Ashli Babbitt Lawsuit Update!
New Judicial Watch Book Rights and Freedoms in Peril, Goes on Sale October 15
Court Hears Appeal over Challenges to Counting of Ballots after Election Day
Federal Judge Sets July 20, 2026, Trial Date in Ashli Babbitt $30 Million Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Judicial Watch Petitions Supreme Court on Behalf of Teacher Fired for Conservative Social Media Posts
Soros-Tied Facebook Censorship Board May Push for Censoring Opponents of Transgender Extremism
New Judicial Watch Book Rights and Freedoms in Peril, Goes on Sale October 15
Since the release of my most recent Judicial Watch book, A Republic Under Assault, the Left has taken extraordinary steps to eradicate American liberty, motivated by a radical ideology whose adherents occupy the nation’s highest offices.
Now, in RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS IN PERIL: An Investigative Report on the Left’s Attack on America (Threshold Editions; October 15, 2024), I detail a long chain of abuses officials and politicians have made against the American people and call readers to battle for the soul and survival of America.
My team and I march you to the front lines, to where the progressive movement threatens America’s most venerable institutions and undermines the core principles that make this country a beacon of hope to the world. The Left has declared war on everything from the rule of law to a colorblind U.S. Constitution, border security, and government accountability. Their anti-American agenda must be stopped to save our country’s future.
In this book, I discuss:
- Planned chaos at the border
- Lawfare targeting Trump
- Diversity scams and party spoils — Kamala Harris and “equity,” Critical Race Theory, DEI, DEI and the military, reparations and Judicial Watch’s class action lawsuit
- The Covid coverup
- An election unlike any other
- The big lie about January 6th, and Ashli Babbitt
Politicized indictments, ruined elections, invasions, and compromised politicians have placed our republican form of government in peril. There is a way forward, but we must be diligent about understanding the scope and detail of the peril.
Court Hears Appeal over Challenges to Counting of Ballots after Election Day
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held a hearing regarding a lower court ruling on Mississippi’s election law that permits absentee ballots to be received as late as five business days after Election Day.
The Fifth Circuit heard the case on Tuesday, September 24. Here are some highlights from the argument from Judicial Watch senior attorney Russ Nobile and here is a link to listen to a full recording of the argument.
Extending the counting of ballots five days after Election Day established by Congress runs counter to federal law, invites fraud – and undermines voter confidence.
Judicial Watch filed the civil rights lawsuit challenging the Mississippi election law on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi (Libertarian Party of Mississippi v Wetzel et al. (No. 1:24-cv-00037)). The court consolidated the case we filed with one filed by the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, and other complainants.
Our lawsuit argues:
Under federal law, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of every even-numbered year is election day (“Election Day”) for federal elections.
Congress recently reaffirmed a single national Election Day when it enacted the Electoral Count Reform Act (“ECRA”).
Under the recent Congressional amendments, no extension of Election Day shall be allowed unless there are “force majeure events that are extraordinary and catastrophic” that justify extension.
Despite Congress’ unambiguous and longstanding statement regarding a single and uniform national Election Day, Mississippi extended Election Day by allowing five additional business days after Election Day for receipt of absentee ballots.
No “force majeure events that are extraordinary and catastrophic” currently exist in Mississippi to justify extending the ballot receipt deadline for the November 5, 2024, federal election for Presidential and Vice-Presential Electors.
We argued that holding voting open for five days past Election Day violates the constitutional rights of voters and candidates:
Counting untimely, illegal, and invalid votes, such as those received in violation of federal law, substantially increases the pool of total votes cast and dilutes the weight of votes cast by Plaintiff’s members and others in support of Plaintiff’s federal nominees.
Our complaint points out that, based on the reported numbers, as many as 1.7% of votes cast in Mississippi in 2020 were received after Election Day.
In our appeal filings, we explain that the Mississippi law extending Election Day is obviously at odds with federal law.
We are a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of our work, we assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, among other achievements.
Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads our election law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements in dozens of states.
In a similar lawsuit, in 2022, on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two other registered voters, we sued Illinois for allowing vote-by-mail ballots (even those without postmarks) to be counted if received up to 14 calendar days after Election Day if the ballots are dated on or before Election Day.
In May 2024, we sued California under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) to force it to clean up its voter rolls. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Judicial Watch and the Libertarian Party of California, asks the court to compel California to make “a reasonable effort to remove the registrations of ineligible registrants from the voter rolls” as required by federal law (Judicial Watch Inc. and the Libertarian Party of CA v. Shirley Weber et al. (No. 2:24-cv-3750)).
