Judicial Watch Files $30 Million Suit on behalf of Ashli Babbitt’s Husband and Estate
Judicial Watch Sues Biden Censorship Agency
Nearly Half of Illegals Arrested in 2023 Had Multiple Charges, Convictions
Judicial Watch Files $30 Million Suit on behalf of Ashli Babbitt’s Husband and Estate
The only homicide on January 6 was the unlawful shooting death of Ashli Babbitt. Her homicide by Lt. Michael Byrd is a scandal beyond belief. We have filed a historic lawsuit seeking a measure of justice and government accountability for Ashli’s death.
We filed the wrongful death suit against the U.S. Government on behalf of Ashli’s family. She was a U.S. Air Force veteran who was shot and killed inside the U.S. Capitol by then-Capitol Police Lt. Byrd on January 6, 2021 (Estate of Ashli Babbitt and Aaron Babbitt, et al. v. United States of America (No. 3:24-cv-00033).
The lawsuit includes claims against the U.S. Government for wrongful death, assault and battery, and various negligence issues.
Babbitt was a 35-year-old resident of San Diego, California, where she owned and operated a successful pool business with her husband Aaron. Ashli traveled alone from San Diego to Washington, DC, to attend the Women for America First (aka Save America) rally on January 6, 2021, at the Ellipse.
As the lawsuit details:
Ashli loved her country and wanted to show her support for President Trump’s America First policies and to see and hear the president speak live while he remained in office. Ashli did not go to Washington as part of a group or for any unlawful or nefarious purpose. She was there to exercise what she believed were her God-given, American liberties and freedoms.
After the rally, Ashli, like a great many other patriotic Americans attending the rally, walked to the Capitol peacefully, a distance of approximately 1.5 miles. Two undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers followed close behind Ashli as she climbed the stairs to the West Terrace. Ashli entered the Capitol on the Senate side long after others had done so. Once inside, Ashli encountered a female Capitol Police officer, who directed her to walk south toward the House side. Ashli complied, walking alone through the Capitol and ultimately arriving at the hallway outside the main door to the House chamber, where demonstrators had gathered. From there, Ashli walked by herself east, along the hallway outside the House chamber, then turned south, reaching the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby at the southeast corner of the Capitol.
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The shooting occurred at the east entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby. After demonstrators filled the hallway outside the lobby, two individuals in the crowded, tightly packed hallway struck and dislodged the glass panels in the lobby doors and the right door sidelight. Lt. Byrd, who is a USCP commander and was the incident commander for the House on January 6, 2021, shot Ashli on sight as she raised herself up into the opening of the right door sidelight. Lt. Byrd later confessed that he shot Ashli before seeing her hands or assessing her intentions or even identifying her as female. Ashli was unarmed. Her hands were up in the air, empty, and in plain view of Lt. Byrd and other officers in the lobby.
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The facts speak truth. Ashli was ambushed when she was shot by Lt. Byrd. Multiple witnesses at the scene yelled, “you just murdered her.”
Lt. Byrd was never charged or otherwise punished or disciplined for Ashli’s homicide.
The lawsuit further states:
Lt. Byrd, who is a USCP commander and was the incident commander for the House on January 6, 2021, shot Ashli as she raised herself up into the opening of the right door sidelight.… Not one member of Congress was in the lobby, which was guarded by multiple armed police officers. Additional armed police officers were in the hallway outside the lobby and/or on the adjoining stairway. Ashli could not have seen Lt. Byrd, who was positioned far to Ashli’s left and on the opposite side of the doors, near an opening to the Retiring Room, a distance of approximately 15 feet and an angle of approximately 160 degrees. Sgt. Timothy Lively, one of the armed officers guarding the lobby doors from the hallway, later told officials investigating the shooting, “I saw him . . . there was no way that woman would’ve seen that.” Lt. Byrd, who was not in uniform, did not identify himself as a police officer or otherwise make his presence known to Ashli. Lt. Byrd did not give Ashli any warnings or commands before shooting her dead.
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Ashli remained conscious for minutes or longer after being shot by Lt. Byrd. Ashli experienced extreme pain, suffering, mental anguish, and intense fear before slipping into pre-terminal unconsciousness. The autopsy report identified the cause of death as a “gunshot wound to left anterior shoulder” with an onset interval of “minutes.” The fact that Ashli was alive and conscious in extreme pain and suffering is documented in videos of the shooting. Furthermore, nothing about the wound track described in the autopsy report would be expected to result in immediate death or instantaneous loss of consciousness, and Ashli’s lungs contained blood, further confirming that she was alive and breathing after being shot. Ashli was pronounced dead at Washington Hospital Center at 3:15 p.m. The medical examiner determined that the manner of death was homicide.
