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Who’s Responsible For Ashli Babbitt’s Death? Trump Memo Leads Social Media To One Conclusion

BY September 22, 2021

Ashli Babbitt has been treated as a martyr, with supporters calling her death a murder by Capitol Police, and insisting that someone must be held responsible for it. With the new release of a November 2020 memo circulated by the Trump Campaign, the identity of the individual or individuals who should face those consequences is, for many members of the public, solidly cemented: Donald Trump, and those who spread a lie on his behalf, misleading and enraging a radicalized a base that was already prepared to use violence to keep their president in office.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JULY 18: Former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to Trump Tower in Manhattan on July 18, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images)

Who is responsible for Ashli Babbitt’s death? On the right, people say that the police officer who shot her, or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), or the people they believe “stole” the election should face consequences for her death. However, a lot of people have pointed out since day one (or January 6th, perhaps more aptly), that it was Trump’s rhetoric, and the rhetoric of some of his most vocal supporters, that brought Babbitt and others to the Capitol Building that day, and led them to carry out a violent and destructive attack.

With Tuesday’s New York Times report on a Trump Campaign memo, which was submitted as evidence in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit against Trump, his culpability is confirmed for many people.

Even though the memo was hastily assembled, it rebutted a series of allegations that Ms. Powell and others were making in public. It found:

That Dominion did not use voting technology from the software company, Smartmatic, in the 2020 election.
That Dominion had no direct ties to Venezuela or to Mr. Soros.
And that there was no evidence that Dominion’s leadership had connections to left-wing “antifa” activists, as Ms. Powell and others had claimed.

As [former Dominion employee Eric Coomer’s] lawyers wrote in their motion in the defamation suit, “The memo produced by the Trump campaign shows that, at least internally, the Trump campaign found there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories regarding Dominion” and Mr. Coomer.

One of the hurdles that has been considered a particularly high bar for cases against Trump for spreading the Big Lie is the burden of proof that he knew he was spreading propaganda, rather than an honest personal opinion. This memo is being touted as that vital piece of evidence, and it’s got Ashli Babbitt trending again on Twitter, with the predominant theme being Trump’s (alleged) guilt in her death.

While Trump’s defamation case slowly makes its way through the legal process, another inquiry is looking closely at exactly what happened January 6th. The House Committee set up to investigate the attack is questioning witnesses, and according to Politico, they have some on their list who they expect to resist questioning. They aren’t naming names yet, but with Chuck Schumer’s announcement that some witnesses will be subpoenaed directly, rather than being given an opportunity to comply freely, there’s the strong suggestion that some of these witnesses might be people who are, themselves, connected to the violence or the incitement of it.



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