Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) on Wednesday blocked a measure seeking to prevent Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt from receiving military funeral honors.
The Alabama Republican objected to Sen. Ruben Gallego’s (D-Ariz.) request for unanimous consent on his resolution, which he submitted earlier Wednesday.
“This resolution is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to strip away the earned honors of a veteran who deployed seven times during her many years in the United States Air Force. Ashli Babbitt earned these funeral honors through her service to this nation,” Tuberville said on the Senate floor.
He called Gallego’s resolution “petty,” saying it “would serve no other purpose than to punish the Babbitt family,” since Babbitt “is not with us any longer.”
“It’s disgraceful, and it’s un-American. In case my colleague is unaware of this, the Constitution still applies even to those you disagree with politically,” he said, arguing the Executive Branch should not have the right to strip Babbitt of military funeral honors since she was not convicted of a capital crime.
“This is nothing more than political grandstanding,” Tuberville added.
Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was shot and killed by law enforcement during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot as she attempted to climb through a barricaded door to the Speaker’s lobby near the House chamber.
The shooting, which was captured on video, transformed Babbitt into a martyr for much of the political right, who view her death as unjust.
A month after the riot, an Air Force representative under former President Biden’s administration informed her family that she would be denied military funeral honors “due to the circumstances preceding her death.”
The Air Force, under President Trump, reversed the Biden-era decision last month, writing a letter to the Babbitt family offering to provide Babbitt with military funeral honors.
Gallego, who was serving in the House during the 2021 attack on the Capitol, recalled seeing Babbitt “leading the pack” to try to force her way into the Speaker’s lobby and ignoring orders from Capitol Police to stop before she was shot.
“She didn’t die protecting our country. She died trying to tear it down. Military honors are sacred. They are reserved for the men and women who swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution and the rule of law and actually live up to it. To give them to Babbitt would be a spit in the face to all of them, to every veteran who died defending this country,” Gallego said.
“Those who served are expected to uphold our oath and military standards even after we are done with our service. If you violate the law and betray the oath, you forfeit honors,” he added. “Ashley Babbitt knew what she was doing when she stormed the Capitol, and she knew it was illegal. She wasn’t a martyr. She was and is a traitor.”
Gallego said breaking into the Capitol, armed with a weapon, is a “clear violation of the law and the oath she swore to uphold during and after service.”
“If we equate the January 6 insurrection with genuine sacrifice, then we cheapen everything our service members have fought and died for,” Gallego continued. “We tell people that trying to kill fellow Americans inside the Capitol is no different than dying on the battlefield protecting them. We erode the trust Americans have in our military, and we feed the lie that January 6 was anything more than an act of treason.”