First Jan. 6 rioter to breach the Capitol spent months regurgitating Trump's election lies

WASHINGTON — The very first rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol is on trial this week, with federal prosecutors laying out extensive evidence that he bought into and regurgitated the lies being spread by Republican politicians, some conservative news outlets and former President Donald Trump about his 2020 election loss.

Michael Sparks, who worked at an electronics and components plant in Kentucky before the Capitol attack, faces six charges, including felony obstruction of an official proceeding and obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder. Sparks was the first rioter to enter the building, jumping through a broken window smashed in by Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola on the Senate side and then joining the mob that chased a lone Capitol Police officer up the stairs towards the floor of the Senate as members fled the chamber.

Sparks has pleaded not guilty and is taking his case to trial, but the defense is not disputing that he is the individual featured in extensive images and photographs that day. Sparks himself reached out to law enforcement in the aftermath of the attack after seeing he was wanted for questioning.

“This is our America!” Sparks allegedly yelled at officers after he joined the mob chasing Eugene Goodman up the stairs toward the Senate chamber. “This is our America!”

A jury was impaneled in the case on Monday, and testimony in the case got underway before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly on Tuesday. Kelly, a Trump appointee, has overseen numerous Jan. 6 trials and handed out the longest Capitol riot sentence to date: 22 years in federal prison for former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio.

Sparks’ co-defendant and former co-worker, Joseph Howe, took a plea deal last year, admitting that he grabbed a police shield from a Capitol Police officer; grabbed a bike rack barricade; stole a police baton; pushed another Capitol Police officer as the mob overran law enforcement and made its way into the building; and deployed a fire extinguisher inside the Capitol that struck another Capitol Police officer directly in the face. Howe was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison.

In testimony in Sparks' case on Tuesday, a federal prosecutor questioned FBI Special Agent Steven Nestoryak about the bureau's investigation into Sparks. Nestoryak, who joined the investigation into Sparks about a year ago, walked through a series of social media posts and text messages the bureau connected to Sparks showing how he became radicalized after repeatedly reading false claims from Trump and others about the 2020 election Trump lost.

While some falsely claimed that rioters like Sparks who first breached the Capitol were members of "antifa," the evidence demonstrates that Sparks and his fellow rioters were Trump supporters. Nestoryak testified about social media posts that show Sparks, who joined Facebook in 2016, was convinced that Trump was going to win even before all the results came in.

"Trump will win by a landslide. It won’t even be close,” Sparks wrote as election results were still being gathered, predicting that Trump would secure 293 electoral college votes (Trump got 232 electoral college votes, while Joe Biden received 306 and the presidency).

"Trump will win when all the dust settles," Sparks wrote in the aftermath of Election Day 2020. "Calm down everyone, Trump is going to be your president!"

But after the networks called the election for Biden on Nov. 7, 2020, prosecutors say, Sparks began to change his tune.

"Wouldn't it be something if 70 million came to arms," Sparks wrote in one post showed to the jury.

"We the people are with you 70 million strong. Let us know if we need [to] bear arms," he wrote in another.

By Nov. 9, records show, Sparks had joined Parler, the now-defunct social media website that catered to right-wing users. There, Sparks followed some of his favorite right-wing media figures: Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Tucker Carlson and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. "Trump 2020," Sparks wrote in his first post on the site.

Back over on Facebook, Sparks was sharing a story by Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard, outlining (soon debunked) claims that the Trump campaign was making about purported fraud in Nevada.

Evidence shows that Sparks came to Washington on Dec. 12, 2020, where he watched and recorded a speech by "MyPillow Guy" Mike Lindell, who was recently ordered by a judge to pay a fellow Trump voter $5 million for winning Lindell's "Prove Mike Wrong" challenge, debunking his claims about the 2020 election.

On Dec. 17, 2020, Sparks posted a story from the right-wing Epoch Times, which repeated the claims of Sidney Powell, the far-right former Trump attorney who recently pleaded guilty in the Georgia election interference case brought by District Attorney Fani Willis. Powell also appears to be an un-indicted co-conspirator in the election interference case brought against Trump by Jack Smith, and an indictment says Trump "privately acknowledged to others" that Powell's election fraud claims "sounded ‘crazy.’”

By Dec. 20, 2020, the day after Trump's infamous "will be wild" tweet inviting his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6, Sparks was posting about Rep. Matt Gaetz's, R-Fla., plan to challenge Electoral College votes, a plan that Gaetz laid out at a Turning Points USA summit in Florida. On Facebook, records show, Sparks' rhetoric was getting more extreme.

"Drag these clowns out of office," Sparks wrote in late December 2020, according to evidence presented in his case Tuesday. "How about we the people drag you out by your face," Sparks wrote on Christmas Eve, posting images of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

By the beginning of 2021, Sparks was using Parler to openly call for "war," prosecutors say.

“Yes we want a civil war to be clear," Sparks wrote on Jan. 1, 2021. The next day, Sparks shared a post from the right-wing website Western Journal that laid out a purported "Path to Victory" for Trump on Jan. 6 and said he was willing to die for the cause.

“The votes were stolen. You will have time to fight for what you believe in,” Sparks wrote on Facebook that day. “As for me I believe in the constitution so I’ll die fir it [sic]. Trump is my president."

On Jan. 3, 2021, Sparks wrote on Facebook that it was "time to drag them out of Congress." The next day, Sparks told a friend that those who were going to the Capitol planned for violence. “We’re going to drag congress out by there face if need be," Sparks wrote in a text shown in court Tuesday. "We are in tyranny. So yes daddy going."

The night before the Capitol attack, Sparks' mom was worried, according to evidence shown by prosecutors. "Be careful. Be smart. Love you. See you soon," she wrote in a text to Sparks on Jan. 5. The morning of Jan. 6, before Sparks became the first rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol during the deadly attack, she told her son to behave himself.

While numerous Jan. 6 defendants have said they now see that they were misled and that the purported evidence Trump and his allies claimed they had about the 2020 election never materialized, prosecutors said that Sparks' lightbulb moment hadn't come even a year after the attack. His current beliefs about the 2020 election aren't clear.

"They are trying to hide Everything but there are a ton of court cases going on," Sparks wrote on Jan. 9, 2022. "I truly believe they are going to expose the fraudulent election."