Brian J. Cole Jr. denied placing pipe bombs on Capitol Hill in January 2021 for more than two hours under FBI questioning after his arrest in Virginia on Dec. 4. Cole said he did not recognize the person in a gray hoodie shown on video walking with a backpack on Jan. 5.

After two hours of questioning, Cole, 30, told FBI agents that “everything is just blank” and the interview was “a little too much to process,” according to a U.S. Department of Justice memorandum filed in the criminal case.

‘This could result in the collection of misleading information and false confessions during criminal justice interviews.’

Agents then leaned on him, stating he could face more criminal charges if he lied to them. Then they left him alone in the interrogation room for 20 minutes.

When they returned, agents asked Cole again if he is the suspect shown on surveillance video. “This time, the defendant paused for approximately fifteen seconds, placed his head face-down on the table and answered, ‘Yes,’” the DOJ stated.

The FBI’s tactics in interrogating a man the defense asserts has autism spectrum disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder will likely become a major bone of contention for defense attorneys. Cole, whose grandmother has said he operates at the level of a 16-year-old, had no lawyer present during four hours of questioning. According to the FBI, Cole signed a waiver of his Miranda rights.

‘Overwhelming evidence’?

In the first real courtroom clash in the pipe-bombs case on Dec. 30, defense attorneys fought back against a DOJ memo claiming there is “overwhelming evidence” that Cole planted “viable” pipe bombs near the Democratic National Committee building and the Capitol Hill Club during a 22-minute span on the night of Jan. 5, 2021.

Defense attorney J. Alex Little argued for Cole’s release from jail pending trial in a 16-page memo. During a hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Sharbaugh, Little said Cole is not a danger to anyone. Pretrial detention is an extraordinary measure reserved for the few defendants who are a provable risk to society no matter what restrictions are imposed by the federal court.

Judge Sharbaugh said he received a two-count indictment on Dec. 29 from a District of Columbia Superior Court grand jury charging Cole with the same two counts that are in the federal criminal complaint.

The DOJ posted the indictment on the court docket, dated Jan. 2. It was signed by Jocelyn Ballantine, deputy chief of the National Security Section at the DOJ. Ballantine was previously a top official in the Capitol Siege Section under then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. Her appointment to the pipe-bomb case was greeted with outrage by former Jan. 6 defendants, who questioned why President Donald Trump had not removed her from the DOJ.

The suspect was across the street from a Capitol Police squad car while walking to the Jan. 5 bomb drop, video shows. Image from Capitol Police CCTV

Judge Sharbaugh did not immediately accept the indictment because there is a legal question whether D.C.’s federal district court can accept a grand jury indictment from the local Superior Court. In D.C., the Superior Court is akin to state, county, and local courts in the 50 states.

A ruling by U.S. District Chief Judge James Boasberg that Superior Court indictments can be accepted in federal district court is on appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Judge Sharbaugh asked both sides in the Cole case to submit briefs on the matter by close of business Dec. 31. He promised a ruling “in short order”on whether to accept the indictment and whether to release Cole into the custody of his grandmother.

Cole’s attorneys submitted a 20-page memo as directed by Judge Sharbaugh, but the DOJ filing didn’t appear on the official docket until Jan. 2.

Sharbaugh initially sidestepped the indictment issue and the 14-day requirement for a preliminary hearing and on Friday issued a ruling that Cole must remain jailed until trial. The judge said the DOJ convinced him “by clear and convincing evidence that there are no conditions of release that can reasonably assure the safety of the community.”

Judge Sharbaugh said he can make an “independent probable cause determination” even without an indictment or holding a preliminary hearing. He labeled the defense arguments “wrong,” stating that “longstanding caselaw in this district is consistent with that understanding.”

A short time later, Judge Sharbaugh issued an order stating he would accept the Superior Court indictment of Cole because the DOJ “represents that it will promptly seek a superseding indictment from a federal grand jury panel as soon as those panels reconvene.”

The DOJ’s briefing on the legality of the judge accepting the Superior Court indictment didn’t appear on the case docket until Friday, after the judge issued his decision. A portion of the document was redacted that described “extenuating circumstances” faced by the DOJ because federal grand juries were not available from Dec. 22 through year’s end.

Blaze News reached out to Little and the DOJ for comment but did not receive a reply by publication time.

