Mikki Witthoeft, the mother of slain Air Force veteran Ashli Babbit, was arrested outside the U.S. Capitol Friday afternoon while protesting her daughter’s January 6 shooting death.
Witthoeft had reportedly conducted a memorial service for Ashli on the second anniversary of her death before she was arrested. The official charge was reportedly “jaywalking,” which is apparently rarely enforced in Washington D.C.
🚨Executed veteran Ashli Babbit’s mother arrested outside U.S. Capitol for protesting her daughter’s murder by Capitol cop Michael Byrd. Alleged charge was the never-enforced “jaywalking”. https://t.co/UC65uue9JV
— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) January 6, 2023
D.C Police Department said it was not involved in the arrest, as the incident occurred on Capitol grounds in the jurisdiction of the U.S. Capitol Police.
@DCPoliceDept was not involved in this arrest. This incident occurred on U.S. Capitol Grounds, which is not under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police Department.
— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) January 6, 2023
In April of 2021, a cursory investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia’s Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section and the Civil Rights Division, along with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division (IAD) “determined that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution” of Michael Byrd, the U.S. Capitol officer who fatally shot the unarmed Babbitt.
Video footage shows Byrd firing a single shot at the 35-year-old through a barricade at close range, without warning.
Prior to her arrest, Witthoeft had held a press conference on the grounds of the Capitol “to call attention to the Constitutional and human rights abuses taking place at the DC Detention Center where J6 prisoners are being held,” Human Events reported.
The press conference was initially scheduled to be held outside the DC detention center (also known as the D.C. Gulag) where the J6 defendants continue to be held in deplorable conditions.
“It has been awful. The phone call you never want to get,” said Witthoeft, who was wearing a red t-shirt with a photo of her daughter draped in the American flag in front of the Capitol. “Like I said my daughter was deployed four times and there were some days I was surprised not to get a call that something happened to her. But to know that she came to a Trump rally and was shot by her own government was just a completely shocking situation.”
The ordeal has radicalized Witthoeft, who now spends much of her time protesting the execution of her daughter. “I miss my little housewife life,” she told Human Events reporter Chris Barron. Her mission, according to Barron, is to “never let anyone forget Ashli’s life, or her death at the hands of the US government.”
“I had three different places tell me no, no, no, this is too controversial,” she told the reporter. “So even getting my child home and in a place of rest was difficult for me… they wouldn’t even let me bury my child… she was denied rendering of honors by the Air Force, despite being deployed four times and injured on her 21st birthday… she gave her youth, her ability to have a family and eventually her life for this country and they deny her the rendering of honors, so yeah I am pissed off.”
When asked about the oft-told lie that the only people who died on January 6th were five police officers, she replied: “The truth is that four American patriots died that day – my daughter, Roseanne Boyland, Kevin Greeson and Benjamin Philips died at the hands of the Capitol police that day. And it is my belief that Officer Sicknick could possibly be still alive if they would have rendered him aid.”
Despite all of their histrionics about the disruption at the Capitol on January 6, the partisan J6 committee made no effort to investigate Babbitt’s execution. When asked how many times she has been contacted by the committee, Witthoeft told Barron, “none.”
The anger and disappointment Witthoeft feels is certainly not a partisan affair, when I ask her about why so many Congressional leaders – especially Republicans – have been silent on the issue of the treatment of J6 prisoners and I point out that no member of Congress was standing there with her today, she responded, “Amen, kinda says it all.”
When asked what she would have told the January 6th Committee if she had been called to testify, Witthoeft replied: “I would tell them to kiss my ass.”
The still-grieving mother choked up during an interview with Right Side Broadcasting.
“My daughter was an amazing, energetic, powerful woman,” Witthoeft said tearfully. “And I miss her everyday.”