SAN DIEGO, Calif.—January 6 has become Aaron Babbitt’s hill to die on.
Over the three years since Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed outside the House Speaker’s Lobby at the U.S. Capitol, her husband has made it his mission to investigate her death and seek justice.
“It’s not really possible to put it into words,” Mr. Babbitt told The Epoch Times in an extended series of interviews. “I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. But like I’ve said before, I mean, we’re all born with a purpose. You never know what that purpose is until it kicks you right between the legs.”
For Mr. Babbitt, the jolt came in the early afternoon Pacific time on Jan. 6, 2021, when he received urgent phone calls to turn on the television. Someone had been shot at the protests at the U.S. Capitol. He remembers seeing Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer declare that the woman shot near the House of Representatives had died.
Then everything went black.
“That kick between the legs for me was watching my wife die on TV,” he said. “So my purpose now is just to fight for Ashli until I can’t fight anymore. I don’t even know what that means. But I'll continue doing it until I can’t.”
During the first 18 months, Mr. Babbitt was prominent in news media, defending his wife from an onslaught of hate for being an alleged insurrectionist, a rioter, a vandal, and someone who attacked the Capitol. Well before many facts came out, he knew in his heart that his wife was none of the things of which she was being accused.
“Ashli’s name is going to be written history books at some point,” he said. “And I want it to be written correctly.”
Mr. Babbitt recently sat down to reflect on nearly 36 months of suffering, investigating, and preparing for justice.
Sitting on a park bench along the shore of North San Diego Bay, Mr. Babbitt watched the tour boats, catamarans, speed boats, and the occasional U.S. Navy warship sail past. On this fall afternoon, the USS Boxer headed out to sea while the USS Spruance made her way into port.
‘It Was Awful’
The first three months after his wife was gunned down by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, Mr. Babbitt struggled with the shock and what seemed like a never-ending line of haters who harassed him at his family pool-cleaning business in San Diego. He needed to decide what his life would become after being widowed at age 39.“From the start, I wouldn’t even look at the browser on my phone,“ he said. ”I wouldn’t turn my TV on for like a month because I was so traumatized by what I‘d seen. Anytime I’d log on and see pictures of Ashli dead, I'd get terrified and then shut it off. It was awful.”
Mr. Babbitt made a gut-wrenching decision that rather than withdraw into his grief, he would launch a nonstop investigation of the shooting. That meant tirelessly searching for clues while wading through a sea of online disinformation and unbridled hatred.
“I got to the point where I realized I need to be the foremost expert on what happened to my wife,” he said. “And in being that, I need to watch every single second of footage of what happened to her.
“So I just turned it into a daily routine,” Mr. Babbitt said. “I‘d wake up and search Ashli’s name on Twitter. I’d read all the bad stuff. I‘d look at all the pictures. I’d see all the videos.
‘Hill to Die On’
Mr. Babbitt’s visibility in the first year after the shooting came at a price. The pool-cleaning business he ran with his wife came under attack. The business voicemail was a nonstop wave of hate-filled messages, such as, “Can Ashli come out and clean my pool?”“We lost, like, 30 percent of our customers just based on name recognition. They didn’t want to be associated with us. And then I couldn’t take new customers on because I was getting death threats.”
Mr. Babbitt decided to sell the business and focus full-time on investigating his wife’s death. He has not looked back.
“I ended up having to sell that business for pennies on the dollar. It hasn’t been easy,“ he said. ”I’ve sacrificed a lot. But I’m willing to do that for her. This is my hill to die on.”
Mr. Babbitt recalled seeing his wife reading her Twitter feed one day and laughing at how angry many people became after she shared her views on politics or current events.
“There were a lot of tears, there was a lot of anger, there’s a lot of rage,” he recalled. “But I got to the point after I'd seen this for so long, this one night it just clicked in my head.”
“‘Wow, these people are really mad at me. They really hate me,’” he recalled her saying. “She’s laughing at the same time. So that moment came when I was reading all this bad [expletive]. And then I remembered that moment with Ashli. I just started laughing out loud. She had to have been there in that moment to remind me of that.”
Mr. Babbitt made the decision to forge ahead, to resist thoughts of revenge and focus instead on justice. It was a battle inside himself.
“I had three options. I mean, I could turtle up and go into my shell and go away forever,” he said. “I could do something brazen, you know, and try and exact revenge for my wife, and then just be dead or incarcerated, the husband of a dead ‘domestic terrorist,’ as they like they label her.
“Or I could go about it the smart, calculated way and bring these people to justice,“ Mr. Babbitt said. ”Do what’s right for Ashli in the long run of history.”
The beginning of that journey saw some “very dark days,” he said.
“It’s hard to put into words, but I believe—and I will continue to believe—that I chose the right path,” Mr. Babbitt said. “Because it’s not about me. It’s really not about me. It’s about Ashli.
Secret Tour of Capitol
Part of that investigative journey led Mr. Babbitt and his attorney to Washington to retrace the steps Ashli took on Jan. 6.In 2022, Mr. Babbitt was given a secret tour of the U.S. Capitol, arranged by U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). Mr. Babbitt and his attorney were instructed to be at a certain location near the Capitol late on a weeknight.
