Who is John Sullivan, accused provocateur charged in Capitol riot?
nypost.com/2021/01/15/who-is-john-sullivan-accused-provocateur-charged-in-capitol-riot
By Lia EustachewichJanuary 15, 2021
The self-styled civil rights activist charged in the US Capitol riots is a former Olympic speed skater wannabe
— and alleged conman accused of trying to sabotage left-wing movements under the name “Activist John.”
The checkered past of John Sullivan
— the Utah man who claimed he embedded himself among the pro-Trumpers to record the storming of the Capitol last week
— has many questioning the black, left-wing activist’s true motive.
The 26-year-old competed in the 2018 Olympic trials and appeared in a 2016 commercial for Uber that’s since been made private. At one point, his Twitter page was filled with posts about fulfilling his skating dreams.
But somewhere along the way, Sullivan shifted his sights to activism.
He founded Insurgence USA, a protest group for “racial justice and police reform,” and began referring to himself as “Activist John” — filling his Twitter feeds with anti-President Trump rhetoric and posts supporting Black Lives Matter, as well as about his participation in recent protests.
He documented his day infiltrating the Jan. 6 MAGA riot on his account, @realjaydenx, posting snippets of the footage he shot on his phone of the chaos inside the Capitol building
— and the fatal shooting of QAnon supporter Ashli Babbitt.
Sullivan also retweeted the numerous media stories that picked up his account of what happened that day, including Rolling Stone, which interviewed him for a story that published a day before his arrest.
“I was worried about people recognizing me and thinking that I was Antifa or, like, BLM or whatever,” he told the outlet. “The entire time they’re yelling, ‘F— Antifa! F—, BLM.’ I’m not saying I’m Antifa, by any means. But I definitely believe Black Lives Matter.”
But in Sullivan’s own videos, he can be heard enthusiastically egging on the saboteurs, at one point yelling, “It’s our house, motherf—ers!”
His true motives have already been called into question by leftist activist groups online, including Rebellion Baby, which tweeted an extensive takedown accusing him of being an “infiltrator/agent provocateur.”
1/