During the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, Sullivan entered the building with documentary filmmaker Jade Sacker and took extensive video, including video of the shooting of Ashli Babbitt. Sullivan could be heard saying "Dude, this shit's gonna go viral" after Babbit's death. Sacker, a Los Angeles-based independent documentary filmmaker, was filming John Sullivan as part of a documentary on him and his brother, James. Sullivan's own recording is a first-person documentary film, that he released on Youtube under the title "Shooting and Storming of the US Capitol in Washington DC". J. Hoberman, a film critic writing in "Artforum", reviewed Sullivan's film, describing it as "cinema as forensic evidence" and comparing it to the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination, while also characterizing it as a "gonzo reportage". Parts of the footage were used in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.