Little sought to have a preliminary hearing Tuesday, because Cole was well beyond the 14 days prosecutors had under the law to secure an indictment or submit to an adversarial preliminary hearing. Cole made an initial court appearance on Dec. 5.

Police walked right past the DNC pipe bomb to first look under a bush where the bomb suspect sat 17 hours earlier. Photos by U.S. Capitol Police

Little said prosecutors told him they never sought an indictment from a federal grand jury. They rushed to seek an indictment from the Superior Court grand jury on Dec. 29 only after the defense made it clear it would demand a probable-cause hearing. A preliminary hearing allows the defense to cross-examine witnesses, unlike a grand jury, which hears only from prosecutors.

“The government wants to avoid a preliminary hearing, where its evidence will be tested in public,” Little wrote on Dec. 31. “Rather than subject its proof to cross-examination, the government sprinted to a different court — supervised by different judges and subject to different rules of evidence, privilege, and juror competency — to secure a last-minute indictment.

“Only after defense counsel insisted on holding the preliminary hearing did the government pursue its current path — seeking a federal indictment from a D.C. Superior Court grand jury,” Little said. “… The government either must present evidence at a preliminary hearing sufficient to establish probable cause, or the Court must release Mr. Cole from custody without conditions.”

Prosecutors contend that Cole gave a full confession to agents on Dec. 4.

“The defendant explained that he made the black powder in the devices using charcoal, Lilly Miller sulfur dust and potassium nitrate that he purchased from Lowe’s,” wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Jones. “The defendant mixed these ingredients in a Pyrex bowel [sic] and used a spoon or measuring cup to pour the black powder into the devices.

“According to the defendant, he learned to make the black powder from a video game that listed the ingredients and he also viewed various science-related videos on YouTube to assist him in creating the devices.”

The document did not identify the video game or provide specifics on the YouTube videos that allegedly guided Cole on making the bombs.

Little has moved twice to have his client released from the Rappahannock Regional Jail — either under court supervision or without conditions.

Prosecutors insist that Cole is a danger to the public, based primarily on the seriousness of the charges against him. Little told Judge Sharbaugh that Cole has maintained employment in the family bail bonds business since Jan. 6 and has no criminal record or evidence of political activism or online postings advocating violence.

Reset cell phone 943 times

The revelation of Cole’s autism and OCD puts the evidence — from the confession to the claim that he factory-reset his phone 943 times and beyond — and charges in a new light and raises the possibility that the defense will seek to suppress evidence as the case moves toward trial.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association, those with Level 1 autism need support or will exhibit “noticeable impairments.” In contrast, the APA characterizes Level 2 autism as “requiring substantial support” and Level 3 as “requiring very substantial support.”

“Inflexibility of behavior causes significant interference with functioning in one or more contexts,” according to the Autism Speaks website. “Difficulty switching between activities. Problems of organization and planning hamper independence.”

Experts say interrogation of persons with autism requires special handling due to the deficits presented by the disorder, which can easily lead to false confessions.

“Such impairments could manifest themselves in proneness to a host of vulnerabilities that place the individual at a severe disadvantage during the interviewing process,” said Jerrod Brown, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minn., writing in Police Chief magazine.

‘Gullibility should be carefully considered for its potential role in false confessions.’

“Further, individuals may respond promptly, without careful consideration, in a manner intended to please an interviewer,” wrote Brown, who specializes in forensic behavioral health. “This could result in the collection of misleading information and false confessions during criminal justice interviews.”

Detectives and agents need to be aware that autistic individuals can be gullible and at risk of being manipulated, Brown wrote.

Brian J. Cole Jr. at the scene of a minor traffic accident near his home in Virginia in April 2024.Prince William County images

“In some instances, gullibility should be carefully considered for its potential role in false confessions,” he said. “… This disorder may increase the risk of compliance in demanding and stressful situations. For example, individuals with autism could be vulnerable to doing things (e.g., confessing to a crime that they did not commit) to please others, particularly those in a position of power.”

Questions have been raised as to why the FBI didn’t pursue Cole as a person of interest in 2021, when the bureau developed a list of 186 phones based on tower dumps and a geofence warrant. Since FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Cole’s arrest involved no new evidence, Cole must have been on that list. It is not known if agents made contact with Cole or his family in 2021.

An FBI internal document obtained by the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight said the FBI classified 51 of the 186 devices as “not needing further action” because the phones “belong[ed] to law enforcement officers or persons on the exclusion list.”

