As Democrats continue to obsess about January 6, there’s talk about building a memorial. Is it for Ashli Babbitt? She’s the only person who died on January 6. She was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer, Lt. Michael Byrd. Armed insurrection it was not. It wasn’t a coup. It wasn’t 9/11 or Pearl Harbor either. Yet, the Babbitt shooting has fallen by the wayside partially because this is an officer-involved shooting liberal America has endorsed. The officer was cleared. All is well, right? Uh, not really. There’s an issue with the follow-up interview regarding this shooting, namely that one never took place apparently (via RealClearInvestigations):
When U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd went on “NBC Nightly News” to tell his side of shooting and killing unarmed Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt, he made a point to note he’d been investigated by several agencies and exonerated for his actions that day.
“There’s an investigative process [and] I was cleared by the DOJ [Department of Justice], and FBI and [the D.C.] Metropolitan Police,” he told NBC News anchor Lester Holt in August, adding that the Capitol Police also cleared him of wrongdoing and decided not to discipline or demote him for the shooting.
Byrd then answered a series of questions by Holt about the shooting, but what he told the friendly journalist, he likely never told investigators. That’s because he refused to answer their questions, according to several sources and documents reviewed by RealClearInvestigations.
In fact, investigators cleared Byrd of wrongdoing in the shooting without actually interviewing him about the shooting or threatening him with punishment if he did not cooperate with their criminal investigation.
“He didn’t provide any statement to [criminal] investigators and they didn’t push him to make a statement,” Babbitt family attorney Terry Roberts said in an RCI interview. “It’s astonishing how skimpy his investigative file is."
Roberts, who has spoken with the D.C. MPD detective assigned to the case, said the kid-glove treatment of Byrd raises suspicions the investigation was a “whitewash.”
The lawyer's account appears to be backed up by a January 2021 internal affairs report, which notes Byrd "declined to provide a statement,” D.C. MPD documents show.
Asked about it, a D.C. MPD spokeswoman confirmed that Byrd did not cooperate with internal affairs agents or FBI agents, who jointly investigated what was one of the most high-profile officer-involved shooting cases in U.S. history.
Cop Who Killed Ashli Babbitt Was Cleared of Criminal Wrongdoing Without Interview https://t.co/25zumnmwpS
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) January 11, 2022
The lawyer representing the Babbitt family has gone so far as to allege that the shooting was an “ambush.” There’s been some debate about the use of force as well. Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton obtained documents that he says showed Babbitt was shot for “no good reason.” Paul Sperry, who wrote the piece for RCI, also noted that use-of-force experts are skeptical of Lt. Byrd’s conduct on that day.