A black SUV with dark windows pulled up at the specified location at the appointed hour. The pair got in. Mr. Babbitt looked and realized Mr. Gohmert was driving. The now-retired congressman dropped the men off at a discreet entrance to the Capitol, and they went inside.
Mr. Babbitt was given a private moment on the spot outside the Speaker’s Lobby where his wife was fatally shot by Lt. Byrd. He was then given a tour of the Capitol by Mr. Gohmert and other supportive lawmakers.
Not long after that tour, Mr. Babbitt and his attorney went to the O'Neill House Office Building to view U.S. Capitol Police security video. The invitation for that visit came from then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Police ‘Breakdown’
When he went through all of the cell-phone videos taken in the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby, Mr. Babbitt saw his wife’s years of training as a military police officer and the tours she spent in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. She looked at what unfolded around her not only as a witness but as someone who served in the U.S. Air Force and Army National Guard.“She saw a breakdown of the police. Three police officers were not acting correctly in front of that door,” Mr. Babbitt said. “They weren’t acting like they were there to defend that door.”
Officers Kyle Yetter and Christopher Lanciano and Sgt. Timothy Lively faced an angry group of protesters demanding to go into the House Chamber and make their voices heard. The officers had no pepper spray or batons but were armed with service pistols.
The situation went off the rails when Zachary Alam vented his rage by punching the glass in the doors, including one strike that went right between Sgt. Lively and Officer Lanciano’s heads. Mr. Alam seemed emboldened by their inaction. He eventually used a black riot helmet like a cudgel to smash the glass.
“They were just standing there, letting people punch around their heads, not doing anything to quell the violence or stop the violence and the people who were creating violence and havoc that day,” Mr. Babbitt said. “They weren’t stopping them. And then Ashli yelled at them to ‘call [expletive] help.’”
Ms. Babbitt tried to intervene with Mr. Alam at one point, but he brushed her aside. She retreated to the north wall, where videos show she shouted against the violence.
Memories of Iraq
Perhaps at those very moments, Ms. Babbitt recalled the worst of her military deployments. Camp Bucca, Iraq, was a brutal duty assignment. She had to guard jihadis who would have gladly cut her throat if they escaped their confines.
“It was just all detainees that they would bring in. There was CIA coming in all the time,” Mr. Babbitt said. “Blackhawks coming in, dropping people off, taking people out.
“Lines of SUVs coming in, taking people out, bringing people in,” he said. “Riots—they kill each other. They threatened to kill our forces.”
One day, Ms. Babbitt had to run from the shower in just a towel and take cover in a foxhole because the base was being shelled, he said. On another occasion, Ms. Babbitt and another female MP came across three prisoners who had tunneled out of their cells.
“They got into a hand-to-hand fistfight with three of them before the guys in the tower could run down and help them,” he said. “So it’s two females fighting three grown men.”
Ms. Babbitt enlisted at age 17 and had to get her mother’s permission to sign up before age 18. During four deployments from her Texas base, Mr. Babbitt said, she guarded an airfield for a visit of President George W. Bush and served as security for then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.
‘I Have My Purpose’
Looking back on it all, Mr. Babbitt said there’s no way he could have known how big—and tragic—Jan. 6 would turn out to be for him and his wife.When he kissed her goodbye at home on Jan. 5, he recalled, she sensed his unease about the trip.
“The last words to my face that she spoke to me were, ‘You’re worried about me, aren’t you?‘ I’m always worried. I’m always worried about you,” Mr. Babbitt said. “And she said, ‘I’ll be fine. Everything’s gonna be alright.’”
Mr. Babbitt reflected on how far he has come since hearing the fateful news broadcast the afternoon of Jan. 6.
“I was not in a good place. It was a very deep dark place,“ he recalled. ”But I pulled out of it. Knowing that I have my purpose. And my purpose is for Ashli.
“And as sad as it is to say, maybe it was Ashli’s purpose at that point in time to be wrongfully shot. And to be that person in history to shine a light on what was really wrong that day and during those times.”
While Jan. 6 is obviously a difficult day every year, Jan. 8 also brings memories and sadness. He was supposed to grab her a takeout meal from Roberto’s, one of their favorite haunts.
“I was supposed to pick her up at 5:30 on Friday, and she said, maybe with a California burrito,” Mr. Babbitt said. “People don’t know what a Cali burrito is. But it’s got french fries on it. She wanted me to pick her up on Friday at 5:30 at San Diego International with a California burrito.”
He planned to order the Cali just as she liked it: carne asada, fries, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and pico de gallo.
“Want to talk about hard,“ he said. ”Five-thirty hit here on Friday and I was like, ‘I’m supposed to be picking her up right now.’”
But now, the grief takes a back seat. Mr. Babbitt knows it is a time for action—and justice.
“I know she’s always with me,” he said. “But it took a while. It did. It took a little while, but I just knew that I had to bury my grief and bury any bad thoughts that I had in my head.
“Because if I am nothing but 100 percent focused on my fight for Ashli and what we’re doing, then I’m no good to her.”
Aaron Babbitt fully believes that justice is coming in his wife’s case.
“Yeah, I’m confident we’re gonna get there,” he said quietly. “Yeah, I will. I will. I'll go down trying.”
