by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appeared to dismiss claims by Republican US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and other far-right officials that Ashli Babbitt was “murdered” by a US Capitol police officer in the halls of Congress on January 6, 2021.
Asked on February 2 if he agreed with Ms. Greene or thought the officer “did his job” that day, McCarthy said: “I think the police officer did his job.”
In her first remarks to the House Oversight Committee this week, Ms. Greene appeared to compare her death and the “civil rights” of other Capitol Hill rioters to the fatal beating of 29-year-old Trye Nichols by officers. Memphis Police.
Democratic members of the committee have opposed the Republican decision to dissolve a civil rights subcommittee, arguing that Nichols’ death would have been under the purview of that panel.
“I watched the video and it was tragic and extremely difficult to watch,” the Georgia Republican said. “But I’d also like to point out something that I hope you’ll share with me: There’s a woman in this room whose daughter was murdered on January 6, Ashli Babbitt.”
“Nobody has cared about the person who shot and killed her” and “nobody in this Congress has really addressed that issue,” according to Greene.
Federal prosecutors have closed their investigation into the murder of Babbitt, who was captured on video as a mob forced their way through police barricades surrounding the doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby. The US Department of Justice found “no evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt” that the shooting was unlawful.
Ms. Green also said that the “civil rights and liberties” of people in jail facing charges related to the attack on the Capitol are “being seriously violated.”
Following her death, Babbitt has emerged as a martyr figure on the far right, and the phrase “who killed Ashli Babbitt?” it has been a concern among Republican lawmakers and former President Donald Trump, who praised it in public statements and on Fox News.
Her death has been the subject of rampant and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, with far-right Congressman Paul Gosar suggesting in a fundraising email that the FBI staged the attack and, during a congressional hearing, that the officer who killed her killed was “on the prowl”. ” to do it.
Six months after the riots on Capitol Hill, fueled by the former president’s electoral lies, he said that if Babbitt had been “on the other side, the person who shot would have been hanged.”
