Here we go again. Something terrible happened in America, and now agitators on both ends of our political spectrum are oh so eager to blame the other side. A scarcity of information is no impediment in that blame game.

It's been nearly five years since pipe bombs were placed outside of the Washington, DC, offices of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee the night before Jan. 6, 2021, in the hours before President Donald Trump unleashed MAGA mayhem on the Capitol, with his refusal to accept his 2020 presidential election defeat.

The FBI on Dec. 4 finally made an arrest, charging Brian Cole of Woodbridge, Virginia with two counts of transporting and placing explosive devices.

That's the good news here – the arrest affidavit shows that investigators traced a trail of evidence to Cole through alleged "purchases of bombmaking equipment," cell phone records about his location and financial records that place him near the scene where the bombs were planted.

Cole will now get his day in court. But the judgment about who placed the bombs and why was rendered months ago.

Trump was peddling pipe bomb conspiracy theories long before this arrest

We know that, because President Donald Trump and the two men he appointed to lead the FBI, Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, told us long before Cole was taken into custody.

They've been pushing claims for years, without offering any evidence, that the FBI knew exactly who placed the bombs, and that it was either some anti-Trump activist or an inside job by government agents. Either way, and without offering proof, Trump, Patel and Bongino told us this was all a big cover-up.

Trump, delivering a speech in Nashville in the summer of 2022, complained bitterly about congressional oversight from a committee looking into the Jan. 6 insurrection that he sparked.

"Remember the pipe bomber?" Trump said then. "They have his picture. They have everything. They know what he looks like. And they never found him."

Speaking in Florida in January, two weeks before being sworn in for his second term, Trump was more direct, claiming that the FBI knew who the pipe bomber was and that Patel, along with Pam Bondi, his pick for attorney general, would crack the case.

Then, in an April interview with Fox News, after three months in office, Trump made this claim about the political leanings of the pipe bomber: "That pipe bomber is not a person of the right. It's a person on the left."

Patel and Bongino, who both worked as conspiracy theory promoters while Trump was out of office, went even further.

Patel, appearing in January 2024 on a right-wing podcast that was later documented to be secretly funded by Russian state media, claimed that "government gangsters" were hiding information about the pipe bomber while also suggesting a "FBI rogue source" could be the bomber.

Bongino, on his podcast in November, nine days after Trump won the 2024 election, claimed there were only two options to explain the bombs: that they were placed by someone opposed to Trump, or that they were an "inside job" by the government. Either way, he said without offering proof, he saw "a massive cover-up."

"Those bombs were planted there," Bongino said then. "This was a setup. I have zero doubt."

The 'inside job' call is coming from inside Kash Patel and Dan Bongino's house

Let's pause here to consider a world where Patel and Bongino were right all along. If the FBI were covering this all up, they've been in charge of the agency for nearly a year now. Why so slow on the job, fellas, when you knew all along how the pieces of this puzzle fit together?

What we know for sure is that Patel and Bongino take great offense at being accurately quoted from their time spouting conspiracy theories. That came up as a concern when Democrats in the Senate questioned whether their histories of making unsubstantiated claims would impact their ability to lead the FBI.

Patel was questioned about Bongino's "inside job" claims during a September hearing held by the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee. In response, Patel whined that he found it "disgusting" that anyone would question him about things he and Bongino said before they arrived at the FBI.

That's a standing mandate of MAGA: Always play the victim when asked legitimate questions, so the refusal to give honest answers can be presented as some sort of political perseverance.

Bondi, with Patel standing next to her on Dec. 4 as the charges against Cole were announced, also tried to shift responsibility to President Joe Biden's administration for a "total lack of movement on this case," insisting it "undermined the public trust of our enforcement agencies."

That's another standing mandate for MAGA: Never acknowledge hypocrisy. Patel and Bongino spent plenty of time undermining trust in the FBI before Trump put them in charge. Bondi would never fault them for that.

The attorney general didn't explain why it took nearly a year into Trump's second term for the FBI to crack a case that Patel and Bongino had previously presented as a slam dunk if only someone at the FBI would slam-dunk it.

I have no idea if Cole planted those bombs. If he did, I don't know what motive could have driven him. I expect we'll learn more about that as his case works its way through the courts.

I'd like to think some justice finally being delivered here would reinforce, not further denigrate, American trust in federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI.

But with Trump, Bondi, Patel and Bongino so eagerly and often spreading unsubstantiated allegations for political gain rather than evidence-based information for the good of the public, that doesn't seem likely any time soon.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Team Trump's blame game for Jan. 6 pipe bombs preceded arrest | Opinion

Reporting by Chris Brennan, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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