BLM activist inside Capitol claims he was 'documenting' riots, once said 'burn it all down'
John Sullivan has previously called for 'revolution' and to 'rip Trump' out of his office
Former ICE acting director calls for a change in Capitol Police leadership after riot on 'The Daily Briefing'
An anti-Trump activist who once said he wanted to "rip" the president out of office entered the Capitol Building Wednesday alongside a mob of pro-Trump protesters, but he said he was just there to "document" it.
"There’s this narrative going around right now that Antifa
was the people there causing the riots, causing the tension, they were
the only people breaking into the Capitol, and I wanted to be able to
tell a part of history and show that that was anything but the case,"
John Sullivan, the founder of Utah-based Insurgence USA, told Fox News Thursday.
Insurgence USA describes itself as "the revolution." It began protesting racial injustice in policing last year following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
In
August 2020 remarks to a small crowd at a Washington, D.C.,
intersection, Sullivan pointed to the nearby White House and unleashed a
torrent of violent rhetoric. "We ... about to burn this s--- down," he
said. "We gotta ... rip Trump right out of that office right there," he
continued, adding, "We ain't about ... waiting until the next election."
He then led the crowd in a chant of, "It's time for revolution."
John Sullivan, the anti-Trump founder of Utah-based Insurgence
USA, said he entered the Capitol Building Wednesday alongside a mob of
pro-Trump protesters, but he said he was just there to "document."
Video of his remarks, which include graphic language, can be found here.
Sullivan
told Fox News he didn’t notice other left-wing activists inside the
building. But he added that he couldn’t know for sure without speaking
to everyone individually.
"As
far as being able to understand who is in the crowd, based on being
around protests a lot … I didn’t see any people who were originally at
BLM protests," he said.
Sullivan says he was standing near Air
Force veteran Ashli Babbitt when she was shot and killed in the Capitol,
and video appears to show him on the scene.
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Sullivan
told Fox News he regularly attends protests to record what’s going on,
including a clash involving Proud Boys on Tuesday near D.C.’s Black
Lives Matter Plaza.
"It’s just recording, solely, and not being
active in it," he claimed, although he reportedly was arrested in
connection with protests back in Utah over the summer and admitted
climbing into the Capitol through a window.
His Insurgence USA group’s website advertised an event called "Kick These Fascists out of DC" on Wednesday around the same time as a pro-Trump rally near the National Mall.
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After
the Trump rally, a mob of demonstrators breached the Capitol, ransacked
congressional offices, and stormed the Senate floor, prompting a chorus
of condemnations from members of both major parties. The breach
interrupted a joint session of Congress aimed at validating Joe Biden as
president-elect. Congress reconvened later in the evening and finished
the process.
Sullivan tweeted several videos taken inside the Capitol Wednesday. One contained an up-close view of the fatal shooting of Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, at a barricaded Capitol doorway. Police later said she’d been shot by an officer.
The
acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Michael Sherwin,
announced a slew of charges in connection with the chaos Thursday,
including for weapons possession, assault, and theft, and said more
would come.
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Sullivan's
Utah arrest was in connection with a protest where a different
protester allegedly shot a passing motorist during a confrontation,
according to the Deseret News.
Fox News’ Sam Dorman contributed to this report.
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