Judge Rules Jan. 6 Pardons Don't Cover Pipe Bomb Case

President Donald Trump’s mass pardons for people convicted in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol events do not apply to a Virginia man charged with planting pipe bombs near the national headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties the previous night, a federal judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali refused to dismiss the case against Brian J. Cole Jr., concluding that Trump’s blanket pardons for Jan. 6 protesters explicitly applied only to people who were convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack. Cole hadn’t been charged, let alone convicted, when Trump issued the pardons, Ali noted in his three-page order.
On the first day of his second term in the White House, Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences, and ordered the dismissal of cases for all 1,500-plus people charged in the Jan. 6 attack.
Cole was arrested nearly a year later. He is accused of placing two pipe bombs outside the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on the night before the riot.
The devices didn’t detonate before law enforcement officers discovered them on Jan. 6.
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