The U.S. Air Force will now grant full military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran fatally shot during the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
The change, outlined in an August 15 letter from Under Secretary of the Air Force Matthew Lohmeier to Babbitt’s mother and widower, marks a dramatic shift from the Biden administration, which denied the family’s request for funeral honors shortly after the attack. “After reviewing the circumstances of Ashli’s death, and considering the information that has come forward since then, I am persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect,” Lohmeier wrote. He also invited Babbitt’s family to meet him at the Pentagon to receive his condolences.
Babbitt, who once lived in San Diego’s Ocean Beach neighborhood, was a decorated Air Force veteran before joining the mob that stormed the Capitol. She was shot as she tried to climb through a shattered window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby, where lawmakers had been evacuated. The officer who fired the fatal shot, Lt. Michael Byrd of the U.S. Capitol Police, was cleared of wrongdoing after an internal review and a Justice Department inquiry. Byrd later told NBC News that firing his weapon was “a last resort” to protect members of Congress and fellow officers.
The new decision comes just months after the federal government agreed to pay Babbitt’s family nearly $5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit. Her relatives had initially sought $30 million, accusing Byrd of ambushing her without warning. Judicial Watch, the conservative legal group that represented the family, praised the reversal, crediting President Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Lohmeier for what it called a correction of a “cruel decision.”
Babbitt’s funeral honors will include the presence of an honor guard detail, the playing of taps, and the folding and presentation of the American flag — traditions typically afforded to eligible veterans.
The decision arrives against the backdrop of a broader push by the Trump administration to recast the narrative of January 6. On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned nearly all rioters convicted of crimes stemming from the attack and dismissed dozens of prosecutors who had worked on those cases. Babbitt, in particular, has been elevated by Trump and his allies as a symbol of what they argue was government overreach, despite the violent context of her final moments.
