UPDATE: A Daily Reid: Rewriting the insurrection, and our Department of War crimes

We're watching the deletion and gaslighting rewrite of history in real time

This post has been updated: There’s been … shall we say … a complication in the right’s new narrative about the alleged DC pipe bomb guy…

What will Dan Bongino and MAGA do now … and will Trump now push for a pardon??? We’ll unpack tonight on TJRS…

There are so many contradictions and questions in this case, it’s hard to know where to begin…

Forget everything you know about January 6, 2021. No, seriously, forget it. The regime now wants you to believe that the only true villains and threats to the peace in the incident most of us remember as a Trump-led insurrection attempt, were the police, Nancy Pelosi, and a handful of Black men. Notably, this one:

Brian Cole Jr., the son of a bail bondsman from Virginia, has been arrested and accused of being the infamous and mysterious man who left pipe bombs in front of the Democratic and Republican National Committees on the day before the January 6 insurrection. Here is the video the FBI posted last month, seeming to suddenly show renewed interest in closing the five year old case:

The FBI had posted new footage from the January 5th bomber back on January 2nd, when then-director Christopher Wray was already on his way out the door, having announced the prior December that he intended to resign, to make way for Trump’s already announced choice: podcaster Kash Patel. Here’s what the Times had to say about that at the time:

Over more than seven years, Mr. Wray oversaw one of the most consequential and tumultuous periods in the bureau’s history, juggling high-profile criminal investigations of political figures, heated congressional inquiries and two attempted assassinations of Mr. Trump.

Even as he fended off Mr. Trump’s relentless criticisms of the F.B.I., Mr. Wray supervised a wide array of national security issues that included terrorism, escalating cyberattacks and threats from geopolitical rivals like China, Iran and Russia. He also had to grapple with a spate of mass shootings and the rise of right-wing extremism while managing an agency with 35,000 employees and a budget of more than $10 billion.

But it was the bureau’s scrutiny of Mr. Trump that almost certainly cut short Mr. Wray’s tenure.

His F.B.I. repeatedly investigated Mr. Trump, including by conducting a court-approved search of the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022 for classified documents, examining his widespread efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and delving into the possible links between his 2016 campaign and Russian intelligence operatives engaged in election interference.

Under Mr. Wray’s watch, agents also investigated the current president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., over his handling of sensitive records after he left the vice presidency. They undertook several other politically charged cases that made the agency the subject of sharp partisan scrutiny, including its inquiry into Hunter Biden.

In the face of intense political cajoling, second-guessing and condemnation, Mr. Wray frequently urged his agents to “keep calm and tackle hard,” and preached a strict adherence to the investigative process that has been the agency’s calling card for decades.

Yet Wray got literally nowhere with the investigation into the pipe bomber. We heard zip, zero about it over the years — in fact the first time I’ve seen this new footage is when I pulled up the video above, to prepare to write this post. And then suddenly, the case came back to life (more on why on tonight’s TJRS)

From Men’s Journal (which actually had great summaries on the case):

Brian Cole Jr., the suspect in the Washington D.C. pipe bomb case, worked for a family company in Virginia called “Brian Cole Bail Bonds.”

That’s according to The New York Post. The Post spoke to the suspect’s grandma, Loretta, who confirmed the business but denied that her 30-year-old grandson had anything to do with the pipe bombs, calling him “gentle” and “naive.”

The government has now released the criminal complaint. It says that Brian J. Cole Jr. “lives in a single-family house with his mother and other family members. Cole works in the office of a bail bondsman in northern Virginia,” it says. The complaint alleges that authorities pieced together a web of forensic evidence in the case, including cell phone records allegedly putting Cole Jr. in the area of the attack, material purchases that are similar to materials used in the pipe bombs, and a license plate reader of Cole’s car.

Brian Cole Bail Bonds “was raided by the FBI,” The Post reported, adding that the suspect’s grandmother also said he previously worked as a DoorDash driver. Reuters also reported that Cole works for a bail bonds company, but did not name it, and added that he lives with his parents in Woodbridge, Virginia. No evidence has emerged linking the dad or any other family members to the pipe bomb attack, to be clear. Authorities charged the son, Cole Jr., with the pipe bomb attack, releasing his name in a press conference.

Cole Jr. “has been charged with transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and malicious destruction by means of explosion,” CNN reported.

Cole’s family also made a brief statement to the New York Post, of all places….

NBC News reached out to Cole’s family members seeking comment, and two family members made the family’s first comments after the arrest.