The lawsuit argues that, based on prior incidents involving Lt. Byrd, the Capitol Police, Capitol Police Board, and ultimately Congress, as Lt. Byrd’s employer, “knew or should have known that Lt. Byrd was prone to behave in a dangerous or otherwise incompetent manner:”
Less than two years before January 6, 2021, on or about February 25, 2019, Lt. Byrd left his loaded Glock 22 – the same firearm he used to shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt – in a bathroom in the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) complex. Lt. Byrd’s loaded Glock was discovered during a routine security sweep later the same day. Approximately 15,00 to 20,000 people pass through the CVC, which serves as the main entrance for visitors to the U.S. Capitol, daily during peak season (March-July). Lawmakers and staff charged with oversight of the USCP were not made aware of the incident until contacted by a reporter.
Lt. Byrd’s police powers had been revoked on more than one occasion prior to January 6, 2021, for failing to meet or complete semiannual firearms qualification requirements. In fact, Lt. Byrd had a reputation among peers for not being a good shot. Under USCP’s range management system, an officer who fails to meet firearm qualification requirements is given one week of remedial training. If the officer still fails to qualify after remedial training, police powers are then revoked until the officer qualifies.
Lt. Byrd’s police powers also were revoked for a prior off-duty shooting into a stolen, moving vehicle in which the occupants were teenagers or juveniles. The stolen vehicle was Lt. Byrd’s car. Lt. Byrd fired multiple shots at the fleeing vehicle in a suburban area. Stray bullets from Lt. Byrd’s firearm struck the sides of homes nearby. An official investigation found that Lt. Byrd’s use of force was not justified.
Plaintiffs seek “the full and just amount of Thirty Million Dollars ($30,000,000), plus costs and interest according to law, and any and all further relief to which Plaintiffs may be justly entitled.”
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court Southern District of California.
We and our supporters are honored to represent Ashli’s steadfast widower Aaron Babbitt and her estate in this legal action. Ashli was shot in cold blood and the rule of law requires justice for her.
We are extensively investigating the events of January 6.
In October, we announced that we received the court-ordered declaration of James W. Joyce, senior counsel in the Office of the General Counsel for the Capitol Police, in which he describes emails among senior officials of the United States Capitol Police (USCP) in January 2021 that show warnings of possible January 6 protests that could lead to serious disruptions at the U.S. Capitol.
In September, we received records from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, a component of the Department of Justice, in a FOIA lawsuit that detail the extensive apparatus the Biden Justice Department set up to investigate and prosecute January 6 protestors.
A previous review of records from that lawsuit highlighted the prosecution declination memorandum justifying the decision not to prosecute U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd for the shooting death of Babbitt.
In January 2023, documents from the Department of the Air Force, Joint Base Andrews, MD, showed U.S. Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd was housed at taxpayer expense at Joint Base Andrews after he shot and killed U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In November 2021, we released multiple audio, visual and photo records from the DC Metropolitan Police Department about the shooting death of Babbitt on January 6, 2021, in the U.S. Capitol Building. The records included a cell phone video of the shooting and an audio of a brief police interview of the shooter, Byrd.
In October 2021, United States Park Police records related to the January 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol showed that on the day before the January 6 rally featuring President Trump, U.S. Park Police expected a “large portion” of the attendees to march to the U.S. Capitol and that the FBI was monitoring the January 6 demonstrations, including travel to the events by “subjects of interest.”
Judicial Watch Sues Biden Censorship Agency
Judicial Watch and I have been censored again and again by the government and Big Tech. And we are fighting back.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for failing to respond to an October 11, 2023, FOIA request for all records regarding Judicial Watch and me held by DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-00003).
That we had to file a federal lawsuit to get basic information about this targeting is another sure sign that CISA has been up to no good.
Our request specifically asked that the search for responsive records include email accounts of CISA officials publicly implicated in censorship operations.
On November 6, 2023, the House Judiciary Committee released a report detailing “how the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Global Engagement Center (GEC, within the State Department) coordinated with Stanford University and other entities to create the Election Integrity Partnership to censor Americans’ speech in the lead-up to the 2020 election.” I am listed as a target of this censorship operation.
We have been at the forefront of uncovering government efforts to censor free speech and suppress opposition.
On November 9, 2023, we reported that “CISA records show government involvement in the EIP [Election Integrity Partnership] pressure on Google, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit and other platforms to censor ‘disinformation.’”
In October 2023, we sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) for records of any payments made by the FBI to Twitter (now known as X). The payments were disclosed in internal Twitter documents (the “Twitter Files”) made available by Elon Musk to journalists.
Also in October, we sued the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) for records concerning censorship of social media users.
In April 2023, we filed two lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for communications between the agencies and Facebook and Twitter regarding the government’s involvement in content moderation and censorship on social media platforms.
In a separate lawsuit filed in June 2023, we sued DHS for all records of communications tied to the Election Integrity Partnership. Based on representations from the EIP (see here and here), the federal government, social media companies, the EIP, the Center for Internet Security (a non-profit organization funded partly by DHS and the Defense Department)and numerous other leftist groups communicated privately via the Jira software platform developed by Atlassian.
