties in Washington on the eve of the U.S. Capitol attack. Investigators said Friday he confessed to the act during an hours-long interview.
The details add to a still-emerging portrait of the 30-year-old suspect from Woodbridge, Virginia, and it was not immediately clear what other information or perspectives he may have shared while cooperating with law enforcement following his arrest on Thursday.
An FBI affidavit says investigators identified Cole as a suspect through analysis of credit card charges related to the purchase of pipe bomb components, information from cellphone towers and a license plate reader.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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