The suspect’s grandmother, Loretta, told The New York Post: “He’s almost autistic-like because he doesn’t understand a lot of stuff. I hope he is not talking.” She also alleged: “He’s very naive…He would not hurt a fly. He’s just not that kind of person. I don’t believe this at all. He’s not a terrorist.”

The grandmother told The Post that Cole works for the family’s bail bondsman company, “Brian Cole Bail Bonds.” She added that he also worked for DoorDash for a time. “He doesn’t have any ties to DC,” she added. “I don’t even know how they included him in this.”

The government criminal complaint says that Brian J. Cole Jr. “lives in a single-family house with his mother and other family members. Cole works in the office of a bail bondsman in northern Virginia,” it says.”

So we’re now to believe that in the insurrection that left a half dozen people dead, hundreds of police injured, and the Capitol shat upon with windows smashed in, the villains were the Black officer who shot military trained rioter Ashlii Babbitt as she attempted to hurl herself through the window of the speaker’s lounge…

… and an “autistic-like” Black Door Dasher? Not … say … these people, all of whom were pardoned?

Meanwhile, Michael Smerconish on his Sirius show this morning posed an interesting question: would Trump’s blanket pardon of everyone involved in the January 6 insurrection cover the pipe bomber, too…

The disappearing DC shooting

Meanwhile, why aren’t we hearing anything more about the CIA-trained former Afghan death squad member who seemingly spontaneously crisscrossed the country to shoot National Guardsmen in Washington D.C.?

The story seems to have largely disappeared from the media ecosystem, with the last story I can find being that Rahmanullah Lakanwal pleaded not guilty to first degree murder three days ago, as a few more details of the shooting emerged:

Lakanwal is charged with first-degree murder, assault with intent to kill and illegal possession of a firearm in the shooting that killed Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and wounded Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24.

Another National Guard member heard gunshots and saw Beckstrom and Wolfe fall to the ground as Lakanwal fired a gun and screamed, “Allahu Akbar!” according to a police report filed in court Tuesday. Lakanwal chased after and shot at another Guard member before troops detained him as he tried to reload his gun, the report says.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Renee Raymond o

The shooting has very quickly left the public consciousness, though it seems to have helped the regime win an appeals court ruling allowing them to extend the occupation of the Nation’s Capitol using armed military troops.

The New York Times did do a story two days ago about Lakanwal’s deteriorating mental health:

The warning came nearly two years before Rahmanullah Lakanwal would be named as a suspect in the gunning down of two National Guard troops near the White House on the eve of Thanksgiving. It was enshrined in writing by a volunteer helping to give Mr. Lakanwal a fresh start in America who had become convinced he was unraveling.

He had tried to make a go of life in the coastal city of Bellingham, Wash., after he and his family were evacuated from Afghanistan by the U.S. military in August 2021. In Afghanistan, he had fought in a C.I.A.-trained paramilitary unit. In the United States, he did temporary jobs, took his five sons to a local mosque and hosted visitors for tea in a house decorated in traditional Afghan style, with floor pillows and red rugs.

But by early 2023, he started to show signs of depression and erratic behavior, according to accounts from a volunteer in northwest Washington who worked with his family.

In the months after, he sequestered himself inside his darkened bedroom, refused to answer his phone, and even failed to bathe or dress his sons when his wife left to take short breaks from him. He dropped out of the English classes he was supposed to take, did not seek work and stopped paying rent. His family received an eviction notice.

“Rahmanullah has not been functional as a person, father and provider since March of last year,” the volunteer wrote in a January 2024 email for a friend to send to a nonprofit group working with immigrants. “His behavior has changed greatly.”

The CIA did that.

Also, why were flags not put at half staff for Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, the fallen Guard member, as they were for right wing commentator Charlie Kirk? Why the asymmetry? And what is the condition of the other Guardsman, Staff Sgt. Wolfe?

I guess in the serial mass shootings at schools era, the media just routinely moves on.

The Secretary of War Crimes

Politico has the top six takeaways from the Signalgate investigation into Department of War Crimes secretary Pete Hegseth. Here is just one of them:

He broke the rules.

The report concluded that Hegseth “sent sensitive, nonpublic, operational information” over the Signal chat on his personal cell phone. That goes against longstanding rules at the Pentagon about using personal devices and commercial apps — including Signal — for official work.

While the mission in Yemen was carried out successfully, the inspector general also concluded that Hegseth’s use of a personal cell phone and Signal chats for official business “risks potential compromise of sensitive DOD information, which could cause harm to DOD personnel and mission objectives.”

