Mainstream media unwritten rule No. 3,459: When in doubt, just say the suspect in a politically loaded crime is a white man. In fact, even when not in doubt, you can probably get away with it.
Lest you needed any evidence for the validity of this unwritten rule, I refer you to CNN’s Jake Tapper. On Thursday, authorities arrested a man they said was responsible for the unsolved attempted Jan. 6, 2021 pipe bombings of both Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Virginia man Brian Cole Jr., 30, now faces charges of attempted destruction of buildings and transporting explosive materials across state lines, The New York Times reported, perhaps ending one of the most enduring mysteries of the day when the 2020 presidential election was certified by Congress and when the Capitol incursion occurred.
Needless to say, this would have been huge for the left if the suspect was some kind of mouth-breathing right-wing stereotype — so much so that, over on CNN, Jake Tapper wasn’t even going to wait for the facts to make his case for it.
“After nearly five years of investigation, the FBI finally announced that they had arrested a suspect, as suspect accused of planting pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack. Brian Cole Jr., a 30-year-old white man from the D.C. suburbs is charged with transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and with malicious destruction by means of explosions,” Tapper said.
“CNN observed local and federal law enforcement outside his home in Woodbridge, Virginia this morning. Attorney General Pam Bondi gave very few details about the suspect this morning, but said this cold case has been solved.”
CNN, meanwhile, set about the difficult task of solving the race of the person who was charged. Nick Sortor did him a favor by overlaying his photo:
🚨 WTF?! CNN’s Jake Tapper just went out of his way to LIE and call the J6 pipe bomb a “WHITE MAN”
CNN REFUSED to show a picture of the alleged bomber—who is clearly a BLACK MAN—so I overlayed a photo of him on their clip
CNN can’t help themselves but push anti-white rhetoric pic.twitter.com/Y4UJVjbT8A
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 5, 2025
Well now, that’s certainly the most melanated white man I’ve ever seen. Granted, it was a superimposition by Sortor, but still — if you don’t know the suspect’s race, CNN, you don’t have to say it. And if you do say it — as a kind of Freudian slip, say — you can quickly retract it.
The great irony, too, is that later in the same hour — according to CNN’s transcript of Thursday’s broadcast — an in-depth report placing blame upon The Blaze for saying that “a forensic analysis of a female former U.S. Capitol Police officer’s gait is a 94 percent to 98 percent match to the unique stride of the long sought January 6th pipe bomb” was aired later in the hour.
There were plenty of words wasted on that, including bringing on Will Sommer from NeverTrumper outlet The Bulwark to discuss the perfidies of “right wing media.”
I mention this because, of all the words wasted during that hour, do you know how many time the words “black” or “African-American,” or even “person of color” were mentioned? Zero. Not even as a clarification. Nor was there a clarification that he wasn’t white during the broadcast.
But they did have reporter Brian Todd at the scene, who had “got new information from neighbors about their interactions with him, but also one dramatic account from one neighbor who witnessed the convergence of law enforcement on his house firsthand this morning from fairly close.” Apparently, that neighbor or Todd was unwilling or unable to correct Tapper’s characterization of the suspect.t
Not that there needed to a clarification. A picture says a thousand words, or one word that a CNN anchor will spend a thousand words trying to dance around.
In fact, as Benny Johnson noted, there was a lot that CNN danced around which became clear as the afternoon went on:
The January 6th pipe bomber terrorist was…
– a young black guy
– radical anti-Trump activist
– sued Trump & ICE & DHS
– extreme racial justice advocate
– works at his family bail bonds company that frees criminal aliens from ICE custodyYeah, this explains exactly why the FBI… pic.twitter.com/qfA5E59atg
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 5, 2025
Now, perhaps Cole is 1) not the perpetrator, 2) some kind of secret right-winger, or even 3) both. Innocent until proven guilty, etc. CNN can say this whist saying the obvious: He’s not a white man.
Naturally, they didn’t — and in service of a cause we can all guess, I would imagine. Why else mention his race, after all, unless it’s to perpetuate a narrative? And as for the facts, let them not get in the way, even if Tapper comes across like a stone fool to anyone who knows the facts.
Then again, this doesn’t look any different than the establishment media’s multifarious non-stop dishonesty: an oddly white black suspect, “fiery but mostly peaceful protests,” “those are cheap fakes of Biden,” they’re all of the same genus.
They can’t control their dishonesty, and sometimes it erupts like a deceit-filled volcano for the whole world to see.
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