After a single Republican lawmaker torpedoed a bid to stop Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt from receiving full military funeral honors, one Democratic senator — who is also a former Marine combat veteran — is leading a last-ditch attempt to have the Defense Department step in.
“Her conduct was a betrayal of her oath and a discredit to the uniform she wore,” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who saw combat and served in Iraq from 2002 to 2006, wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday.
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“Ashli Babbitt was an active participant during the violent Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, an insurrection that sought to overturn the certification of the 2020 presidential election results, block the peaceful transfer of power, and betray the oath to support and defend the Constitution that she herself had once sworn as an airman,” he wrote in a letter that was first shared with HuffPost.
Sen. Tami Duckworth (D-Ill.), who served as an Army helicopter pilot in the Iraq War, signed on to Gallego’s letter.
Gallego introduced a resolution to block Babbitt from receiving military honors on Tuesday. Speaking from the Senate floor, he recalled hearing the pounding on House chamber doors and watching his fellow lawmakers barricade the entrances with furniture.
Killing Gallego’s resolution required just one senator to object, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a Trump ally who has, for years, played down the violence at the Capitol and was one of the first senators to join Trump’s “Stop the Steal” cause, was the one to do it.
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“Ashli Babbitt earned these honors through her service to this nation,” he said, noting she had been deployed seven times. “Babbitt was never charged with or convicted of a crime; she has never been found guilty of anything by a jury of her peers.”
“Where are the resolutions calling to revoke honors from veterans involved in 2020 Black Lives Matter riots after George Floyd?” Tuberville later asked.
Then-Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) stands on a chair as lawmakers prepare to evacuate the floor as rioters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
Babbitt, who served in the U.S. Air Force from 2004 to 2010 before joining the Air National Guard, was fatally shot as she attempted to force herself through a shattered glass door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Rioters had heaved themselves against the barricaded door, using bare fists, flagpoles and other objects to break the glass and gain entry.
That shattered glass was nearly all that separated rioters from lawmakers, staffers and reporters fleeing for their lives on the other side of the door. Babbitt, who had a Trump campaign flag — not an American flag — draped around her shoulders and a backpack on her back, refused to obey multiple police commands to stand down. Unsure whether Babbitt was armed, U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd shot her.
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Byrd was cleared of any wrongdoing and told NBC News in 2021 that he had “tried to wait as long as I could” but had to take “appropriate action to save the lives of members of Congress and myself and fellow officers.”
About a month after the insurrection, Brian Kelly, then the lieutenant general of the U.S. 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 preceding her death” — that she had violated Title 10 Section 985 of the U.S. Code, a statute that prohibits military honors for people who are convicted of capital crimes or who had otherwise brought “discredit” upon their service to the U.S. military.
But this August, Air Force Under Secretary Matthew Lohmeier opted to reverse Kelly’s decision.
In a letter extending an invitation to the Babbitt family to visit him at the Pentagon so he could offer his “personal condolences,” Lohmeier also claimed he had conducted a review of the “circumstances” of Babbitt’s death and was “persuaded that the previous administration’s determination was incorrect.” He offered no further explanation.
In fact, none of the details or circumstances have changed since April 2021, when the Justice Department closed its probe into Babbitt’s death.
In the letter to Hegseth on Friday, Gallego urged the secretary not to abandon Department of Defense rules or pervert the sanctity of military honors.
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“To do otherwise… [would] send a dangerous message that betrayal of country and insurrection against our democracy are compatible with the values and standards all former military personnel are expected to uphold long after their service ends,” he wrote.
Babbitt’s family sued the federal government in 2024, demanding a massive sum of $30 million for “wrongful death.” After duking it out in court for nearly a year, the family ultimately settled with the government to the tune of $5 million.
For perspective, the damage to the Capitol was estimated at nearly $3 million. Over 1,500 Jan. 6 offenders were prosecuted, and hundreds of them were ordered to pay restitution for the destruction they caused. In the end, only a small fraction of that $3 million was recouped: According to a review by CBS News last June, just 15% had been paid back.
The likelihood that Hegseth will acquiesce to the senators’ request is next to none. The former Fox News personality has yet to break with President Donald Trump on anything related to his agenda and has a history of commentary on Jan. 6 that doesn’t bode well for the senators’ efforts.
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The Defense Department referred HuffPost to the Air Force, which did not return a request for comment.
Just days after Jan. 6, Hegseth downplayed violence at the Capitol during an appearance on Newt Gingrich’s podcast and, as CNN reported last December, he elevated claims that antifa, or antifascists, were responsible for the chaos and bloodshed in Washington.
“I could even spot it,” Hegseth told Newt Gingrich in 2021. “You can see the helmets where there’s a Donald Trump bumper sticker on the back, quickly put on it so they could look like they wanted to stop the steal. But what they really wanted to do was further the narrative.”
In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo, supporters of President Donald Trump are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber inside the Capitol in Washington. Both within and outside the walls of the Capitol, banners and symbols of white supremacy and anti-government extremism were displayed as an insurrectionist mob swarmed the U.S. Capitol. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File
An extensive report from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General released last December thoroughly debunked claims that Jan. 6 was instigated by antifa or, as many far-right conspiracy theorists have long claimed, a cadre of FBI informants.
Military honors are for those who uphold the rule of law, Gallego said Tuesday on the Senate floor. To bury Babbitt with those privileges, he said, would be a “spit in the face” and “desecration” to all who have served and “every veteran who died defending this country.”
“Ashli Babbitt was a traitor. She was a traitor to this country, she was part of a violent mob that tried to overthrow our democracy … I remember looking around, thinking about my family, and seeing the mob and what they were willing to do,” he said. “Ashli was leading the pack. She carried a ParaForce knife, a weapon. She pushed to the front of the crowd, and ignored repeated orders from Capitol Police to stop, and she pushed through a locked and barricaded door and was part of the mob that smashed through windows of the Speaker’s Lobby, and then she tried to force her way in. She didn’t die protecting our country. She died trying to tear it down.”
But Gallego, who sheltered journalists during the Capitol attack, helped fellow lawmakers put on gas masks as they fled, and was one of the very last lawmakers to leave the House floor on Jan. 6, said he didn’t care how many times Babbitt had deployed.
“It doesn’t matter how many times she went … 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 Jan. 6 are about as dishonorable as it gets,” he said.
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