Melania Trump condemns Capitol Hill violence, but draws hate from liberals for sympathizing with dead rioter

First Lady Melania Trump has denounced the Capitol Hill riot, writing that “violence is never acceptable.” However, Mrs. Trump was blasted for offering sympathy for Ashli Babbitt, the Trump supporter shot dead by police.

With President Donald Trump banned from social media and otherwise silent, the first lady issued a statement on Monday condemning the riot on Capitol Hill last Wednesday, in which a pro-Trump mob forced its way inside the US Capitol to protest Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

“Make no mistake about it, I absolutely condemn the violence that has occurred on our Nation’s Capitol,” she wrote. “Violence is never acceptable.”

In a letter riddled with spelling mistakes, Mrs. Trump offered her sympathies to the six people who died during or after the riots, including an off-duty officer who died by apparent suicide on Sunday.

However, liberals took issue with Mrs. Trump offering condolences to Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran and Trump supporter who was shot dead by a Capitol police officer during the riot. The anti-Trump crowd called Babbitt a “domestic terrorist” and an “insurrectionist,” and hammered the first lady for listing Babbitt’s name before the two police officers in her statement.

Reaction to Babbitt’s death has been extreme, and split along familiar political fault lines. Seen by the most fervent Trump supporters as something of a martyr, the 14-year veteran was shown zero sympathy by liberals. Among some of the more extreme comments circulating on Twitter were one celebrating how Babbitt is now “feeding the worms,” while numerous parody accounts poking fun at her death are online.

Mrs. Trump’s show of respect to Babbitt wasn’t the only issue liberals found in her statement. Five paragraphs in, the first lady moved away from praying for victims’ families to condemning the “salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations” made against her since the riot. What gossip and attacks Mrs. Trump was referring to is unclear, and her critics accused her of using the opportunity to paint “herself as the real victim.”

Though the left raged at Mrs. Trump for equating Babbitt’s death with those of two police officers, most liberals didn’t show the same reverence for the badge last summer. Amid wall-to-wall coverage of ‘Black Lives Matter’ riots, few pundits and commentators eulogized David Dorn, an African-American retired police captain shot dead by a rioter in St. Louis, Missouri.

With the fallout from Wednesday’s riot continuing, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has demanded that Vice President Mike Pence immediately invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump from office. Should Pence decline, Pelosi has promised to bring articles of impeachment to a vote by Tuesday. Efforts to oust him notwithstanding, Trump will leave office on January 20, when Biden is inaugurated.

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