Trump Justice Department to settle Babbitt family lawsuit in fatal Jan. 6 shooting

The U.S. Justice Department has reached an agreement to settle the wrongful death case brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by police in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, lawyers for both sides told a federal judge Friday.

“We have reached a settlement in principle,” Justice Department civil attorney Joseph Gonzalez told U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes of Washington, D.C., who is hearing the family’s $30 million lawsuit against the government.

No final deal has been signed and terms have not been disclosed, said Robert Sticht, a lawyer for the conservative group Judicial Watch, which is representing Babbitt’s family.

Gonzalez said that he expected it would take at least a week to finalize terms and at least a month for payment to be issued once a settlement is approved by all sides.

Babbitt’s family filed suit in June 2024, saying she had been “ambushed” by police, and the case had been set for trial in July 2026 before the Justice Department changed course after President Trump returned to office. The settlement would come as Trump has cast Babbitt as a martyr, and sought to rewrite the history of the assault on the Capitol as a heroic act of collective patriotism, not a violent effort to overturn an election. Five people died in or immediately after the violence, during which more than 140 officers were assaulted.

Babbitt, a 35-year-old California native and Air Force veteran, was fatally wounded in the neck at about 2:44 p.m., while trying to climb through a smashed glass panel of the barricaded Speaker’s Lobby doors deep inside the Capitol, where rioters had reached a final security perimeter outside the House chamber.

The Justice Department found that there was insufficient evidence to prove Babbitt’s civil rights had been violated and that it was reasonable for the officer to believe he was firing in self-defense or in defense of fleeing lawmakers, who were forced to evacuate from a session to certify Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

A Capitol Police investigation cleared the officer involved, saying his actions at the height of the riot “potentially saved members and staff from serious injury and possible death from a large crowd of rioters who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol and to the House Chamber where members and staff were steps away.”

However Babbitt, who had a Trump flag draped around her neck and was the only Capitol rioter killed by police, was praised by Trump. In a statement in 2021, Trump said he had questioned why the officer who shot her was “getting away with murder.”

The family’s lawsuit alleged that U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd was negligent and claimed Babbitt, who was unarmed, had her hands in the air when she was shot.

“Ashli posed no threat to the safety of anyone,” the lawsuit stated, and did not go to Washington “as part of a group or for any unlawful or nefarious purpose.”

The Justice Department had opposed the lawsuit and defended police conduct last year but changed course after Trump returned to the White House, notifying the court on Feb. 25 that it was working “to narrow or resolve issues in this case.” On March 25, President Trump said in an interview with the conservative Newsmax cable outlet that he was “going to take a look at” the Babbitt family’s lawsuit and whether it should be settled.

Trump also said his administration was considering whether to establish a compensation fund for pardoned rioters. Trump pardoned nearly all of about 1,600 people charged in the riot, including at least 379 charged with assaulting police or media members, and granted clemency to 14 members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups, most of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

His administration has moved to fire prosecutors and identify FBI agents involved in the investigation, open investigations into their handling of cases and erased Justice Department websites of evidence and public statements about one of the largest criminal investigations in U.S. history.