FBI Director Kash Patel criticized the bureau’s handling of the long-running investigation into the 2021 DNC and RNC pipe bo’mb case on Thursday, saying it reflected “sheer incompetence or complete intentional negligence” by the FBI under the Biden administration.
His remarks come after authorities arrested Brian Cole Jr., 30, of Woodbridge, Va., earlier in the day, who is accused of planting pipe bo’mbs outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters on Jan. 5, 2021 — the night before the Capitol riot. Cole is scheduled to make his initial appearance in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Friday afternoon to be formally arraigned on the charges, the New York Post reported.
“The prior administration sat on the evidence for four years,” Patel told “Fox News at Night” Thursday evening. “There wasn’t any production of new evidence from five years ago.”
“Here’s what we did — we went out to the country, brought in our experts, and Deputy Director [Dan] Bongino led the charge and said, ‘We are going to look at every single piece of evidence again,’” he added.
According to a probable cause affidavit, investigators relied on bank records and cellphone data to connect Cole to the manufacture and placement of the pipe bo’mbs outside the Democratic and Republican party headquarters in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Authorities say the activity traced back to 2019.
“We looked at three million lines of evidence,” Patel told host Trace Gallagher. “We went back and looked at the cell phone tower data dumps. We went back and looked at the providers and what information they provided pursuant to search warrants at the time and asked questions, such as ‘Why weren’t all the phone numbers scrubbed?’ and ‘Why weren’t they connected?’ and ‘Why wasn’t there any geolocational data done?’
“Now that is either sheer incompetence or complete intentional negligence, neither of which is acceptable for this FBI. So, we changed that in the prior eight months, not on just this case, but everyone. And what that did was allow us to narrow the search down,” he added.
The pipe bo’mb case was a top priority for Bongino, a former Fox News host who claimed on his eponymous podcast in 2024 that he believed the b’omb plot was the work of “either a connected anti-Trump insider or this was an inside job.”
Earlier in the evening, Bongino appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” program, where the host, Sean Hannity, brought up those comments.
“I don’t know if you remember this, this was before you became the deputy FBI director. You put a post on X after this happened and said there’s a massive cover-up because the person that planted the pipe bo’mbs, they don’t want you to know who it is because it’s either a connected anti-Trump insider or an inside job. You said that, you know, long before you even were thought of as deputy FBI director,” Hannity noted.
“Yeah, that’s why I said to you this investigation has just begun. We are pretty comfortable we have our guy. Legal process starts to surface and information and facts start to come out, the public will be comfortable with the investigation that was conducted under Director Patel and his leadership,” Bongino began.
“He’s been great on this. But I don’t want to, you know, listen I was paid in the past for my opinions. That’s clear. One day I will be back in that space but that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director and we base investigations on facts,” Bongino said.
“It was interesting, I was looking into the crowd today at the presser and I saw a couple of media figures who you and I both know, promoted the other scandal, the collusion hoax,” he continued. “There were people out there in that crowd that I’m sure believe in the collusion fairy tale still. We will see. We will be guided by the facts as this goes forward.”
