IIn late December, the new vice president, Kamala Harris, tweeted about her plans for the first 100 days of the Biden government. She promised “to make sure that the Americans are masked, to distribute 100 million shots and to take the students back to school safely”.
Among the thousands of responses was a furious tweet from a 35-year-old Air Force veteran in San Diego.
“No, fuck, you’re not going!” Ashli Babbitt replied to Harris. “No masks, no you, no Biden, the cheater, no vaccines … feel your fraudulent ass … us, the ppl bitch!”
Babbitt was not just tweeting. She had plans to fly to Washington DC the following week to attend a major public demonstration demanding that Donald Trump, rather than Joe Biden, be sworn in as president.
Babbitt was shot to death during the chaotic invasion of the Capitol by Trump supporters, officials said, while four other people, including a Capitol police officer, also died.
In the days since Babbitt and other Trump supporters broke into the Capitol building on January 6, forcing lawmakers to flee or hide, their social media has been searched for insights into their radicalization.
Babbitt’s Twitter account shows a woman deeply engaged for months with a conspiracy theory that painted Democratic lawmakers as evil pedophiles, and then persuaded and infuriated by the lies of Trump and his allies about electoral fraud.
For weeks before joining the Washington crowd, Babbitt had been retweeting false claims from Trump himself, as well as pro-Trump lawyers Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, alleging massive electoral fraud and claiming that Trump had won the 2020 election.
Many of Babbitt’s tweets, according to extremism experts, have also marked her as a believer in QAnon, a conspiracy theory that claims Donald Trump has tried to save the world from a conspiracy of satanic pedophiles, including Democratic politicians like Biden and celebrities from Hollywood, and that he will soon bring his enemies to justice.
Babbitt was not a leader or major influencer within the QAnon movement, according to Marc-André Argentino, a researcher who studies QAnon and other extremist groups. She didn’t post a lot of original content or sell QAnon-themed merchandise. But she has regularly tweeted about the conspiracy theory since February 2020 and has posted a lot on Twitter in general, about 50 posts a day, he said. On election day, she posted 77 times.
Their social networks also showed skeptical posts about masks and public health measures. She responded furiously to an alert in early December that California public health officials were reestablishing an order to stay at home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which was emerging in southern California: “This is what communist bullshit” .
The QAnon conspiracy theory, while sinister in its claims about child torture, is much more of a political movement, not just a personal illusion, experts say.
“The people who went to the Capitol were not just trying to save Trump, they were trying to stop the coming multiracial democracy” that they believed would institute “a radical leftist globalist agenda”, Joan Donovan, research director at the Harvard Shorenstein Center on media, politics and public policy, he said.
On Twitter, Babbitt had been sharing messages urging people like her to act, with messages like: “Your government is no longer afraid of you. That needs to change. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”
Babbitt was a small businessman and called himself a libertarian. She owned a San Diego-based company, Fowler’s Pool Service and Supply, according to California business records. Your LinkedIn profile lists you as the company owner since May 2017.
In a tweet, first reported by Bellingcat, Babbitt said he voted for Barack Obama before voting for Trump. In recent months, she has become a devoted fan of conspiracy theories driven by Trump and others.
Babbitt also had a history of confrontational behavior. In 2016, she was charged with reckless dangerousness, dangerous driving and malicious material damage in Maryland, but was later acquitted, according to court records. An ex-girlfriend of Babbitt’s husband wrote in the request for a protection order against Babbitt that Babbitt followed her in a car and hit her on the back three times, several media reported.
“She yelled at me and threatened me verbally,” says the complaint.
Attempts to contact Babbitt’s family were unsuccessful.
Babbitt wrote that he believed that the January 6 protest he would join would be a pivotal moment for the country and the fulfillment of some of the major events that QAnon believers expected: “Nothing will stop us … they can try and try and try, but the storm is here and it’s falling on DC in less than 24 hours … from darkness to light! ”She tweeted the day before the demonstration, referring to important QAnon slogans.
Since 2018, QAnon has been identified as a potential threat from domestic terrorism and associated with a series of violent and criminal acts.
Travis View, the host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, said the posts showed that Babbitt was “100% a dedicated QAnon follower. She was not casual about this. She was deeply involved. “
The scene in the Capitol
At that January 6 meeting, Babbitt would hear how Trump urged his supporters marched to the Capitol building while lawmakers were in the process of officially certifying the results of the 2020 elections and confirming Biden’s victory.
“You will never get back to 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,” said Babbitt later, in a Facebook video obtained by TMZ. “We are walking to Capitol in a crowd. There is a sea of nothing but red, white and blue patriots. ”She was smiling.
At the Capitol, Babbitt would be among the crowd of Trump supporters who pushed and fought to get past the Capitol police and enter the building itself, forcing lawmakers to flee or hide, and temporarily interrupting Biden’s election victory certification.
Several videos would capture the moment in a Capitol hall, where Babbitt was in front of a crowd standing at a door to the speaker’s lounge, which was closed and barricaded. On the other side of the door were members of Congress and the Capitol police protecting them, according to news reports.
Video obtained by the Washington Post shows Babbitt and other members of the crowd shouting at a group of policemen guarding the door, telling them to move away, while other Trump supporters knock on the glass of the door, breaking it. The video shows the policemen walking away from the door and members of the crowd advancing, shouting “Break in” and “Come on” as they try to break down the door.
Other widely publicized videos show Babbitt jumping to push himself through one of the glass panes of the door, towards lawmakers across the hall, while a man yells “Take down!” The footage shows a shot resounding and Babbitt falling to the ground. Later, authorities would confirm that she had been shot by a Capitol police officer and that the shooting was under investigation.
Lawmakers from both parties who were present at the time Babbitt was shot spoke of the crowd’s dangerous behavior.
“The mob was going to pass through the door; there were many members and staff who were in danger at the time, ”said Oklahoma Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin, according to Fox News.
He defended the policeman’s decision to shoot Babbitt: “Your actions will be judged in a number of different ways going forward, but your actions, I believe, have saved people’s lives even more. Unfortunately, it took one, however. “
In interviews, members of Babbitt’s family defended their political views and anger.
“My sister was a normal Californian,” her brother, Roger Witthoeft, told the New York Times. “The problems that she was crazy about were the things that we are all angry about.
Babbitt served in the army for 14 years, said Witthoeft. “If you think you have given most of your life to your country and are not being heard, this is a difficult pill to swallow. That’s why she was upset. “