Pete King to Newsmax: Why Didn't a Pipe Bomb Arrest Come Sooner?

Former Reps. Pete King and Jack Kingston on Sunday told Newsmax that the delays in an arrest in the attempted bombings at the Democratic and Republican national committees' headquarters on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capitol protests raise serious questions about investigative priorities.

"I'm going to wait until all the evidence is in," King, a New York Republican, said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America Weekend." "But right now, I would say there are questions the FBI has to answer ... the real question here is why this wasn't done sooner."

King said the central issue now is timing, stressing he wants to see the full record but believes the bureau owes the public answers.

Meanwhile, he said he does not see a clear partisan motive from the arrested suspect, Brian Cole Jr., 30, of Woodbridge, Virginia.

The incident was politically "bipartisan" in effect, said King, who suggested the delay may have reflected misplaced emphasis rather than an intentional stand-down.

While noting investigators "did accumulate a lot of evidence" and that "it was new technology that helped," King said that "they obviously could have focused more."

"In that order of priorities, this was not near the top, and it should have been," he said.

Kingston, of Georgia, argued the case illustrates what he described as misdirected federal resources, saying outcomes improve when the bureau concentrates on core criminal investigations.

"When you redirect your resources in the right area, then you can get to the bottom of things," Kingston said.

He also questioned how difficult the suspect should have been to identify, pointing to the suspect's age at the time of the alleged offense.

"Keep in mind, we're hearing this guy's 30 years old. He was 25 years old at the time," Kingston said.

He also suggested that the suspect in the case does not fit the profile of a highly trained operator.

"How sophisticated could he actually have been?" said Kingston. "I don't think this was some really slick guy who knew what he was doing."

Kingston said he is pleased the bureau, under Director Kash Patel, brought the case to an arrest, and that he and President Donald Trump are "cleaning up the FBI."

The two also weighed in on election-year implications from the Supreme Court’s decision reinstating Texas’ Republican-drawn congressional map.

Kingston said that the courts have grown skeptical of how Voting Rights Act claims are used in redistricting fights.

"The Voting Rights Act has morphed into legalized partisan gerrymandering," Kingston said, contending that in practice, minority voting strength arguments are often treated as Democratic vote maximization.

He said he expects related litigation to reverberate well beyond Texas, pointing to other states watching closely.

King framed the ruling as an opportunity but emphasized Republicans will have to do the work to capitalize on it.

"This gives us the opportunity to get started, to really get moving," he said, adding that "we have to get the Trump record out there."

"It's going to be a long, hard fight between now and November," he said.

King also pointed out that Republicans cannot rely on institutional support.

"The media is never going to be for us," he said. "The establishment is never going to be for us. We've got to do it on our own."

Separately, King underscored the importance of national remembrance and military readiness on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

"We have to always assume there's a war that's going to happen tomorrow," he said, urging the U.S. to "never let our guard down" and to continue honoring those who died on Dec. 7, 1941.

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