Trump suggests pardoned J6 rioters could receive reparations, vows probe of Ashli Babbitt's death

President Trump says the January 6, 2021 rioters whom he pardoned could receive reparations and has promised to "look into" the death of Ashli Babbitt, a protester fatally shot by police during the incident on Capitol Hill. 

"A lot of the people that are in the government now talk about it because a lot of the people in government really like that group of people," Trump said Tuesday, presumably referring to Republicans, who now control the White House and Congress, and the Trump supporters who were arrested on that day. 

Trump also said he "took care" of the protesters, pardoning more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants on Jan. 20, 2025, his first day in office.

"These people are incredible people," Trump told Newsmax. "They were treated so unfairly, so horribly. Some of them didn’t even go into the building."

Many protesters charged during the Biden administration called for financial compensation, according to Politico.

Babbitt was a 36-year-old Air Force veteran who was fatally shot by a U.S. Capitol police officer while trying to climb through the broken window of a door behind which were members of Congress, according to a Justice Department final report. 

Trump in the Newsmax interview called her a "really good person who was a big MAGA fan, Trump fan."

"And she was innocently standing there – they even say trying to sort of hold back the crowd. And a man did something to her that was unthinkable when he shot her,” Trump said.