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| Trump gives this terrorist compensation. |
Michael Byrd was a good cop. He saved the lives of 535 lawmakers, a residential commissioner and five non voting delegates.
Insurrectionist's family gets a settlement from the U.S.
President Donald J. Trump not only pardon and commuted the sentences of those terrorists but decided to pay the family of Ashli Babbitt.
The Trump administration is set to pay out nearly $5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, a rioter fatally shot during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News on Monday.
The settlement will resolve a $30 million suit brought by Babbitt's estate and the conservative group Judicial Watch alleging the Capitol Police officer who shot her as she attempted to breach a broken window of the House speaker's lobby was negligent in his duties.
Babbitt was fatally shot during the attack on the United States Capitol. She was part of a crowd of supporters of then outgoing president Trump who stormed the United States Capitol building seeking to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
Despite multiple warnings not to proceed, Babbitt attempted to climb through a shattered window beside a barricaded door into the Speaker's Lobby and was thwarted when she was shot in the shoulder by a United States Capitol Police (USCP) officer.
After a USCP emergency response team administered aid, Babbitt was transported to Washington Hospital Center, where she died. The USCP deemed the shooting was "lawful and within Department policy" and "potentially saved Members (of Congress) and staff from serious injury and possible death".
Babbitt has been considered a martyr by Trump supporters, and by Trump himself.
When the far right claims that George Floyd died of a drug overdose.
We should say Ashli Babbitt died of falling back from a broken window.
In 2016, she faced criminal charges of reckless endangerment in Maryland after she allegedly repeatedly smashed her SUV into a vehicle being driven by a former girlfriend of Aaron Babbitt. Citing ongoing harassment, the victim obtained multiple judicial orders forbidding Ashli any contact with her.
According to her brother, Babbitt became frustrated with such issues as the number of homeless people in San Diego and the difficulties of running a small business. As she struggled professionally, she came to embrace the radical right. On July 1, 2019, a judge issued a $71,000 judgment against her pool business for failing to repay a loan; around the same time, she supported Donald Trump and started following and promoting conspiracy theories.nIn November 2019, Babbitt tweeted about Pizzagate, a conspiracy theory that senior Democrats were operating a child sex-trafficking ring. By February 2020, Babbitt publicly supported QAnon, a broader far-right conspiracy theory that expanded Pizzagate's claims by adding the concept of a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshipping child abusers whom Trump is secretly fighting.
One customer recalled having stopped doing business with Babbitt's company in 2020, after Babbitt unexpectedly delivered a political rant over the telephone.
Babbitt was highly active on social media through her now defuncted X handle @CommonAshSense. She seldom posted original content: most of her posts were retweets, frequently of messages from conservative and right-wing figures like Michael Flynn and Jack Posobiec, and conservative news sites like Right Side Broadcasting.
According to Marc-André Argentino, a researcher studying QAnon and other extremist groups, Babbitt was not "a leader or major influencer within the QAnon movement", and was not involved in selling QAnon-themed merchandise. She had nonetheless tweeted regularly about the conspiracy theory since February 2020. Babbitt posted about 50 times a day on Twitter; on Election Day, she posted 77 times.
After the election, Babbitt rejected the results and began supporting the Stop the Steal movement. On January 1, 2021, Babbitt announced plans to travel to DC for January 6.
A central belief among QAnon believers is that Trump was planning a massive sting operation on the "cabal", with mass arrests of thousands of cabal members to take place on a day known as "The Storm". On January 5, 2021, the day before the assault on the Capitol, Babbitt tweeted:
Nothing will stop us … they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours … dark to light!
On January 6, prior to her arrival at the Capitol, Babbitt retweeted messages by Trump lawyer and QAnon promoter L. Lin Wood demanding that Vice President Mike Pence, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts resign and that charges be brought against Pence and Rosenstein.
Babbitt's mother, Micki Witthoeft, became politically active following her daughter's death. In July 2021, she appeared at a Donald Trump rally where she was introduced by Paul Gosar and received a standing ovation from the crowd. During the rally, Trump expressed condolences to Witthoeft and acknowledged that Babbitt had died trying to salvage his presidency. Witthoeft later said in an interview that she was writing letters of support to January 6 arrestees and commented that her daughter had "made the ultimate sacrifice to bring attention to a stolen election. Half the country loves her and half the country hates her. It's weird to have your child belong to the world." Babbitt's husband told reporters that he does not want violence done in his wife's name, after being asked about comments made by Michael Braynard, the organizer of the Justice for J6 rally, which was dedicated in part to Babbitt.
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