Eye-popping DC pipe bomber revelations 'awkward and embarrassing' for Trump: analyst
Revelations surrounding the Washington, D.C. pipe bomb suspect have become humiliating for the Trump administration, a security analyst said Friday.
Bradley Moss, a national security analyst, told CNN that the White House now has to manage the fallout after 30-year-old suspect Brian Cole Jr. told law enforcement that he believed that the 2020 election was “stolen." The claim was one that President Donald Trump had made and led to the Capitol mob attack on Jan. 6, just a few hours after the pipe bombs were placed outside the Republican and Democratic party headquarters.
"We're learning some rather awkward and embarrassing things for the White House and for, honestly, some of the senior members of the Justice Department and the FBI, because this defeated all of the theories, all the conspiracies for the last four years about who this particular pipe bomber could have been," Moss said.
It could become a bigger problem for the Justice Department.
"Assuming, of course, this person is actually proven in a court of law to have been that person. All the theories that the Trump team, that Dan Bongino, that Kash Patel, everybody was saying was this was an inside job, this was somebody at the bureau, this was someone from the Capitol police. They had always made it out to be that this was some kind of insider gig," Moss added. "What is it? It's just a regular guy who believed Donald Trump's conspiracies about 2020 and who allegedly took this action."
Moss argued that the claim made by Trump and his followers appeared to be a motive for the suspect.
"How embarrassing that these are the individuals now who have to bring these charges and prove this case in court," Moss said.
Cole did not enter a plea at his first hearing on Friday morning in federal court. He was expected to have another one in a few weeks. The investigation was ongoing.