‘A radicalized terrorist’: Trump admin to pay out $5 million of public money to family of shot Jan. 6 rioter

Four years on, and the events of Jan. 6, 2021 continue to reverberate. For just a few hours on that day, politicians on all sides were united in condemnation of the rioters who smashed their way into the United States Capitol in a failed bid to keep Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

Then, depressingly, that unity fractured into partisan bickering. What seemed like the depressing end to the saga came earlier this year, with Trump pardoning those imprisoned for their role in the attack. Now there’s a ridiculous little cherry on top of that, as it’s just been confirmed that the government will pay $5 million to the family of shot rioter Ashli Babbitt.

Ashli Babbitt was a terrorist who got what she asked for when she followed the orders of a deranged old man who told her an election was stolen when he knew it wasn’t.

If Trump wants to give her family $5 million, let him do it.

Hardworking American taxpayers should not. pic.twitter.com/XVcnZXKhFH

— That Gay Guy Candle Co. (@gayguycandleco) May 19, 2025

Babbitt was in the mob that stormed the Capitol and, while inside, attempted to breach a barricaded door to the Speaker’s Lobby. She was repeatedly warned not to proceed but did, and was shot in the shoulder by a United States Capitol Police Officer, later dying of the wound in hospital.

In the months and years following, Babbitt has become a MAGA martyr, with a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of her husband seeking $30 million in damages for her death. The Justice Department strenuously opposed the claim and was planning to fight it, but now Trump has ordered that this will end, and that Babbitt’s family will get a hefty taxpayer-funded payout.

As a reward for their daughter’s attempt to overthrow American democracy, the US government and assassinate the Vice President of the United States, Trump is forcing American tax payers to gift the family of domestic terrorist Ashli Babbitt with $5 million. 😳👇 pic.twitter.com/EM93aInsoZ

— Bill Madden (@maddenifico) May 19, 2025

A MAGA martyr

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, as Trump himself has been busily trying to whitewash Babbitt’s actions on Jan. 6. In a rewriting of history that’s ridiculous even for him, he’s attempted to claim that rather than forcing her way through a barricade, Babbitt was “innocently standing there”. He went further, painting her as a moderating force in the riot that was “they even say, trying to sort of hold back the crowd”.

Ordinarily, it’d be a low point in American democracy for the president to order that the family of someone killed while trying to storm the Capitol building to overturn the results of a legitimate election get such a massive payout. But, to be honest, by the nightmarishly low standards of the Trump presidency, this is just a Tuesday.

If there’s an amusing postscript, it’s that Babbitt’s family won’t even get the full amount. They’ll get a life-changing $3.3 million payment, but the rest will slide seamlessly into the pockets of conservative group Judicial Watch. Draining the swamp? More like draining public funds into MAGA wallets.