The watchdog also noted that Hegseth had other classified devices he could have used to provide details about the Yemen strikes to national security leaders. Pentagon policies largely prohibit the use of Signal for sensitive updates.

Read the report for yourself here.

We also now know that Hegseth forced out the admiral who was in charge of the Caribbean theater, over questions about the legality of the lethality Hegseth demanded:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked a top U.S. Navy admiral to step down after the military chief expressed concern about the “murky” legality of the lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, according to a report.

The shock departure of Admiral Alvin Holsey one year into his tenure as head of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the Caribbean, was announced by Hegseth on Oct.16.

It followed “months of discord” between the pair that intensified in the summer when the Trump administration began bombing the alleged drug boats, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing two Pentagon officials and former officials.

“You’re either on the team or you’re not,” Hegseth reportedly told 60-year-old Holsey during a meeting this year. “When you get an order, you move out fast and don’t ask questions.”

Lawmakers and experts told the newspaper that asking the four-star military chief to stand aside during an escalating military operation was “an extraordinary move.”

And it seems like all of this may explain the unprecedented command in September for every military general, admiral and their senior staffs to come to Quantico for a mandatory briefing with the Secretary of War Crimes and the Commander in Thief, and why Trump and Pete were so eager to return the Defense Department to it’s pre-World War II name: “the Department of War” — an executive order signed three days after the deadly “second tap” sea murder in the Caribbean.

Lawmakers reactions to the closed door briefing with the under the bus generals are emerging, with few surprises as to the partisan cant.

Ice, Ice, baby

Meanwhile on the ICE front, new data reveals that a minority of those being kidnapped by the masked maybe feds actually have criminal records.

President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have justified the deployment of armed masked officers in big Democrat-run cities by claiming local “sanctuary” policies shield criminal immigrants—repeatedly insisting they are targeting the “worst of the worst.”

But in headline operations across Los Angeles, Chicago, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., more than half of those arrested, often in brutal fashion, had no prior convictions at all—compared with roughly a third nationwide, the New York Times found.

The outlet analyzed a trove of arrest and detention records released by the Deportation Data Project that runs through Oct. 15, 2025.

It found that, ironically, the highest-profile sweeps proved the least effective at finding people with criminal histories, especially violent ones.

And check out the deal Maduro tried to cut with Trump to escape his country with hundreds of millions of dollars — and it wasn’t the theft that was the deal-breaker:

New reporting has lifted the veil on a tense November phone call between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and United States President Donald Trump that, according to several accounts, included an extraordinary offer and hardline American pushback. Sources close to the conversation say Maduro offered to step down and go into exile after receiving US$200 million and amnesty for several members of his inner circle — but only on terms that Washington appears to have rejected.

According to British outlet The Telegraph, one of the more contentious elements of the exchange was a request by Maduro to be allowed to retain US$200 million of his private wealth as part of any departure deal. That report says Maduro also sought blanket legal amnesty for himself and more than 100 senior Venezuelan officials, and safe harbor in a friendly country — demands that U.S. officials found unacceptable.

But we’re bombing those boats off the Caribbean anyway, and apparently, massing warships off the coast, so Trump can do the thing he loves: take the oil…

Media moves

Netflix is buying Warner Bros. motion picture and other assets, including HBO Max but sans CNN, winning the bidding war with the Ellisons (for now — they have run crying to Trump for help, so we’ll see how it shakes out.) This would put a gargantuan catalog of content in the hands of what used to be a company with street kiosks where you could rent and return movies. What a world. Personally, I’m glad Skydance lost. I’m always glad when Skydance loses. Here’s the USA Today story:

Netflix has agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s TV and film studios and streaming division for $72 billion, a blockbuster deal that would give the streaming pioneer control of one of Hollywood’s most prized and oldest assets.

The agreement, announced Friday, Dec. 5., follows a weekslong bidding war in which Netflix seized the lead with a nearly $28-a-share offer that eclipsed Paramount Skydance‘s nearly $24 bid for the whole of Warner Bros Discovery, including the cable TV assets slated for a spinoff.

Warner Bros. Discovery shares closed at $24.5 on Thursday, Dec. 4, giving it a market value of $61 billion.

Today’s must reads

A sad truth, courtesy of Contraband Camp: The Great Replacement conspiracy theory is now the official policy of the United States government…

Adam Serwer at The Atlantic asks: why Trump pays no price for overt racism.

At Salon, Amanda Marcotte names names in the MAGA Christian* right’s war on empathy.

And this feel good story shows what can happen when alumni jump in to save publications felled by Trump’s war on DEI.

More on all of this tonight on The Joy Reid Show.

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