President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardons for those involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot may end up inadvertently applying to the individual accused of planting pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC national headquarters, something the Justice Department is reportedly “worried” about, Politico reported Tuesday.
The man accused of planting bombs in Washington, D.C. on the eve of Jan. 6, 2021 is Brian Cole Jr., who already “gave a detailed confession” to law enforcement about his role in the plot. Trump’s supporters have been fixated on the case, given that a number of prominent MAGA figures – including former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino – hyped it up as potentially being an “inside job.”
Trump’s sweeping pardons of Jan. 6 rioters, however, is already proving an issue for the DOJ, according to Politico.
“The White House has brushed off questions on the subject, but Justice Department prosecutors should be worried about this, and there were suggestions based off their briefs and statements in court last week that they already are,” Politico reported Tuesday.
“Lawyers for Cole did not respond to a question about whether they intend to argue that Cole is entitled to a pardon if convicted. But there are several legal and factual points that are worth zeroing in on if they pursue that strategy.”
On his first day back in office, Trump issued a “full, complete and unconditional pardon to all individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” a pardon that applied to around 1,500 individuals. It’s the broad language of the mass pardon, Politico noted, that could very well see Cole walk free.
“The substantive scope of Trump’s pardon language is very broad, as the Justice Department’s own lawyers have maintained in other cases,” the Politico report reads.
“If Cole is convicted, it is very possible that the presiding judge could ultimately rule (however begrudgingly) that his crimes were, in the language of Trump’s pardon, ‘offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.’”
