Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax participated to some extent in the right-wing effort to try and make a martyr out of Ashli Babbitt, the domestic terrorist who was shot and killed by Capitol police during the Capitol riot. Larry Bell lamented in a column five days after the riot that Babbitt, "an unarmed White 14-year U.S. Air Force veteran, was fatally shot by a U.S. Capitol Police employee when attempting to illegally enter the House Chamber," gushing that "Babbitt had served as an air base security guard during Afghanistan and Iraq deployments, and later in an Air National Guard unit known as the 'Capital Guardians.'" In April 2021, Newsmax gave a TV platform to Babbitt's widow to insist that "nothing, I don't think, she did that day warranted to be, you know, one shot, one kill, just executed" and helped him promote a memorial fund he set up.
An August 2021 column by Michael Dorstewitz demanded that police officer who shot Babbitt, Michael Byrd, should be put on trial, even though an internal investigation cleared him of wrongdoing:
“I know that day I saved countless lives,” Byrd said. “I know members of Congress, as well as my fellow officers and staff, were in jeopardy and in serious danger. And that’s my job.”
There’s no question but that he was frightened. Most people would be under those circumstances. But Babbitt clearly didn’t even know Byrd was there. Had she known a gun was trained on her, it’s doubtful that she would have taken another step.
[...]
Any other officer working for any other agency under similar circumstances would have been indicted by now, and have been given a public trial.
Dorstewitz concluded by huffing, "Byrd shouldn’t be given special treatment just because he works for Nancy Pelosi." In fact, Pelosi was never a part of the Capitol police governing board.
That month, Newsmax also hyped a wrongful-death lawsuit the Babbitt family was planning to file. In October 2021, Newsmax gave a TV platform to Babbitt's mother to insisted that her daughter was murdered and to compain that Ashli was denied full military burial honors because of her participation in a violent insurrection. Newsmax let her make the same complaint a couple days later.
Newsmax also hyped Donald Trump trying to exploit her death for political purposes:
- Trump Asks: 'Who Shot Ashli Babbitt?'
- Trump to Ashli Babbitt's Family: 'There Must Be Justice'
- Trump in Video Praises Babbitt, Urges DOJ to Reopen Probe
- Trump: Ashli Babbitt Was Jan. 6's Sole Casualty, and Killing Her Was 'a Disgrace'
- Trump Slams McCarthy Over Ashli Babbitt Comments (in which Jeffrey Rodack touted how Trump was "proclaiming Ashli Babbitt was 'murdered' by police")
More than two years after the fact, Newsmax was still focused on Babbitt's death -- and on Byrd. The apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy complained in a Jan. 13 article:
The Capitol Police officer who shot and killed demonstrator Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6, 2021, was housed for six months in a suite at a military base, Air Force records show.
Documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that U.S. Capitol Police paid for a suite to house Lt. Michael Byrd and a "pet" for six months in the Presidential Inn at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland from July 2021 to January 2022.
The suite, which cost thousands of dollars, normally is reserved for top brass at the base, according to the records.
It was not until the second-to-last paragraph of his article that McCarthy alluded to why this might have been the case: "Byrd revealed that he had been threatened for his actions."
When Byrd received a promotion from the Capitol Police, Rodack complained in an Aug. 25 article that was made the lead story on the Newsmax website when it was first posted:
The Capitol Police officer, who shot and killed demonstrator Ashli Babbitt during the Jan. 6, 2021, protest, is set to be promoted from lieutenant to captain.
Roll Call reported that Michael Byrd's planned promotion was announced by police in an internal memo.
Babbitt, 35, was fatally shot while attempting to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the office lobby of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi inside the Capitol.
Roll Call noted that Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was not armed.
Rodack then noted that "Some Republicans have characterized Babbitt's death differently," citing far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's demand that "civil rights abuses" be investigated.
