With the GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives yet to take up a list of issues ignored by the former Jan. 6 Select Committee, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Feb. 2 declared that Ashli Babbitt was not murdered and the Capitol Police lieutenant who shot her was “doing his job.”
During McCarthy’s weekly press conference at the Capitol, a reporter asked him, “Do you think Ashli Babbitt was murdered, or do you think the police officer who shot her was doing his job?”
McCarthy (R-California) didn’t hesitate: “I think the police officer did his job.”
Babbitt, 35, was shot and killed by then-Lt. Michael Byrd outside the entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby just before 2:45 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. A 14-year U.S. Air Force and National Guard veteran, Babbitt was not armed as she started to climb through a broken window leading into the Speaker’s Lobby. Byrd fired a single shot from his Glock 22 service weapon, striking Babbitt in the left anterior shoulder….