Ashli Babbitt shooting: Officer who fatally shot Capitol rioter says he ‘saved countless lives’

The death of the Air Force veteran and QAnon proponent who prophesied a “storm” in Washington DC is at the centre of Republicans’ revisionist campaign to undermine the assault on Congress.

The interview will air on the network’s NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt at 6.30pm EST on 26 August.

Seven months after the attack on the US Capitol, a man accused of threatening to detonate a “weapon of mass destruction” in Washington DC last week will continue to be under psychiatric care and a new medication regiment before his mental competency hearing continues next month.

If he is found mentally competent to stand trial, he could face life in prison.

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The House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot on 6 January has requested extensive records from several executive-level agencies and federal law enforcement groups, signalling the committee’s wide-ranging probe into the events surrounding the attack on Congress fuelled by Donald Trump’s baseless stolen election narrative.

In their requests: communications from the former president and more than 30 Trump-era White House staff and cabinet officials and associates – including call logs, phone records, meeting memos and White House visitor records.

The agencies have until 9 September.

On Monday, the US Capitol Police announced that the officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt “will not be facing internal discipline.”

That comes after an April decision from the Justice Department to not prosecute the officer.

An interview review from Capitol Police “determined the officer’s conduct was lawful and within Department policy, which says an officer may use deadly force only when the officer reasonably believes that action is in the defense of human life, including the officer’s own life, or in the defense of any person in immediate danger of serious physical injury.”

“The officer in this case, who is not being identified for the officer’s safety,” the department announced.

The officer and the officer’s “family have been the subject of numerous credible and specific threats for actions that were taken as part of the job of all our officers: defending the Congress, Members, staff and the democratic process,” according to Capitol Police.

The department determined that the officer’s fatal shot “potentially saved” members of Congress and staff from “serious injury and possible death from a large crowd of rioters who forced their way into” the halls of Congress, just outside the House chamber, where members were steps away, police said.

“If the doors were breached, the rioters would have immediate access to the House Chambers,” police said. “The officer’s actions were consistent with the officer’s training and [Capitol Police] policies and procedures.”

A group of seven US Capitol Police officers have filed a lawsuit accusing Trump, far-right extremist groups and Trump allies of plotting to disrupt the certification of millions of Americans’ votes and subvert the outcome of the presidential election.

The lawsuit cites Trump’s Twitter account, speeches and statements and also targets the OathKeepers, 3%-ers and Proud Boys, and “Stop the Steal” organiser Ali Alexander and Roger Stone, among others.

It was filed in US District Court in Washington DC.

Unsurprisingly, Trump opposes a request from the House Select Committee investing the Capitol riot for a trove of White House communications from his time in office, leading up to and surrounding the attack.

He claims that, though he is not longer in office, the committee is violating his “executive privilege.”

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At least two people from the crowd that surrounded a broken window into the House chambers before Ashli Babbitt’s death face federal charges, according to reporter Scott MacFarlane, who has closely watched court hearings related to the riot.

They are among the dozens of people arrested in the wake of the assault and charged with a range of charges, from assault to assault against officers to violent entry and disorderly conduct, among others.

Nine pro-Trump lawyers who participated in a Michigan lawsuit to overturn 2020 election results will face financial penalties and could even be disbarred, a federal judge has ruled.

US District Judge Linda Parker said the suit “represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”

“It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election,” he added. “It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated.”

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A former FBI director has knocked back Donald Trump’s claims that “executive privilege” will protect him from an investigation by the House Select Committee on the 6 January attack.

Speaking on CNN, former FBI deputy director Andy McCabe said that the scale of the committee’s request meant that any attempt to block it by citing executive privilege would be a tall order.

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