Judicial Watch: Federal Court Hearing Set for August 6 in Ashli Babbitt $30M Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Note: The court has advanced the hearing to 3:15 p.m. ET.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a hearing will be held on August 6 at 4 p.m. ET in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the $30 million wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of the estate of Ashli Babbitt.

(Judicial Watch has asked that the case be returned to San Diego so that it can appeal the California Southern District Court’s earlier venue transfer to Washington, DC.)

This is the first hearing to be held in the wrongful death lawsuit that was filed on January 5, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California against the U.S. Government on behalf of the family of Ashli Babbitt, the U.S. Air Force veteran who was shot and killed inside the U.S. Capitol by then-Capitol Police Lt. Michael 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, CA, 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 Judicial Watch complaint recounts:

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 United States Capitol Police 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 U.S. District for the Southern District of California, at the request of the Biden Justice Department, transferred this case to the DC District Court on June 12, 2024.

In a July 2024 motion to retransfer the case, Judicial Watch argues:

The Southern District of California transferred this case to the District of Columbia … without a hearing, against the will of [the Estate of Ashli Babbitt] …

This hasty process afforded Plaintiffs no opportunity to seek a stay of the order or petition for mandamus relief from the order although they clearly had a right to do both.

The Justice Department later asked the court to dismiss the case in the D.C. District Court.

Judicial Watch argues that nothing in the case should be decided until the matter of venue is resolved.

“Ashli Babbitt and her family deserve accountability and justice for her wrongful death on January 6. In short, there was no good reason for Lt. Byrd to ambush and shoot her,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “But the Biden Justice Department, rather than admit government wrongdoing, is doing its best try to ensure Ashli never gets her full day in court.”

In April 2024, records from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in a separate Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit showed that the FBI opened a criminal investigation of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt after her killing and listed four “potential violations of federal law,” including felony rioting and civil disorder.

In September 2023, Judicial Watch 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, Judicial Watch 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.

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