n 6 January 2021, Jerry Braun hailed an Uber in Washington DC and got in the car, nursing a bleeding eye wound. The Uber driver noticed and asked, “So, has it been violent all day?”

“Well it started around, right when I got there. I tore down the barricades,” Braun bragged.

The conversation, captured on video by the driver’s recording device installed on the dashboard, triggered a 15-month long investigation by the FBI. Earlier this month, on 12 April, Braun was finally arrested by federal authorities and charged with violent entry or disorderly conduct, obstruction during civil disorder, and entering and remaining on restricted grounds, according to an affidavit by Lucas Bauers, FBI special agent.

Related: January 6 ‘was a coup organized by the president’, says Jamie Raskin

Braun boasted openly to the Uber driver about his involvement in the deadly riots, which resulted in the deaths of five people. When he explained he’d torn down the barricades, the driver asked, “You did? Why?”

“Well, because, so we could get to the Capitol,” Braun replied.

The driver asked, “Well, how’d that work out for ya?”

“Well, it looks like, uh, Biden’s gonna be our president,” said Braun.

The Uber driver’s tip to the authorities identified Braun as “Jerry Last Name Unknown”, according to court documents. The car dropped him off at a Holiday Inn in Arlington, Virginia; authorities searched the booking records to discover that Braun had checked in as “JD Braun” on 5 January and checked out two days later. He had listed his phone number and an address in South El Monte, California.