Pelosi announced the resurrection of her January 6 witch hunt in the form of a partisan committee, already having failed at the Senate impeachment trial to prove Donald Trump ‘incited’ rioters at the Capitol.
The one Republican on her committee will be Liz Cheney, and the Wyoming Republican joined the ranks of anti-Trump Democrats by agreeing to be part of Pelosi’s star chamber.
The Washington Examiner reported:
“Former President Donald Trump’s top GOP nemesis Liz Cheney will serve on a committee created by House Democrats to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, announced the makeup of the panel a day after the House voted mostly along party lines to create the special committee.”
Pelosi’s committee appoints 13 members to report on the “facts, circumstances, and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex.”
It is reported that this involves the “facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response of the United States Capitol Police and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the National Capital Region and other instrumentalities of government, as well as the influencing factors that fomented such an attack on American representative democracy while engaged in a constitutional process.”
Yet, Pelosi will assuredly refuse to go to one place!
In one of his shortest press releases to date, Donald Trump mentioned it- and it includes just one question.
“Who shot Ashli Babbitt?”
Back in April, federal prosecutors dropped the Ashli Babbitt case, and all potential charges against an unidentified Capitol Police officer who shot the Trump supporter as she tried to crawl through a window in the Capitol building on January 6.
The AP reported:
“Federal prosecutors will not charge a police officer who shot and killed a woman as she climbed through the broken part of a door during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Authorities had considered for months whether criminal charges were appropriate for the Capitol Police officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego. The Justice Department’s decision, though expected, officially closes out the investigation.”
The report continued:
“Prosecutors said they had reviewed video of the shooting, along with statements from the officer involved and other officers and witnesses, examined physical evidence from the scene and reviewed the autopsy results.”
The death of Ashli Babbitt was determined to be a ‘homicide,’ according to the Chief Medical Examiner in the nation’s Capitol. It is a designation for when one person is killed by another person or persons.
The report added:
“Authorities previously said Babbitt was shot by a police officer as she allegedly attempted to climb through a door window inside the Capitol building. The name of the officer has not been disclosed by local or federal authorities.”
Ashli Babbitt being shot was captured on video by the unnamed Capitol Police officer on January 6th.
Yet, apart from the extraordinary video, conveniently captured by an Antifa-supporting activist named John Sullivan, there have been very few attempts by major media outlets to investigate the truth about the death of the Trump supporter.
The shooting incident is usually described in the most general of terms.
An agitator, named Zachary Jordan Alam in this case, smashed a window leading to an unsecured corridor within the Capitol building.
Alam, noticeably dressed in a furry hat, got a helmet from a fellow insurgent, whom we now know is a Texas winery owner named Christopher Ray Grider.
Moreover, Chad Barrett Jones of Kentucky is accused of breaking windows with a flagpole.
In the video, Alam backs the crowd up and smashes the window with the black helmet, and Babbitt crawls through the window, unarmed, but an unidentified officer shoots her.
Back in January, The New York Times reported more information about the unidentified shooter, who had not been charged for excessive force or negligence after shooting the unarmed woman.
“The lieutenant, a veteran officer, was regularly assigned to the Speaker’s Lobby, an enclosed hallway and waiting area in the inner sanctum of the Capitol where access is highly restricted.
The lobby runs directly behind the House chamber and is lined with portraits of the House’s past leaders. It is bound by two sets of old wooden doors with windows, one on the Democratic side and one on the Republican side.
At about 2:15 p.m., the lieutenant heard on the radio that the Capitol had been breached, according to his account.”
The Times continues:
“At 2:30 p.m., a crowd that included Ms. Babbitt streamed through the Capitol Rotunda and Statuary Hall. At that point, they were calm, even staying within a walkway defined by velvet ropes. But as they surged toward the north doors of the House, they grew aggressive, chanting, “Break it down.”
“Hey guys, I have a knife,” one person in the crowd can be heard saying.”
A federal affidavit submitted with his arrest warrant reveals that the person who said “I have a knife,” is none other than John Sullivan.
The warrant states:
“Less than two minutes later, while officers are still at the doors and as others yell to break the glass windows in them with various objects, SULLIVAN can be heard saying, “Hey guys, I have a knife. I have a knife. Let me up.”
The video shows the unnamed Capitol officer holding an aloft .40-caliber Glock handgun and pointing it at Babbitt, while Sullivan shouts repeatedly that “there is a gun.”
