President Trump on Tuesday vowed that he would bring new scrutiny to the Department of Justice’s handling of the killing of Ashli Babbitt by a Capitol police officer during the Jan 6, 2021 riot, and to explore the possibility of a compensation fund for the 1,500 Capitol riot defendants he pardoned.
Trump’s promises came in a Roosevelt Room interview with Newsmax’s Greg Kelly. When Kelly asked Trump about the DOJ continuing to mount a defense against a $30 million wrongful death claim filed by Babbitt’s husband, Trump said he wasn’t aware of it but would look into the matter:
“Well, I’ll look into that. I mean, you’re just telling me that for the first time, I haven’t heard that. I’m a big fan of Ashli Babbitt. And Ashli Babbitt was a really good person who was a big MAGA fan, Trump fan. And she was innocently standing there; they even say trying to sort of hold back the crowd. And a man did something to her that was unthinkable when he shot her. And I think it’s a disgrace. I’m going to look into that. I did not know that.”
Babbitt was shot and killed by US Capitol Police (USCP) Lieutenant Michael Byrd as she attempted to climb through a broken window that was part of an interior doorway close to the House chamber. Though the unarmed, 5’2″, 115-pound Babbitt posed no imminent threat of inflicting death or serious injury as she awkwardly navigated the narrow space — with a furniture barricade still ahead of her — Boyd opted against using any type of nonlethal force, and instead shot her from an ambush position, killing her with a bullet that perforated her trachea and lung.
Hellbound and Down 