IIn late December, incoming Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted about her plans for the first hundred days of the Biden government. She promised ‘to ensure that Americans remain silent, distribute 100 million shots and get students back to school safely’.
Among the thousands of responses was an angry tweet from a 35-year-old veteran of the San Diego Air Force.
“No fuck you will not!” Ashli Babbitt answered Harris. “No masks, no you, no Biden the kid rapper, no vaccines … put down your deceptive ass … we are the bitch!”
Babbitt did not just tweet. She had a plan to fly to Washington DC next week to take part in a major public demonstration demanding that Donald Trump, not Joe Biden, be sworn in as president.
Babbitt was shot dead during Trump’s chaotic invasion of the Capitol, officials said, while four other people, including a Capitol police officer, also died.
In the days since Babbitt and other Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6 and forced lawmakers to flee or hide, her social media has been searched for insights into her radicalization.
Babbitt’s Twitter account shows how for months a woman engaged in a conspiracy theory that painted Democratic lawmakers as evil pedophiles, and then persuaded and outraged by Trump and his allies’ lies about election fraud.
Weeks before she joined the Washington mob, Babbitt again tweeted false claims from Trump himself, as well as pro-Trump attorneys Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, alleging he had massive fraud against voters, claiming that Trump won the 2020 election.
According to extremist experts, many of Babbitt’s tweets also referred to her as a believer in QAnon, a conspiracy theory that claims that Donald Trump is trying to save the world from a cabal of satanic pedophiles, including democratic politicians such as Biden and Hollywood celebrities. he will soon bring his enemies to justice.
According to Marc-André Argentino, a researcher studying QAnon and other extremist groups, Babbitt has not yet been a leader or a major influencer in the QAnon movement. She did not post much original content or sell goods with a QAnon theme. But she has been tweeting regularly about the conspiracy theory since February 2020, and she has generally posted a lot on Twitter, about 50 posts a day, he said. On election day, she posted 77 times.
Her social media has also shown reports that are skeptical about masks and measures for public health. She reacted angrily in early December to a warning that California public health officials were reinstating a home order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which has risen in southern California: “This is the comic nonsense. ‘
The QAnon conspiracy theory, although unclear in its allegations of child torture, is very much a political movement, not just a personal fallacy, experts say.
“The people who went to the Capitol were not only trying to save Trump, but trying to stop the coming multiracial democracy,” which they said would set up a “radical left-wing globalist agenda,” said Joan Donovan, research director of the Harvard Shorenstein Center. on media, politics and public policy, said.
On Twitter, Babbitt shared messages asking people like her to take action, with messages such as: “Your government is no longer afraid of you. That needs to change. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”
Babbitt was a small business owner and self-described libertarian. She owned a business in San Diego, Fowler’s Pool Service and Supply, according to California business documents. Her LinkedIn profile mentions her since May 2017 as the owner of the business.
In one tweet, first reported by Bellingcat, Babbitt said she voted for Barack Obama before voting for Trump. In recent months, she has become a staunch supporter of conspiracy theories fueled by Trump and others.
Babbitt also had a history of confrontational behavior. In 2016, she was charged with reckless threat, dangerous driving and malicious damage to property in Maryland, but she was later acquitted according to court records. A former friend of Babbitt’s husband wrote in the application for a protection order against Babbitt that Babbitt chased her in a car and put her back three times, several newspapers reported.
“She shouted at me and threatened her orally,” the complaint read.
Attempts to reach Babbitt’s family do not succeed.
Babbitt wrote that she believed the January 6 protest she was participating in would be a turning point for the country, and a fulfillment of the most important events QAnon believers expected: ‘Nothing will stop us. .. they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it drops down to DC within 24 hours …. dark to light! She tweeted the day before the protest, referring to key slogans from QAnon.
Since 2018, QAnon has been identified as a potential domestic terrorist threat and linked to a series of violent and criminal acts.
Travis View, host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, said reports showed that Babbitt was “100% a dedicated QAnon follower. She was not comfortable about it. She was deep in it. ”
The scene at the Capitol
At that January 6 meeting, Babbitt would listen as Trump asked his supporters to march to the Capitol building as lawmakers were officially confirming the 2020 election results and confirming Biden’s victory.
“You will never take back our country with weakness. “You have to show strength, and you have to be strong,” Trump told them.
“It was amazing to see the president speak,” Babbitt said in a Facebook video obtained by TMZ. ‘We’re walking in a mob to the Capitol. There is a sea of nothing but red, white and blue patriots. ‘She grinned.
At the Capitol, Babbitt would be among the crowd of Trump supporters who pushed and fought their way past the Capitol police and into the building itself, forcing lawmakers to flee or hide and certifying Biden’s victory in the election to stop temporarily.
Several videos would capture the moment in a corridor of the Capitol where Babbitt stopped in front of a crowd at a door to the lobby of the Speaker, which was locked and barricaded. On the other side of the door, members of Congress and the Capitol police protected them, according to news reports.
The video obtained by the Washington Post shows Babbitt and other members of the mob shouting at a group of officers guarding the door and telling them to step aside while other Trump supporters knock on the door’s glass and it crushes. The video shows the officers moving away from the door, and members of the crowd bending forward and shouting, ‘Break it down’ and ‘Let’s fucking go’ as they try to break through the door.
Other widely circulated videos show Babbitt jumping up to push herself through one of the glass panels of the door, to lawmakers across the hall, while a man shouts, “Bust it down!” The footage shows a shot ringing and Babbitt falling to the ground. Officials would later confirm that she had been shot by a police officer in the Capitol and that the shooting was being investigated.
Lawmakers from both parties who were present when Babbitt was shot spoke out about the dangerous behavior of the crowd.
‘The mob would come through the door; “There were a lot of members and staff at risk at the time,” Oklahoma Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin told Fox News.
He defended the police officer’s decision to shoot Babbitt: “His actions will be judged in many different ways to move forward, but his actions I believe have saved people’s lives even more. Unfortunately, it did take one. ”
In interviews, members of Babbitt’s family defended her political views and her anger.
“My sister was a normal Californian,” her brother, Roger Witthoeft, told the New York Times. “The issues she was angry about were the things we were all angry about.”
Babbitt served in the Army for 14 years, Witthoeft said. ‘If you feel that you have given most of your life to your country and are not being listened to, it is a difficult pill to swallow. Therefore, she was upset. ”