An uproar of January 6 is receiving military funeral honors and a Democrat is trying to stop him

After a single republican legislator torpedoed a commitment to stop the winner of January 6, Ashli ​​Babbitt, to receive the complete military funeral honors, a Democratic senator, who is also a former veteran of marine combat, leads a last attempt for the Department of Defense to intervene.

“His behavior was a betrayal of his oath and an discredit for the uniform he used,” Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Who saw the fight and served in Iraq from 2002 to 2006, to the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth on Friday.

“Ashli ​​Babbitt was an active participant during the violent disturbances of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, an insurrection that sought to revoke the certification of the results of the presidential elections of 2020, blocked the peaceful transfer of power and betrayed the oath to support and defend the Constitution that she herself had sworn once an aviator,” he wrote in a letter that was shared in a letter that was shared for the first time. Postpost

Senator Tami Duckworth (D-Bill), who served as an army helicopter pilot in the Iraq War, signed the Galician letter.

Gallego presented a resolution to prevent Babbitt from receiving military honors on Tuesday. Speaking from the Senate floor, he remembered having heard the blows at the doors of the house of the house and seeing his fellow legislators barricat the entries with furniture.

Killing Gallego’s resolution required that only one senator opposed, and Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala), a Trump ally who, for years, has minimized violence in the Capitol and was one of the first senators to join the cause of “Stop The Steal” of Trump, was the one who did it.

“Ashli ​​Babbitt obtained these honors through his service to this nation,” he said, and said he had been deployed seven times. “Babbitt was never accused or convicted of a crime; they have never declared it guilty of anything for a jury of their companions.”

“Where are the resolutions called to revoke the honors of the veterans involved in the 2020 Black Lives Matter disturbances after George Floyd?” Tuberville asked later.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file

Babbitt, who served in the United States Air Force from 2004 to 2010 before joining the Air National Guard, was a fatal shot when he tried Break the glass and gain entrance.

That shattered glass was almost everything that separated the uproar of legislators, employees and reporters who fled for their lives on the other side of the door. Babbitt, who had a flag of Trump’s campaign, not an American flag, covered his shoulders and a backpack on his back, refused to obey multiple police commands to retire. I insecure if Babbitt was armed, police lieutenant of the United States Capitol, Michael Byrd, shot him.

Byrd was authorized of any irregularity and told NBC News in 2021 that he had “tried to wait for all the time he could”, but had to take “appropriate measures to save the life of the members of Congress and I and other officers.”

Approximately one month after the insurrection, Brian Kelly, then Lieutenant General of the United States Air Force, denied a request from Babbitt’s family to bury her with honors. The decision, Kelly, wrote to Babbitt’s husband in February 2021, was based on the “circumstances that preceded his death”: that he had violated title 10 Section 985 of the United States Code, a statute that prohibits military honors for people convicted of capital crimes or who had brought “discredited” about their service to the US military.

But this August, the Air Force under Secretary Matthew Lohmeier chose to reverse Kelly’s decision.

In a letter that extends an invitation to the Babbitt family to visit him in the Pentagon to be able to offer his “personal condolences”, Lohmeier also said he had made a review of the “circumstances” of Babbitt’s death and was “persuaded that the determination of the previous administration was incorrect.” He offered no more explanation.

“I remember looking around, thinking about my family and seeing the mafia and what they were willing to do. Ashli ​​led the pack.”

– Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Aarz.)

In fact, none of the details or circumstances have changed since April 2021, when the Department of Justice closed its investigation to the death of Babbitt.

In the letter to Hegseth on Friday, Gallego urged the secretary not to abandon the rules of the Department of Defense or pervert the holiness of military honors.

“Do the opposite … [would] Send a dangerous message that the country’s betrayal and insurrection against our democracy are compatible with values ​​and standards, all military personnel are expected to stay long after they finish their service, ”he wrote.

Babbitt’s family sued the Federal Government in 2024, demanding a massive sum of $ 30 million for “unfair death.” After going to court for almost a year, the family finally settled with the government for a sum of $ 5 million.

For perspective, the damage to the Capitol was estimated at almost $ 3 million. More than 1,500 criminals on January 6 were prosecuted, and hundreds of them were ordered to pay the restitution for the destruction they caused. In the end, only a small fraction of those $ 3 million was recovered: according to a review of News last June, only 15%had been paid.

The probability that Hegseth accepts the request of the senators is almost none. The former News personality has not yet broken with President Donald Trump in anything related to his agenda and has a comment history about January 6 that is not a good omen for the efforts of the senators.

The Defense Department sent News themezone to the Air Force, which did not return a request for comments.

A few days after January 6, Hegesh minimized violence in the Capitol during an appearance in the Newt Giningrich podcast and, as CNN reported last December, raised the statements that Antifa, or antifascists, were responsible for chaos and bloodshed in Washington.

“I could even detect it,” Hegseth told Newt Giningrich in 2021. “You can see the helmets where there is a Donald Trump bumper sticker on the back, he quickly got so that they seemed like they wanted to stop the robbery. But what they really wanted to do was beyond the narrative.”

AP Photo / Manuel Balce Ceneta, Archive

An extensive report from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice published last December last December discredited the statements that on January 6 was instigated by Antifa or, as theorists of the extreme right conspiracy have long stated for a long time, a picture of FBI informants.

Military honors are for those who defend the rule of law, Gallego said on Tuesday on the Senate floor. He would lead Babbitt with those privileges, it would be a “saliva in the face” and “desecration” to all who have served and “all veterans who died defending this country.”

“Ashli ​​Babbitt was a traitor. It was a traitor of this country, it was part of a violent mafia that tried to overthrow our democracy … I remember looking around, thinking about my family and seeing the mafia and what they were willing to do,” he said. “Ashli ​​led the herd. He wore a paraforce knife, a weapon. He pushed the crowd and ignored the repeated orders of the Capitol Police to stop, and pushed through a closed and barricada door and was part of the mafia that broke through the windows of the speaker’s lobby, and then she did not die.

But Galician, who protected journalists during the Capitol’s attack, helped other legislators to put gas masks while they fled, and it was One of the last legislators to get out of the floor of the house On January 6, he said he didn’t care how many times Babbitt had been deployed.

“No matter how many times he left … Benedict Arnold was one of the best generals we had until he betrayed us during the American revolutionary war. He was still a traitor. Ashli ​​Babbitt was a traitor. Ashli ​​Babbitt’s actions on January 6 are as dishonable as he becomes,” he said.