The Dog That Hasn’t Barked in the D.C. Pipe Bomber Case

A lot has happened. Here are some of the things. This is the TPM Morning Memo.

Alleged bomber allegedly a Trump supporter

For more than five years now, it can be reasonably inferred that whoever planted the pipe bombs at the headquarters of both national parties on the eve of Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election was probably not someone who was excited about Joe Biden’s victory.

However, as the case dragged on, it bizarrely became the subject of a host of right-wing cover-up plots — some touted by people who became top FBI officials during President Trump II. So it was beyond embarrassing when the Trump Justice Department finally announced an arrest in the case.

This may partly explain why, after initially welcoming the arrest, things have been rather quiet from the White House and Justice Department. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult not to think that the alleged pipe bomber’s affinity — for Trump and the Big Lie of 2020 — might play a role in the Trump administration acting completely out of character by being… moderate on the matter.

After Brian Cole Jr.’s arrest in connection with the pipe bombs, initial reports indicated that he subscribed to the big lie that the election was stolen. The WSJ now reports, citing anonymous sources, that Cole told investigators he supports Trump:

During a four-hour interview with investigators, Cole admitted to planting the bombs, sources familiar with the matter said. He expressed support for Trump and said he embraced conspiracy theories about Trump’s 2020 election loss, the sources said. …Cole has not pleaded guilty and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

The other big scoop in the WSJ article concerns how the FBI ultimately opened the case and ultimately arrested Cole – which indirectly offers another piece of testimony:

For four years, a slice of cellphone data provided to the FBI by T-Mobile US sat on a digital shelf because investigators didn’t know how to read it, people familiar with the matter said. The data proved key to solving the case, the sources said, a breakthrough that only happened recently when a tech-savvy law enforcement agent wrote a new computer program that finally deciphered the information. The move led to the arrest of Brian Cole Jr., 30, at his northern Virginia home, where he lived quietly with his mother and other relatives.

The problem is that it’s the sort of thing you’d expect an administration to tout loudly—unless, say, the alleged pipe bomber is an enthusiastic partisan trying to do what you want to prevent the certification of your opponent’s victory over you.

Normally, early in the prosecution of a major case like this, most of the characterizations of the defendant and his alleged crimes as well as the purported evidence come from government leaks, directly or indirectly.

But in this case, even the original charging documents were pretty thin considering the importance of the case. They offered nothing about Cole’s motivations, or the constant stream of damaging leaks to the accused that can be expected – especially from Cole. This administration – is virtually non-existent. This is the dog that didn’t really bark.

Colorado mocks Tina Peters pardon

While Colorado has pushed back on President Trump’s purported pardon of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters over her conviction on state charges, his lawyer is taking a surprisingly broad view of the presidential pardon power.

Peter Ticktin, a former classmate of Trump’s at the New York Military Academy, is pushing Trump toward a similarly broad vision, the New York Times reports:

Mr. Ticktin argued that Mr. Trump has the authority to release Ms. Peters under an untested legal theory that the Constitution’s language allowing the president to pardon people for offenses “against the United States” applied not only to federal crimes but also to state-level charges.

“The President of the United States has the authority to grant a pardon in any state in the United States,” Mr. Ticktin wrote in a letter to Mr. Trump last week, describing Ms. Peters as a political prisoner who could be a witness to investigations into false claims that the election was stolen from Mr. Trump.

Never forget that this is really about Trump writing a revisionist history of January 6 and his broader efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

January 6 lives on and on and on…

Two other ongoing developments related to 2020 Big Lie revisionism:

• The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sued Fulton County, Georgia, to obtain “all used and spoiled ballots, all ballot stubs, signature envelopes, and digital files of corresponding envelopes from the 2020 General Election.” The county has so far resisted Trump’s DOJ requests for all 220 ballots.
• The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division sued four Democratic-controlled states — Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Nevada — for failing to turn over their statewide voter registration lists.

Delaware, United States, admits defeat

Julianne Murray, the so-called acting U.S. attorney in Delaware, has renounced her claim to the position following a ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals that Alina Habba had not been appointed U.S. attorney in New Jersey.

Murray, who was chairwoman of the Delaware Republican Party and had no prosecutorial experience when she was appointed U.S. attorney, had continued in her role after her 120-day term as acting U.S. attorney expired in November.

Federal judges in Delaware refused to extend her tenure but did not name a replacement. When they solicited candidates for his successor in September, it drew an unusual public rebuke from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

9 DOJers resign following Trump’s attack on the UC system

A total of nine career DOJ lawyers have resigned under pressure from top officials to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism on campuses in the University of California system, the LA Times reports. The paper’s findings echo a widely reported article by ProPublica and the Chronicle of Higher Education that focuses on Trump’s alleged DOJ case against UCLA.

Retribution: Jim Comey Edition

In a case incidental to efforts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly faulted Trump’s DOJ for its handling of documents seized years ago from Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman. She ordered the seized documents returned to Richman.

The seized documents played a key role in the recently dismissed indictment against Comey and would be key to any effort to re-indict him. With that in mind, Kollar-Kotelly ordered the Justice Department to file a copy of the documents with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, potentially allowing prosecutors to seek a new search warrant to access the documents.

Court of Appeal blocks Boasberg contempt investigation

Ahead of live testimony scheduled for today and tomorrow, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday evening issued an administrative stay that, for the second time this year, blocks U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s contempt of court investigation into the original Alien Enemies Act case. The reprieve was granted by two Trump appointees, one of whom was implicated in the earlier decision to thwart Boasberg’s investigation into who decided to defy his emergency orders blocking the AEA evictions in March.

The metro without papers

TPM’s Hunter Walker: Clandestine legal clinics offer lifeline to migrants facing mass deportation

Happy reading

Greg Sargent: Inside Stephen Miller’s Dark Plot to Create a MAGA Terrorist State

TSA shares information with ICE

The New York Times reveals how people like Any Lucía López Belloza, a freshman at Babson College, found themselves trapped in airports before their flight:

Under this previously undisclosed program, the Transportation Security Administration provides Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a list of travelers who will transit through airports several times a week. ICE can then compare the list with its own database of people eligible for deportation and send agents to the airport to arrest those people.

The TSA has never been involved in domestic criminal or immigration matters.

For your radar…

The federal trial of Wisconsin State Judge Hannah Dugan, accused of obstructing an ICE arrest at her Milwaukee courthouse, is set to begin today.

Trump sued over Vanity ballroom project

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has filed a federal lawsuit in Washington to block construction of President Trump’s massive ballroom project until it goes through the proper approval process. The lawsuit comes too late to preserve the East Wing of the White House, which was demolished without public notice to make way for the gaudy event space that continues to grow in size.

Worlds apart

• Brown University: The first person of interest in Saturday night’s shooting that left two Brown students dead and nine others injured was released last night and the manhunt continues for the shooter.
• Bondi Beach: Father-son attackers who shot dead 15 people at an outdoor Hanukkah celebration were motivated by an ideology that constitutes an “extreme perversion of Islam,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

Rob Reiner, 1947-2025

The stabbing deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer at their Brentwood home was a shocking end to a weekend of unspeakable violence. The circumstances of their deaths will overshadow for a while (only for a short time, I hope) their civic and political work and their astonishing creative output: