Members of Ashli Babbitt’s family filed a civil suit they were likely to lose. So why is the Justice Department planning to pay them $5 million?
Members of Ashli Babbitt’s family filed a civil suit they were likely to lose. Trump’s Justice Department is apparently planning to pay the Jan. 6 rioter’s relatives million anyway.
It’s tough to blame the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police for being disgusted. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-05-20T18:58:08.928Z
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-administration-planning-pay-5-million-family-rioter-killed-jan-6-rcna208050
It was a few weeks ago when Justice Department lawyers indicated in a court hearing that they’d reached a settlement with the family of Ashli Babbitt, the Jan. 6 rioter who was fatally shot by a police officer during the attack on the U.S. Capitol. At the time, however, there were no public indications as to the scope of the settlement.
As The New York Times reported, those details are now coming into view.
The Justice Department is discussing giving the relatives of Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran killed by the police during the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, about $5 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit they brought against the government last year, according to two people familiar with the matter.
.....In the months that immediately followed the attack on the Capitol, most leading Republicans, including Trump, expressed little interest in Babbitt. Her death was of great interest to the far-right fringe, but at least initially, Trump did not see her story as worthy of attention, and he also didn’t see the need to lash out at the police officer who had protected dozens of lawmakers and their aides.
But in June 2021, the Republican said that he saw Babbitt as an ally who was on his “side.” A month later, he said the rioter was “innocent.” A month after that, he accused the officer who shot her of “murder.” In 2023, Trump condemned the cop as a “thug” and a “coward” who deserves to be vilified, and earlier this year, the president inexplicably claimed that Babbitt was “shot for no reason whatsoever.”
This rhetoric is notable because it helps explain the apparent settlement. In theory, given the facts of the case, there’s no reason for the administration to settle with the Babbitt family, whose civil suit was likely to fail.
But in practice, the president and his team want to use American taxpayers’ money to reward Jan. 6 rioters, so it’s not the least bit surprising that the Trump administration also wants to direct $5 million to the Babbitt family, the weakness of their case notwithstanding.
Babbitt is a terrorist, and this is a waste of money
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