In February 2023, we sued the DHS for records showing cooperation between CISA and social media platforms to censor and suppress free speech.
In January 2023 we sued the DOJ for records of communications between the FBI and social media sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the Hunter Biden laptop story.
In September 2022, we sued the Secretary of State of the State of California for having YouTube censor a Judicial Watch election integrity video.
In May 2022, YouTube censored a Judicial Watch video about Biden corruption and election integrity issues in the 2020 election. The video, titled “Impeach? Biden Corruption Threatens National Security,” was falsely determined to be “election misinformation” and removed by YouTube, and Judicial Watch’s YouTube account was suspended for a week. The video featured an interview with me. Judicial Watch continues to post its video content on its Rumble channel (
In July 2021, we uncovered records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which revealed that Facebook coordinated closely with the CDC to control the Covid narrative and “misinformation” and that over $3.5 million in free advertising was given to the CDC by social media companies.
In May 2021, we revealed documents showing that Iowa state officials pressured social media companies Twitter and Facebook to censor posts about the 2020 election.
In April 2021, we published documents revealing how California state officials pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about the 2020 election.
We have produced a four-part documentary, “Censored and Controlled,” that details the coordinated effort by the FBI and other government agencies and Big Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, Covid-19, and election debates.
Nearly Half of Illegals Arrested in 2023 Had Multiple Charges, Convictions
They’re not sending us their best and brightest. Included with those coming across our border are criminals and suspected terrorists, as our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.
As a result of the Biden administration’s reckless open border policies the federal agency charged with enforcing immigration laws inside the United States is getting slammed and discloses in its latest annual report that enforcement arrests nearly doubled in a year in which thousands of criminals were apprehended including dozens of known or suspected terrorists. In fiscal year 2023, which ended in September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 170,590 illegal immigrants inside the country, almost half of them with criminal records. The criminal aliens had an average of four charges and convictions each, including more than 33,209 charges or convictions for assault, 7,520 for weapons offenses, 1,713 for homicide-related crimes and 1,615 for kidnapping. Removals also included 3,406 known or suspected gang members, 139 known or suspected terrorists, seven human rights violators, and 108 foreign fugitives wanted by their government for crimes including homicide, rape, terrorism, and kidnapping.
Among the most pervasive criminal offenses were Driving Under the Influence (DUI) and possession of serious drugs. Assault was also quite common among the undocumented perpetrators arrested last year and so were weapons offenses, sexual assault, and burglary. Thousands of the arrested migrants stole vehicles, were charged and/or convicted of fraudulent activities, robbery, forgery and property damage. More than 1,000 committed homicide and kidnapping and other types of threats not specified but considered serious enough by the government to be included in the year-end figures. “At-large arrests grew as broader migration trends contributed to an increase in unlawful entries to the Southwest border, driven by factors such as violence, food scarcity, severe poverty, unemployment, corruption, climate change, the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and dire economic conditions outside the United States,” the ICE report states.
The law enforcement agency with a staff of around 20,000 also conducted more than 200,000 domestic transfers of illegal immigrants last year and managed a record number of migrants under a controversial Biden administration catch-and-release policy known as Parole Plus Alternative to Detention (Parole+ATD) that freed over a million illegal aliens in the U.S. in a year, supposedly tracking them with technology and other tools. ICE Health Service Corps also spent a whopping $352 million to provide medical, dental, and mental health services for illegal immigrants detained in facilities throughout the nation, according to figures included in the document. “Those in ICE custody speak dozens of languages, including rare indigenous dialects, and the population includes individuals with a wide range of health statuses and unique physical and mental healthcare requirements — including some who receive comprehensive medical care for the first time after they are booked into detention,” the report says.
ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division conducted an unprecedented number of investigations last year and executed 14,000 “noncitizen apprehensions,” seized an astounding 1.2 million pounds of narcotics, confiscated $5 million in assets and property, identified 1,806 victims of child exploitation, helped 731 victims of human trafficking, seized $949 million in criminally derived assets and more than $148 million in virtual currency from criminal elements. In cases involving drug cartels—officially known as Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCO)—that smuggle humans, narcotics, and money, HSI seized 69 firearms, 14,182 rounds of ammunition, 4,846 pounds of illicit drugs, and over $383,446 in currency. In one program alone, known as Operation Blue Lotus, HSI partnered with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the frontline Homeland Security agency, to seize more than 8,200 pounds of fentanyl.
The distressing figures in the new ICE report are hardly surprising considering that 2023 was a record-breaker for illegal immigration with a ghastly 2.48 million foreigners entering the U.S. through the southern border, surpassing what was previously a historical high of 2.38 million in 2022. The last month of the fiscal year (September), federal agents encountered an unbelievable 269,735 illegal aliens constituting an all-time high for a single month and a substantial increase over August. The crisis is only worsening with time. This week a mainstream media outlet reports that there were 302,000 migrant encounters along the southwest border in December, marking the highest monthly total ever recorded.
Until next week,
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