Thirty-six of the 186 phone numbers were assigned to FBI special agents for interviews, and 98 of the numbers “required additional investigative steps,” according to a January 2025 U.S. House report. It is not clear whether anything came of those investigative steps, the report said.

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​January 6 

In the modern world, a diagnosis is often worn as if it’s a badge of honor.

But not everyone sees it that way. And Leland Vittert, an American journalist and anchor for NewsNation, certainly doesn’t.

Vittert, who is diagnosed with autism, tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey that the adversity his diagnosis caused him did not hold him back, but rather helped him become the successful journalist and reporter he is today.

Vittert didn’t speak until he was “well past 3,” and he had “lots and lots of problems in typical school.”

“If a kid touched me or looked at me the wrong way or whatever, I’d turn around and slug them,” he tells Stuckey, explaining he was “pretty aggressive” and had “big sensory issues.”

“Dad’s idea was to hold my hand through the adversity. And I think what he realized was that I was going to face that adversity later in life, which I did. … I had to learn how to adapt and how to interact with the world as the way the world interacted, not as the way I wanted to interact with it,” he explains.

And it was a struggle, he tells Stuckey, noting that he “couldn’t figure out how to relate to people emotionally the way they were emotionally.”

“I couldn’t figure out how to, you know, read a room, when to stop talking. All of these things I was going to have to learn,” he says. “And if you’re put in bubble wrap and told how wonderful you are all the time, you’re never going to learn that, right?”

That’s when Vittert’s father decided to prioritize self-esteem.

“So, when I was 5 or 6 years old, I was doing 200 push-ups a night. And after a couple months of doing that, you get some kind of reward. But my dad wanted to teach me that self-esteem is earned, not given, which is a very different philosophy, I think, than what we see now,” he tells Stuckey.

After self-esteem, Vittert’s father prioritized teaching him “how the world works socially.”

“So, my dad started spending hundreds of hours with me. Thousands of hours. Still is my best friend. … We’re recording this a little before noon, and I’ve already talked to him, I think, three times today,” he tells Stuckey.

“So, he would then take me out to lunch, and we’d go out to lunch with any of his friends. And because I spent so much time with him, I could sort of talk about business and politics and news and those kinds of topics,” he recalls.

“But as soon as we’d sit down at some diner for cheeseburgers and milkshakes, as soon as his friend sat down, I would either start blasting him with questions or blasting him with stories about my push-ups. And my dad would tap his watch. And that was my dad’s way of saying, ‘OK, be quiet,’” he explains.

“And the idea was, later on, as we were driving home, it was like, ‘OK, when Mr. so-and-so was talking about his weekend and you interrupted it to talk about your push-ups, why did you think he would be interested in that?’” he continues, telling Stuckey that he and his father would then role-play how Vittert could have asked the friend more questions about himself.

“It was this very minute-by-minute teaching of the emotional and human dynamic,” he adds.

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Bryce Crawford is an evangelist whose supernatural encounter with Jesus not only stopped him from taking his own life, but has catapulted him into a position where he’s helping transform a generation.

“I became a Christian when I was 17. I had depression and anxiety for years. Grew up in a Christian environment, went to a Christian school, but I had a supernatural encounter with Jesus when I was 17. Stopped me from taking my life,” Crawford tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey at AmFest.

This happened in 2020, when Crawford had gone to Waffle House for his “death row meal” on Christmas Day.

“I went to Waffle House, and I was at this table. No one preached to me. No one shared the gospel with me. The total opposite happened actually. This grown man dumped his life issues on me, and he said, ‘I’m losing my wife. She’s divorcing me and taking my kids,’” he explains.

“And then he said, ‘There’s no growth in a relationship if the love isn’t mutual.’ And when he said that, time stopped. And I had learned about Jesus all my life. … And for the first time, I thought to myself, maybe I don’t know God loves me because I haven’t given myself a chance to love him back,” he says.

“And so I prayed a crazy prayer. I said, ‘Jesus, if you’re real, take away my anxiety and depression because this is the reason why I want to take my life,’ and I haven’t had that crippling anxiety or depression since that day. It’s been almost five years,” he continues.

This was what led Crawford to Christianity and ultimately where he is now — preaching the gospel.

“The Bible says we plant seeds and water seeds. It’s not my job to save anyone. It’s not your job to save anyone. And so I found listening and being intentional with people is the greatest tool of evangelism,” he says. “It’s not love-bombing. It’s just caring about people.”

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