In March 2024, we, Breakthrough Ideas, Illinois Family Action, and Carol J. Davis sued Illinois officials under the NVRA to force them to clean the State’s voter rolls. (Judicial Watch Inc., et al., v. Illinois State Board of Elections, et al. (No. 1:24-cv-01867).
Federal Judge Sets July 20, 2026, Trial Date in Ashli Babbitt $30 Million Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Following a hearing on September 20, Judge Ana C. Reyes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia scheduled a trial date of July 20, 2026, for the $30 million wrongful death suit filed on behalf of the estate and the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by then-Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.
Discovery in the lawsuit has also commenced as the Court continues to consider Ashli’s motion to retransfer the lawsuit to California where it was originally filed earlier this year.
Ashli Babbitt, 35, owned and operated a successful pool business with her husband Aaron. Ashli traveled alone from San Diego to Washington, DC, to attend the Women for America First (aka Save America) rally on January 6, 2021, at the Ellipse.
The wrongful death lawsuit was filed on January 5, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California against the U.S. Government on behalf of the family of Ashli Babbitt (Estate of Ashli Babbitt and Aaron Babbitt, et al. v. United States of America (No. 3:24-cv-00033)).
The lawsuit includes claims against the U.S. Government for wrongful death, assault and battery, and various negligence issues.
Our complaint recounts:
The shooting occurred at the east entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby. After demonstrators filled the hallway outside the lobby, two individuals in the crowded, tightly packed hallway struck and dislodged the glass panels in the lobby doors and the right door sidelight. Lt. Byrd, who is a United States Capitol Police commander and was the incident commander for the House on January 6, 2021, shot Ashli on sight as she raised herself up into the opening of the right door sidelight. Lt. Byrd later confessed that he shot Ashli before seeing her hands or assessing her intentions or even identifying her as female. Ashli was unarmed. Her hands were up in the air, empty, and in plain view of Lt. Byrd and other officers in the lobby.
***
The facts speak truth. Ashli was ambushed when she was shot by Lt. Byrd. Multiple witnesses at the scene yelled, “you just murdered her.”
Lt. Byrd was never charged or otherwise punished or disciplined for Ashli’s homicide.
The lawsuit also alleges:
Lt. Byrd, who is a (US Capitol Police) commander and was the incident commander for the House on January 6, 2021, shot Ashli as she raised herself up into the opening of the right door sidelight.… Not one member of Congress was in the lobby, which was guarded by multiple armed police officers. Additional armed police officers were in the hallway outside the lobby and/or on the adjoining stairway. Ashli could not have seen Lt. Byrd, who was positioned far to Ashli’s left and on the opposite side of the doors, near an opening to the Retiring Room, a distance of approximately 15 feet and an angle of approximately 160 degrees. Sgt. Timothy Lively, one of the armed officers guarding the lobby doors from the hallway, later told officials investigating the shooting, “I saw him . . . there was no way that woman would’ve seen that.” Lt. Byrd, who was not in uniform, did not identify himself as a police officer or otherwise make his presence known to Ashli. Lt. Byrd did not give Ashli any warnings or commands before shooting her dead.
The DC district court also continues to consider Ashli’s motion to retransfer the lawsuit to Babbitt’s home of San Diego where it was originally filed.
Ashli Babbitt’s family is relieved that Ashli’s case is moving forward to trial on all fronts. They seek justice and accountability for Ashli’s violent and lawless death at the hands of U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Byrd.
In April 2024, records from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in a separate Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit showed that the FBI opened a criminal investigation of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt after her killing and listed four “potential violations of federal law,” including felony rioting and civil disorder.
In September 2023, we received records from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, a component of the Department of Justice, in a FOIA lawsuit that detail the extensive apparatus the Biden Justice Department set up to investigate and prosecute January 6 protestors.
A previous review of records from that lawsuit highlighted the prosecution declination memorandum justifying the decision not to prosecute U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd for the shooting death of Babbitt
In January 2023, documents from the Department of the Air Force, Joint Base Andrews, MD, showed U.S. Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd was housed at taxpayer expense at Joint Base Andrews after he shot and killed U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In November 2021, we released multiple audio, visual and photo records from the DC Metropolitan Police Department about the shooting death of Babbitt on January 6, 2021, in the U.S. Capitol Building. The records included a cell phone video of the shooting and an audio of a brief police interview of the shooter, Michael Byrd.
