If we are going to investigate the events of January 6, 2021, we should start with the killing of Ashli Babbitt.
Babbitt was shot by an unidentified law enforcement officer as she was crouched precariously in the framework of a broken interior window in the Capitol Building, located outside the Speaker’s Lobby off the House Floor. Babbitt was killed by the only shot fired that day and was the only documented fatality related directly to law enforcement activity. The identity of the officer who shot Babbitt remains a mystery.
Despite video evidence raising serious questions of excessive force, a Justice Department investigation determined there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against the officer who fired the fatal shot.
The DOJ, employing a strange double-negative phrasing, concluded that the investigation found “no evidence… the officer did not reasonably believe that it was necessary to do so in self-defense.”
Babbitt was 35 years old, an Air Force veteran who served in the military police. She was unarmed and not threatening anyone with violence. Had she been given the opportunity to surrender to police, she in all likelihood would have. But a policeman chose not to give her that chance.
Ashli Babbitt’s family plans to file a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Capitol Police, which may shed some light on the circumstances leading to the shooting. Meanwhile Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the DC government for Metropolitan Police Department and Office of the Chief Medical Examiner records concerning the killing. Judicial Watch seeks investigative reports, photographs, witness statements, dispatch logs, schematics, ballistics, video footage, and MPD officials’ electronic communications concerning Babbitt’s death, as well as autopsy reports, toxicology reports, notes, photographs, and OCME officials’ electronic communications. Previous such records requests have been ignored.
This is only one issue concerning January 6 that needs to be investigated, especially as the Democrats’ “armed insurrection” narrative begins to crumble. Pressure from a March 2021 Judicial Watch lawsuit helped lead to the disclosure that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes and not, as the media told us, from being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. Judicial Watch has sued the Pentagon and the U.S. Park Police for information on deployment of troops and warnings about the January 6 U.S. Capitol disturbance. Judicial Watch is also seeking Defense Department records about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s January 8, 2021, telephone call with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Army General Mark Milley, and Capitol Police emails and video related to January 6.
This is the type of information the public has a right to see to give full context to January 6 and address the important questions that have not been fully examined. For example, it remains an unanswered question why the Capitol Building was left wide open to trespass and police were seen on video even waving protesters inside. Perhaps the trials of people charged with crimes related to January 6 – some in jail waiting months for due process — will bring out more detailed information, video, photos and other evidence showing that the “insurrection” narrative has been vastly oversold.
At the same time, Republicans rightly blocked the proposed Congressional investigation into January 6, which would only have played to the most fantastic portrayals of the events. Bizarre comparisons to Pearl Harbor or the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks only show how desperate the proponents of that storyline have become.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s claim she is in therapy to deal with the “trauma” she incurred from supposedly being somewhere close to the disturbance speaks less to the riot and more to her unfitness for office. The most significant threat to democracy from January 6 is the way it is being used to extend and expand the five-year Deep State anti-Trump vendetta. Some in Congress seek to use the events of January 6th to effectively criminalize “all-things-Trump.”
Had Babbitt been shot down by police at a Black Lives Matter demonstration you can imagine the response from progressives and the media. Would the name of the police officer who shot Babbitt still be a mystery? Hardly!
Yet comments from critics on the Justice for Ashli Babbitt Twitter page show no sympathy at all for the “terrorist” bent on “assassination” who was “eliminated.” These unfortunate, gaslit people need to understand that simply being a Trump supporter does not merit a death sentence. Whether Ashli Babbitt can actually receive justice is an important test of America’s political future.
