WASHINGTON — A documentary filmmaker who was following a Utah man when he entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, took the witness stand Tuesday as a key defense witness.
The trial for John Earle Sullivan, 29, began last week in D.C. District Court. He faces felony charges of obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder, as well as multiple misdemeanors for unlawfully entering the Capitol.
Sullivan, an activist with a history of involvement with both the racial justice movement and the Proud Boys, has claimed for years he was a journalist on Jan. 6 who entered the building to document a historic moment. At the time, Sullivan was being followed by a documentarian named Jade Sacker who was producing a film about the political divisions between him and his brother, James, who is also an activist on the political right. Sacker entered the building right behind Sullivan on Jan. 6 but has not been charged in connection with the riot.
On Tuesday, Sullivan’s attorney, Steven Kiersh, called Sacker to the stand. Sacker, 25, said she met Sullivan at the 2020 vice presidential debate in Utah and soon thereafter began working on the film about him and his brother. The film, titled “A House Divided,” has yet to be released.
Sacker, who said she previously worked as a conflict photographer, was hesitant to describe Sullivan as a journalist. Instead, she agreed with Kiersh’s characterization that Sullivan was an “archivist” – which she described as someone who films events for later use by others. Sacker said Sullivan had told her prior to Jan. 6 he thought people would storm the Capitol and that he wanted to be there to film it.
“He wanted to document whatever was going to happen that day,” she said. “It was going to be a historic day.”
Although she was Sullivan’s witness, Sacker spent far more time on the stand under cross-examination by the government. During questioning from prosecutors, Sacker appeared reticent at times to provide details that could reflect negatively on Sullivan and frequently claimed to have gaps in her memory of Jan. 6. Sacker denied knowing Sullivan had a knife with him on Jan. 6, despite a prosecutor confronting her with an interview she’d done afterward saying he’d carried one. She also denied having heard Sullivan say he was going to record inside the building as a “ploy” – even going so far as to say she didn’t think he’d used that word. Prosecutors then played a clip from her own footage in which he said just that.
“I think it’s just like a good ploy because I don’t want to get arrested,” Sullivan can be heard telling Sacker shortly before they entered the building through a broken window.
Sacker was also initially unwilling to characterize Sullivan’s political beliefs in detail. She said at the time he identified as more on the left wing of the spectrum, but also acknowledged, eventually, his anti-establishment views. A prosecutor eventually asked her pointedly if Sullivan wanted a revolution on Jan. 6.
“Yeah, I would say definitely at the time…” Sacker said.
After being presented with a recording of a conversation after leaving the Capitol, Sacker also acknowledged she'd told Sullivan he'd gotten the revolution he wanted and he'd bragged he "knew where to incite violence."
Because bother Sacker and Sullivan were recording both outside and inside of the Capitol, prosecutors have largely been able to present their case through his own words. Jurors have seen Sullivan use a bullhorn to repeatedly attempt to stir up the crowd. At one point he’s heard yelling, “We’re about to burn this s*** down!” At another, 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!”
Later on, Sullivan tells other rioters, “It’s a motherf***ing revolution. Let’s take this s***.”
Inside the building, Sullivan joined the mob attempting to get past police lines to where members of Congress were. Once he was stopped and forced to back up by an officer, Sullivan struck a different tune.
“I’m just recording events,” he said.
Sulivan himself briefly took the stand Tuesday evening before the end of the day. The majority of his testimony was expected to come Wednesday morning when the trial resumed.
In addition to conviction on the criminal counts against him, prosecutors are seeking forfeiture of approximately $90,000 Sullivan made from selling his footage of the Jan. 6 riot. The government seized the funds from Sullivan in May 2021 at the same time they sought a superseding indictment in his case.