A man accused of planting pipe bombs at the RNC and DNC headquarters the night before the January 6 Capitol riot believed in Donald Trump’s Big Lie. According to a court filing released yesterday, he confessed following his arrest earlier this month and told investigators that someone needed to “speak up” for people who believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Brian Cole said he was never an openly political person, but he felt something was wrong amid all the discussion about the validity of the results. He then dived deeper on sites like YouTube and Reddit. Prosecutors say he told them that “the people up top,” including “people on both sides, public figures,” should not “ignore people’s grievances” or call them “conspiracy theorists,” “bad people,” “Nazis,” or “fascists.”
Republicans, including Trump, lied time and again about mass election fraud. As I reported on Cole’s case today, I thought once again about how these fabrications matter. They lead to planting pipe bombs and to the January 6 Capitol riot. And they resonate as disinformation in our future elections and help justify undemocratic voting rights restrictions.
Dispelling these narratives and developing safeguards is crucially important, and we'll be keeping a close eye on it in the new year. With just a few days left, we're still short of our team's $400,000 year-end goal, and we need a huge surge in reader support to close this gap. Whether you've given before or this is your first time, your tax-deductible contribution right now matters—and will be matched threefold through December 31.
—Alex Nguyen
