He’s a wannabe music star who boasts about being an insurrectionist in social media accounts filled with curse-filled rants against former President Donald Trump.
You would think the Jan. 6 march on the Capitol would be the last place to find John Earle Sullivan, yet the 27-year-old was seen continuously spurring on violence that day by pushing the crowd forward. He was just feet away from veteran Ashli Babbitt when she was shot dead by a Capitol Police officer outside the House chamber, court records show, and he even sold video he shot of the incident for $90,000.
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But unlike some 80 other individuals who have been imprisoned for up to 300 days for storming the Capitol, Sullivan has been allowed to go home to Utah while awaiting a trial date on eight criminal counts. One of the protesters who has been in jail the longest, Kenneth Harrelson, is accused of pushing into the Capitol behind a mob. He stayed inside 18 minutes, walking around and taking photographs, and has not been accused of any violence in court documents reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
In contrast, Sullivan carried a knife into the Capitol and offered to use it, broke a window, and ordered officers to leave their posts where he would soon film Babbitt getting shot.
“He was head of a group Insurgence USA, which sounds like antifa and Black Lives Matter,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told the Washington Examiner. “John Sullivan is a professional rioter, and he is actually being treated really well in the two-tiered justice system in America. Democrats are not going to punish their own, which is why he is walking around free.”
Greene recently toured the Washington, D.C., jail, referred to by prisoners there as the “D.C. Gulag.” She claimed Jan. 6 prisoners are denied medical care, visitors, religious freedom, and basic grooming standards such as haircuts. Greene and other Republican House members co-authored a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser demanding the firing of the jail’s assistant warden over the inhumane treatment of prisoners.
As for Sullivan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Candice Wong asked two different federal judges to keep the fledgling singer known as Jayden X in custody, saying he was a danger to society.
Criminal charges have been filed in Utah against Sullivan for his role in an anti-police protest on June 29, 2020, that resulted in someone getting shot, according to court documents.
“Vehicles were damaged by protesters as well as by John Sullivan,” the Deseret News said, quoting a police affidavit. “John Sullivan is heard and seen promoting protesters to block roadways, keeping motorists from traveling lawfully and freely.”
Sullivan also allegedly threatened to beat a woman in a car, kicked her door, and then was seen associating with the alleged shooter, the newspaper said.
At the Capitol riot, Sullivan was accused of multiple confrontations with officers and making “consistently gleeful exhortations about burning and breaking things throughout the building and its grounds,” according to a court brief filed Feb. 4, 2021.
His criminal complaint is filled with expletive-laden quotes from the 50-minute video he shot and later sold to media outlets for $90,000.
Among his comments: “There are so many people. Let’s go. This s*** is ours! F*** yeah,” and “That’s what I’m sayin’, break that s***” when someone banged on a door. At least twice, he threatened to burn down the building, stating, “We gotta get this s*** burned,” and “Let’s burn this s*** down!”
Sullivan was arrested on Jan. 14, 2021, in his home state of Utah. The next day, a federal judge refused to allow a hearing aimed at keeping Sullivan in jail until his trial. Instead, he was released to home confinement with an ankle monitoring device. He was also forbidden from accessing social media sites and running his organization Insurgence USA, according to court documents.
The order specifically told him to stay off Twitter, where his account has been a curse-filled running diatribe against Trump. The judicial order was violated four times, but he remains free.
“I don’t know why this man is walking around,” Greene said. “He organized and incited violence, literally like a commander telling people what to do. Then videotaped Ashli Babbitt’s death and profited. This is one of the worst people I’ve heard about.”
She then criticized the Jan. 6 committee in the House for not focusing on Sullivan.
“Why hasn’t [Rep.] Liz Cheney subpoenaed his records? Why isn’t [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi saying his name every second?” Greene asked.
On Monday, Sullivan appeared on a YouTube program hosted by journalist Steffanie Rivers as a reflection on the events of a year ago. Sullivan defended his actions as a working journalist who documents large protests.
“They are terrorists of Trump, seeking to overthrow our country. That’s why I went to the Capitol, just to expose them and hold them accountable,” Sullivan said. “My footage put probably 300 people in jail, and I did what I set out to do. … It was scary because I was surrounded by white supremacists and people are racist.”
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When asked if he regretted filming Babbitt’s dying moments, he said: “I told it exactly the way I wanted it to be told. I’m disappointed in America, more so everyone who is a Trump supporter and at that Capitol and the way they conducted themselves and hatred toward the police and beating a cop with the American flag. I don’t regret anything at all.”
