A Black Lives Matter activist who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 has been indicted, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday (Jan. 14). Pictured is a file photo of John Sullivan at the Utah County Jail. (Utah County Jail)
A Black Lives Matter activist who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 has been indicted, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday (Jan. 14).
John Sullivan, 26, told FBI agents last week that he was at the Capitol when the breach occurred, a court filing released Thursday by the Justice Department said. He said he entered through a window that had been broken. He also said he was present when Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed by U.S. Capitol police as he tried to climb through a window into the House chamber.
The Justice Department charged Sullivan with four counts of incitement to violence, interference with police, unlawful entry and violent entry.
Sullivan was interviewed by FBI agents in Washington, D.C., and admitted that he participated in the “Stop Vote Theft” march on the 6th, but argued that he was an activist and a journalist who filmed the protest and riots, but he did not have any press credentials.
The video evidence mentioned in court documents shows that Sullivan was lying.
As Sullivan and others broke through the final barricade at the Capitol, he shouted in the video, “(There are) so many of us. Let us go. This (expletive, referring to Congress) is ours! Let’s take care of this (expletive, referring to Congress). We’ll fix it together. (expletive) We’re all a part of this history. Let’s burn this (expletive, referring to Congress) down.”
The video also shows Sullivan entering the Capitol and wandering around inside all the time, and at one point when he’s talking to someone, he says, “We’ve got to burn this (expletive, referring to Congress) down.” He also said, “This is our House (expletive).”
At one point, Sullivan also warned police officers inside Congress to stand down so they wouldn’t get hurt, according to court documents. He tried to intimidate and convince police officers guarding the Capitol floor to go home, saying, “We want you to go home. I’m recording, there’s so many people (outside), they’re going to push to crowd here. Brother, I saw people get hurt out there. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
And as the protesting crowd tried to open the door to another part of the Capitol, Sullivan asked the crowd to let him walk to the door, saying, “Hey, guys, I got a knife.” But then, he denied to federal agents that he had entered the Capitol with a knife.
Agents also referred to a video obtained of Sullivan himself posted on YouTube from a protest he attended in Washington, D.C., where he told those in attendance through a microphone, “We’re going to burn this place (expletive) down,” and “We’re going to rip Trump (Trump) out of office …… (expletive) pull him out of there (expletive, referring to the White House) …… we’re not going to wait until the next election …… we’re going to get that (expletive, referring to Trump) “. Sullivan can then be seen leading the crowd in chanting, “It’s time for a revolution.”
The agents said the materials serve as background briefings as well as proof of Sullivan’s intent and evidence of his actions in entering Congress on the 6th.
Sullivan has also been interviewed by many media outlets, including CNN and ABC, in the wake of the violence in Congress.
He said in an interview with the Epoch Times on September 9 that he had taken protective measures and blended into the crowd, so he was not “beaten. But he denied that he was a member of Antifa.
He told The Epoch Times that he was aware of plans to storm the Capitol on the 6th, and that he had seen them in “private chats. He did post information about the plans on social media, but did not notify law enforcement. “I’m not a whistleblower,” he said.
Utah’s KUTV2 host Heidi Hatch revealed in a 7 tweet (click here) that Sullivan recorded the video at the 6 protest and may have sold it to the news station; however, he is a known instigator of protests in Utah and other states that have emerged.
In an interview with the station on the 7th, Sullivan said, “The protesters weren’t really (protesters), didn’t make like an attempt to burn anything, they weren’t really trying to destroy anything, their main motivation was to get into the Legislature.”
In addition, common hashtags in Sullivan’s social media Instagram feed include: black lives matter, Antifa, smash and burn, disband police and insulting words attacking Trump.
Sullivan has also publicly posted in support of Black Lives Matter and founded a left-wing group called Insurgence USA in Utah.
The group was implicated in a June 2020 murder in Provo, Utah. Sullivan organized a pro-police civil disturbance in Provo last June that resulted in one person being shot and injured.
Sullivan was arrested by Utah State Police last July 10 and charged with rioting as a member of Black Lives Matter and with criminal threatening. The case is still pending.
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