FBI Director Kash Patel sharply criticized the Biden administration on Thursday, accusing it of allowing critical evidence in the January 6 pipe bomb investigation to sit untouched for years. Patel appeared on Fox News shortly after authorities announced the arrest of 30-year-old Brian Cole, who is charged with planting explosive devices outside both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee the night before the Capitol riot.
Patel argued that no meaningful progress had been made on the case during the Biden years, despite the national security implications of one of the most high-profile domestic investigations in modern history. “The prior administration sat on the evidence for four years,” Patel told Fox News host Trace Gallagher. “There wasn’t any production of new evidence from five years ago.”
According to Patel, the breakthrough in the case came not from new information but from revisiting and thoroughly analyzing evidence that had been available since the attack. He highlighted one specific example: identifying the limited-edition shoes visible on surveillance footage of the masked suspect. Patel credited his team with taking a fresh, aggressive approach after years of bureaucratic inertia.
“Here’s what we did — we went out to the country, brought in our experts, and Deputy Director Dan Bongino led the charge,” Patel explained. “We are going to look at every single piece of evidence again.” He said his team reviewed cell phone tower data, questioned why earlier investigators had failed to scrub all phone numbers, and examined why geolocation data had never been pursued. “Now that is either sheer incompetence or complete intentional negligence,” he said, making clear neither explanation was acceptable for the FBI.
The charges against Cole mark a major step forward in resolving one of the last remaining mysteries tied to the Capitol riot. Cole will be arraigned on federal charges related to placing the devices on January 5, 2021. Surveillance footage, combined with the suspect’s clothing and phone records, ultimately helped lead investigators to him—evidence that Patel insists could have been acted upon years earlier.
Patel’s comments were echoed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who also criticized the Biden-era Justice Department and FBI during a Friday Fox News appearance. She said the case stagnated for years before finally receiving proper investigative attention. “This case languished, it sat there for years collecting dust,” Bondi said. “No one did anything to solve this.” She described the breakthrough as a matter of “old evidence, new people,” a pointed jab at what she and Patel describe as four years of inaction under Biden’s DOJ.
The criticism highlights a recurring theme from Trump administration officials: that the Biden DOJ failed to prioritize major national security cases while allowing key investigations to drag on. For Patel and Bondi, the Cole arrest is evidence of what they argue the FBI could have accomplished long ago had leadership treated the matter with appropriate urgency.
With Cole now in custody, the question remains whether the revelations about how long the evidence sat untouched will spark broader scrutiny of investigative failures during the Biden years.
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