WASHINGTON ― Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) gained’t reply questions on his assembly final week with the mom of a lady killed storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
McCarthy met in his workplace Thursday with Micki Witthoeft, mom of slain Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb by a barricaded door contained in the Capitol.
McCarthy refused to reply a query concerning the assembly final week aside from to say Witthoeft had requested it. On Tuesday HuffPost requested the speaker if he may share something about his dialog with Witthoeft, however he declined, saying, “Catch me later.” A spokesperson for McCarthy didn't reply to a request for remark.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one in all McCarthy’s closest allies among the many far-right of the Home Republican convention, stated at a listening to earlier this yr that Babbitt was “murdered” by police. McCarthy disagreed, saying he believed the officer “did his job” when he shot Babbitt. It’s not clear if he nonetheless feels that method.
Witthoeft additionally declined to talk with HuffPost about her assembly with McCarthy. She informed one other reporter final week that it was assembly and McCarthy was “pleasant.”
The assembly with Witthoeft is one in all some ways the Home majority underneath McCarthy’s management has proven sympathy to rioters whereas recasting the day’s occasions as a respectable protest in opposition to the 2020 election end result.
McCarthy has handed over hours of surveillance video from that day to Fox Information host Tucker Carlson, and varied Home committees have launched investigations designed to counter the official narrative that former President Donald Trump riled his supporters and despatched them to the Capitol to disrupt the congressional certification of his 2020 loss.
Formal investigations by the Justice Division and the Capitol Police cleared the officer who shot Babbitt of wrongdoing. “The actions of the officer on this case doubtlessly saved Members [of Congress] and workers from severe damage and doable dying from a big crowd of rioters who compelled their method into the U.S. Capitol and to the Home Chamber the place Members and workers had been steps away,” the Capitol Police stated in an August 2021 assertion.
Witthoeft has attended a number of Home hearings up to now this yr and maintained a vigil on the D.C. Jail, the place round 20 Capitol rioters are being held for crimes they allegedly dedicated on Jan. 6. Greene led a delegation to the jail final week, the place she dubiously claimed the rioters worsen remedy than different inmates.
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