GOP Rep. Paul Gosar claimed the people who participated in the Capitol riot were “peaceful” and that the rioter who was shot and killed during the chaos was “executed.”
The Trump ally from Arizona made the remarks during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing with former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, former acting Attorney General Jeffery Rosen, and Robert J. Contee III, the chief of the metropolitan police department, who were there to testify about the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
During the lawmaker’s questioning of Rosen, he asked a series of simple questions, such as whether Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was shot and killed by an unnamed Capitol Police officer, was armed and whether he knew her name.
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Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, was shot as she tried to breach a door leading to the House Chamber. The unnamed officer who killed her was not charged in connection to her death. Her family plans to file a lawsuit against U.S. Capitol Police and the officer who fatally shot her for at least $10 million.
Gosar also asked if the death was ruled a homicide, which it was, according to the medical examiner, and also, “who executed” Babbitt? Rosen, who was hesitant to answer many of the lawmaker’s questions, said multiple times, “I don’t want to talk about individual situations.”
When addressing Democratic Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, Gosar claimed that “the truth is being censored and covered up,” but didn’t elaborate as to what is being “censored.” He argued that as a result of the supposed conspiracy, the Department of Justice was “harassing peaceful patriots across the country.”
Gosar has also claimed, without evidence, that antifa was responsible for the chaos that ensued.
Despite his claims, violence did occur when then-President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol to express their discontent with Congress’s intent to certify the election for President Joe Biden.
The FBI has apprehended more than 300 people in connection to the violence that occurred, with 65 of them charged for assaulting officers.
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Gosar did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been corrected to say Ashli Babbitt was an Air Force veteran.
