US offers military funeral for January 6 rioter BabbittStaff WritersAPFri, 29 August 2025 8:04AM
The US government is offering military funeral honours for Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was killed by an officer in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Babbitt, 35, was a US Air Force veteran from California who was shot dead wearing a Trump campaign flag wrapped around her shoulders while attempting to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby inside the Capitol.
Offering military honours to one of the Capitol rioters is part of President Donald Trump’s attempts to rewrite that chapter after the 2020 election as a patriotic stand, given he still denies he lost that election.
Babbitt has gained martyr status among Republicans, and the Trump administration agreed to pay just under $5 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit that her family filed over her shooting.
Matthew Lohmeier, an under secretary of the Air Force, said on X that the decision was “long overdue,” and shared a post from a conservative legal group that was advocating for Babbitt’s family.
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The group, Judicial Watch, said the family had requested military honours from former President Joe Biden’s administration and had been denied.
In a statement, a US Air Force spokesperson said that “after reviewing the circumstances” of Babbitt’s death, military funeral honours were offered to the family. Babbitt was a senior airman.
The post shared by Lohmeier included a link to a letter the Air Force under secretary wrote to Babbitt’s family, inviting them to meet him at the Pentagon.
“After reviewing the circumstances of Ashli’s death, and considering the information that has come forward since then, I am persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect,” the August 15 letter read.
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