WASHINGTON — A Utah man who filmed the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, was convicted Thursday on all counts for joining the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol.
A jury deliberated for approximately four hours before finding John Earle Sullivan, 29, guilty on seven counts. Sullivan was charged with four felony counts, including two for carrying a knife into the Capitol, along with multiple misdemeanors. After hearing the jury's verdict, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered Sullivan into custody to await sentencing.
During four days of testimony, federal prosecutors painted a picture of Sullivan as an anti-establishment agitator who was more than happy to insert himself into the chaos of Jan. 6 to achieve his political goals. Jurors saw Sullivan enthusiastically joining in the mob — including helping another rioter scale a wall outside the Capitol and on two occasions offering up his knife to others who were attempting to get through barricaded doors.
Sullivan, a former Olympic speed skating hopeful who transitioned into activism in 2020, gambled that he could take the stand and convince the jury he was acting as a citizen journalist who put himself in harm’s way to document a historic moment. Sullivan said he began recording civil unrest in 2020 amid the nationwide protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. It was then he incorporated his company, Insurgence USA, in Utah. On Jan. 6, Sullivan was being followed by a photographer, Jade Sacker, who was making a documentary film about the political divisions between Sullivan and his brother, James, who is a right-wing activist.
Sacker’s footage, which was played for the jury earlier in the week when she was called as a defense witness, shows Sullivan wearing a ballistic vest and using a bullhorn to repeatedly call out support for the crowd. At one point he can be heard yelling, “We’re about to burn this s*** down!” At another point, as a group of rioters including several members of the Proud Boys breaks through a police line, Sullivan shouts, “This is our f***ing house!”
During his testimony Wednesday, Sullivan said he shouted those things as a means of blending in with the crowd because he feared for his life if members of the mob believed he was recording evidence of them committing crimes.
“Part of blending in is being a neutral observer,” Sullivan said. “What is being a neutral observer but being one of them?”
Later, inside the Capitol, Sullivan can be seen shouting that he has a knife – and holding up what appears to be a knife – as he tries to reach the front lines where rioters are attempting to push past police and break down a door. Sullivan said he did that, too, to protect himself.
“It’s all with the intention to get my shot and keep myself safe,” he said.
While other Jan. 6 defendants have blamed police, or inflamed passions, or even the former president, Sullivan banked his entire defense strategy on the claim that he was acting as a journalist on Jan. 6. During closing arguments, his attorney, Steven Kiersh, said Sullivan would have to be a “crazy person” to film his entire time inside the Capitol if he intended to disrupt Congress.
“If a person was going to commit multiple intentional felonies, would that person bring a camera and record everything they were doing for 50 consecutive minutes?” Kiersh asked.
In their own closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rebekah Lederer and Michael Barclay said that’s exactly what Sullivan would do if – as jurors heard him saying himself on Sacker’s footage – it was a “ploy” to avoid being arrested.
“The only thing more offensive than the story the defendant is telling you is the request to believe it,” Lederer said.
During cross-examination, Leder worked to dismantle Sullivan’s claims of being a member of the Black Lives Matter movement and a journalist. She noted he’d been run out of the Utah and Portland activists communities and quoted a November 2020 message to the Seattle protest community warning others about his “grifting/profiteering, self-promotion/clout chasing, sabotage of community actions” and his brother’s ties to the Proud Boys.
Lederer also played jurors a clip Sullivan recorded of himself inside a D.C. hotel room on Dec. 14, 2020. In the clip, Sullivan responds to a question from someone watching his stream about whether he is a journalist.
“I don’t make money off of it so I don’t consider myself a journalist,” Sullivan said.
Once the verdict was read, prosecutors asked for Sullivan to be held in custody, with Barclay arguing the jury had found he'd attempted to incite the mob on Jan. 6. Kiersh opposed, but Lamberth granted the Justice Department's request.
Lamberth, who was nominated to the federal bench by former President Ronald Reagan in 1987, said a sentencing date for Sullivan would be set at a later date.
Sullivan showed no reaction as the verdict was read. He waved to his mother, who sat in the public gallery for the entire trial, as he was led into custody by U.S. Marshals.