Judicial Watch Petitions Supreme Court on Behalf of Teacher Fired for Conservative Social Media Posts
Judicial Watch filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court challenging the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in the case filed on behalf of Kari MacRae, a Massachusetts high school teacher who was fired in retaliation for social media posts which decried woke values such as critical race theory being taught in schools. The posts predated her employment at Hanover High School. Judicial Watch argues the Supreme Court should take up the case as the lower courts misapplied the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent.
We filed a lawsuit for Ms. MacRae against Hanover High School Principal Matthew Mattos and Hanover School Superintendent Matthew Ferron in November 2021, asserting a claim for First Amendment retaliation (MacRae v. Matthew Mattos, EL AL. (No. 21-cv-11917, 23-1817)).
MacRae was hired as a Hanover High School teacher on August 31, 2021 but was fired on September 29, 2021, over several TikTok posts that were made months prior to her hiring at the school. MacRae, who in May of 2021 was elected to the Bourne School Committee, made the posts in her personal capacity as a citizen and candidate for public office.
“I got fired specifically for a social media post I made,” she said. “That’s a violation of free speech,” MacRae told the Cape Cod Times in an interview published on October 13, 2021.
The lawsuit details that Mattos met with MacRae on September 24, 2021 to inform her that he was investigating the impact of six memes and two TikTok videos that MacRae posted which were referenced in a September 22, 2021, Boston Globe article.
On May 18, 2021, as part of her campaign for school committee member, MacRae posted a TikTok video which stated, in part:
So pretty much the reason I ran for school board and the reason I’m taking on this responsibility is to ensure that students, at least in our town, are not being taught critical race theory. That they’re not being taught that the country was built on racism. So they’re not being taught that they can choose whether or not they want to be a girl or a boy. It’s one thing to include and it’s one thing to be inclusive. And it’s one thing to educate everybody about everything. It’s completely another thing to push your agenda. And, with me on the school board, that won’t happen in our town.
In a letter dated September 29, 2021, Mattos fired MacRae from her position at Hanover High School, stating “I have determined that continuing your employment in light of your social media posts would have a significant impact on student learning at HHS.” Ferron reviewed and approved Mattos’ decision to fire MacRae.
No Hanover High School parent or student had raised concerns about MacRae’s employment at Hanover High School because of the social media posts.
In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the lower court’s decision which concluded that Hanover Public Schools provided evidence of the potential for disruption, which justified MacRae’s firing.
We argue that MacRae was fired for unrelated, pre-employment speech on matters of public concern:
Here, MacRae spoke as a private citizen on a matter of public concern before she applied to—let alone was hired by—Hanover Public Schools. Her speech was not at school because, obviously, it could not have been. Nor was it about the school district or its administrators, teachers, parents, or students. It was not even about the town. In fact, it is undisputed that MacRae’s speech falls squarely within the (Supreme) Court’s category of private speech on matters of public concern. Her speech added to the public debate on immigration policy, racism, and gender identity.
We note that our petition “raises a question of exceptional importance for tens of millions of current and future public-school teachers:
There are approximately four million public-school teachers in the United States. There are also tens of millions of persons who aspire to be public-school teachers in the future. This case concerns whether those individuals have the same free speech rights as every other private citizen.
In a July 9, 2024, editorial that calls for the Supreme Court to review the case, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board states:
Ms. MacRae says no federal appellate court to her knowledge has held that government employers can punish employees for speech unrelated to their jobs and which occurred before they were on the payroll.
The First Circuit’s decision delineates no statute of limitation or limiting principle to employee speech that government employers can punish. A teacher could be fired for hanging a “Make America Great Again” flag at home. Political activity during college years could become grounds for dismissal. Workers who don’t agree with the left’s cultural mores may now have to self-censor in private life to avoid losing their jobs.
Donald Trump likes to say that his opponents aren’t only coming after him—they’re also coming after you. Ms. MacRae’s cancellation is a case in point that could use Supreme Court review.
Let’s cut to the chase: Kari MacRae was fired because she spoke out against woke critical race theory before she was hired as a teacher at Hanover High School. The firing was a blatant violation of her First Amendment free speech rights. The Supreme Court should step in and uphold the First Amendment.