Allegedly, the unidentified police officer is still in hiding due to threats made against his life.
Real Clear Investigations’ Paul Sperry reported:
“More than six weeks after Babbitt succumbed to a single gunshot wound to the upper chest, authorities are keeping secret the identity of the officer who fired the fatal round. They won’t release his name, and the major news media aren’t clamoring for it, in stark contrast to other high-profile police shootings of unarmed civilians.
The secrecy has fueled Internet reports misidentifying the shooter as a Capitol Police special agent previously commended by President Trump for bravery. The false rumors have triggered threats against the officer.”
Sperry shares more details about the officer in question:
“The officer who opened fire on Babbitt holds the rank of lieutenant and is a longtime veteran of the force who worked protective detail in the Speaker’s Lobby, a highly restricted area behind the House chamber, sources say. An African-American, he was put on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation led by the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia, which shares jurisdiction with the Capitol Police. The Justice Department is also involved in the inquiry.”
Talking about the controversial elements of the case, Babbitt family attorney Terry Roberts said that “clearly, the officer a required willfulness … he could clearly see that she was not armed,” so the shooting was not justified, contending that the officer did not give Babbitt warning despite ample time to do so.
He said:
“This is a situation in which the officer could have easily arrested her if he had grounds to arrest her without using deadly force. This was an egregious act of excessive force.”
Moreover, several officers standing behind Babbitt merely watched and did not intervene, despite knowing that she was in mortal danger.
He added:
“The shooting of Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021 by an unidentified U.S. Capitol Police Officer was an unjustified use of deadly force which violated her constitutional rights.
It is clear from video footage that Ashli did not pose a danger to the officer, or any other person, when she was shot. Ashli was unarmed. She did not assault anyone. She did not threaten to harm anyone. There was no excuse for taking her life.”
Roberts continued:
“It is a universal law enforcement standard that a police officer should use no more force than necessary to accomplish a lawful purpose. At 5′ 2″ tall and 110 pounds, an arrest of Ashli could have been accomplished by a single trained officer with a set of handcuffs. At the time of the shooting, there were over a half-dozen police officers in close proximity to the Speaker’s door where Ashli was standing.
Some of those officers had just allowed protesters access to the door by stepping aside. Other officers, dressed in full tactical gear, stood among the protesters just a few feet behind the door. Still, others stood casually at the opposite end of the Speaker’s Lobby, unconcerned with the activities of Ashli and the protesters around her.”
He presents a crucial question that needs to be answered to completely grasp the circumstances surrounding her death.
The officers allowed agitators to orchestrate a breach of the inner chamber, and let Babbitt crawl through a window, without actively intervening. Along with the Capitol Police effectively issuing a “stand down” order, and the National Guard’s unjustifiably low profile, the behavior of the police only adds to the mysterious circumstances of the January 6th event.
He said:
“All of these officers were in a position to have aided in the apprehension of Ashli if it was necessary. Given her background as a 14-year veteran of the Air Force, it is likely that Ashli would have complied with simple verbal commands, thereby making the use of any force unnecessary.
However, the officer who shot Ashli never attempted to arrest her. Nor did he call on his fellow officers to arrest her. Instead, he fired a shot into her chest.”
The decision to shoot Babbitt has been chalked up as a “split-second” decision; yet the video shows that she was warned and the man held aloft his gun for at least fifteen seconds before shooting.
This points out the fact that there is a discrepancy in the characterization of the shooting.
Plus, it is a fact that Babbitt should not have proceeded to go into the area. Yet, this does not resolve questions about how the incident developed or concluded.
The New York Times and other media outlets have branded Babbitt as a “QAnon” supporter, which seems like an attempt to dispel any public curiosity or even sympathy about the woman’s death.
Her cousin Justine Babbitt said:
“Ashli wasn’t a thug. She wasn’t a rioter. Ashli was a peaceful person. She did 14 years in the military. She was not there to destroy the Capitol building. She was there to be heard and be part of a movement. Ashli was a die-hard patriot. Not a Democrat, not a Republican. She was for the people. Ashli carried around the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in her pocketbook.”
Nevertheless, unless Pelosi’s Jan.6 committee shares some new information, it seems that the circumstances surrounding her death, as well as the identity of the officer who shot her, will remain mysterious.
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