In February 2021, Judicial Watch filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of David Flynn, the father of two Dedham Public School students, who was removed from his position as head football coach after exercising his right as a citizen to raise concerns about his daughter’s seventh-grade history class curriculum being changed to include biased coursework on politics, race, gender equality, and diversity (Flynn v. Forrest et al. (No. 21-cv-10256)). The case was ultimately settledwith the Superintendent acknowledging in a letter “the important and valid issues” raised by Flynn and specific changes in school policies because of Flynn’s complaint,
In July 2021, we filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Palatine, IL, tenured high school teacher Jeanne Hedgepeth, who was fired by the suburban-Chicago school district where she had worked for 20 years after posting comments on Facebook criticizing the riots, violence, and shootings in Chicago in the aftermath of the May 25, 2020, killing of George Floyd. Hedgepeth made the posts on her personal Facebook page while vacationing after the end of the school year, just as some of the most severe violence was occurring. In her posts, Hedgepeth recommended studying Thomas Sowell, whom she described as a “treasure” and a “truth seeker,” and praised political commentator and activist Candice Owens and talk show host Larry Elder. She alleges that the firing violated her First Amendment rights.
Soros-Tied Facebook Censorship Board May Push for Censoring Opponents of Transgender Extremism
Facebook may be on the verge of a mass censorship operation on major area of public debate – to help the Left! Our Corruption Chronicles blog looks into it.
The Facebook (now Meta) censorship board stacked with leftists, many with deep connections to leftwing billionaire George Soros, is considering if social media posts complaining about transgender females—biological men who claim to be in the wrong body and identify as women—constitute hate speech, bullying or harassment. This is relevant because the oversight board, as it is officially known, determines which posts get blocked from the world’s most popular social networking website which has an estimated 5 billion users. Other topics recently considered by the board include whether anti-immigration posts fall under hate speech since Meta has declared that refugees, migrants and asylum seekers are protected against “the most severe attacks” on its platforms.
Now the panel is preparing to examine a pair of 2024 posts reported for hate speech, bullying and harassment multiple times but allowed by Meta to remain on Facebook and its other popular social media platform Instagram. Users appealed to Meta against its decision not to remove the posts, but the California-based technology conglomerate determined that neither violated its “community standards.” At least two individuals reported the content to the oversight board, which announced recently that it is taking on the cases. In one a Facebook user in the United States posted a video of a woman confronting a transgender woman—a biological man—for using the women’s bathroom. “The post refers to the person being confronted as a man and asks why it is permitted for them to use a women’s bathroom,” the board writes in its announcement. The other complaint involves an Instagram account that posted a video of a transgender girl—a biological boy—winning a female sports competition in the U.S. In the post spectators vocally disapprove of the result and the athlete is identified as a boy, “questioning whether they are female,” according to the censorship panel.
Meta’s hate speech policy prohibits direct attacks targeting a person or group of people based on protected characteristics, including sex, gender identity and sexual orientation, but does not include misgendering as a form of prohibited attack. “Misgendering means referring to a person using a word, especially a pronoun or the way in which they are addressed, that does not reflect their gender identity,” the oversight board explains. Meta standards for bullying and harassment were not met in either case because there was no explicit call for exclusion and there was no “cognizable attack or call for exclusion” in either social media post. One of the users who appealed Meta’s decision to keep the posts on its platform played the “transphobic” card and the other asserted that the post attacks and harasses the transgender athlete. “The Board selected these cases to assess whether Meta’s approach to moderating discussions around gender identity respects users’ freedom of expression and the rights of transgender and non-binary people,” the panel writes, adding that both fall under its “hate speech against marginalized groups and gender strategic priorities.”
It seems like the panel is fabricating terms to align with the left’s political correctness on steroids. Not surprising considering who sits on the censorship board, which Judicial Watch exposed shortly after it was launched. For starters, the group of 21 is overwhelmingly leftist and likely to restrict conservative views. Nearly half of the members have ties to Soros, the wealthy philanthropist who dedicates huge sums to spreading a radical left agenda that includes targeting conservative politicians, erasing national borders and identities, financing civil unrest and orchestrating refugee crises for political gain. Some on the oversight board have made political contributions to top Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Elizabeth Warren and others have publicly expressed their disdain for former President Donald Trump.
Among the panel’s standouts is András Sajó, the founding Dean of Legal Studies at Soros’s Central European University and a board member of his Open Society Foundations (OSF) Justice Initiative. Alan Rusbridger, a former British newspaper editor and Oxford University official, serves on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which has received at least $750,000 from OSF. Afia Asantewaa Sariyev, a human rights attorney, is the program manager at Soros’s Open Society Initiative for West Africa. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, an Indian lawyer and civil society activist, runs a nonprofit called Centre for Law and Policy Research that focuses on transgender rights, gender equality and public health. The group is a grantee of a justice foundation that pocketed $1.4 million from OSF. The list of Meta judges connected to Soros and the organized left continues. Read more about it in a Judicial Watch report published last year.
Until next week,
TOP NEWS
