Congress has the power to crush Big Tech’s app monopoly



Global policymakers and consumers are weary of Big Tech monopolies. While excessive consolidation of power leads to privacy violations, price gouging, and stifling innovation, it poses a unique threat to free speech.

Trump administration antitrust enforcers understood that threat. As Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater observed, when a handful of companies control the flow of information, “someone can be disappeared from the internet quite easily.”

Digital free speech shouldn’t depend on the shifting preferences of Apple executives or Google policy teams.

Conservatives increasingly see Big Tech’s ability to distort and manipulate public discourse as a downstream effect of its market dominance. In the case of the mobile internet, it takes only two companies — Apple and Google — to control the smartphone experience of nearly every American.

Congress is beginning to respond. Two recently introduced bills would take on Apple and Google’s app store choke points directly. The Open App Markets Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and the App Store Freedom Act, sponsored by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), aim to empower users by giving them the option to download apps from sources outside of Apple and Google’s proprietary platforms, including alternative marketplaces.

Why do these technical details matter for speech? Because Apple and Google’s gatekeeper power has already been abused to silence dissent.

In 2021, Parler — a social media app popular on the right — was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores for allegedly having “inadequate” content moderation policies. The timing followed reports that the platform was used to coordinate the January 6 Capitol riot. Virtually overnight, Parler went from one of the fastest growing apps in the world to a ghost town. Internet consumers move quickly, and the app’s months in Big Tech’s doghouse became a death sentence. Parler never recovered.

Parler wasn’t an isolated case. Years earlier, Google banned Gab, another free speech-oriented platform, while Apple never allowed it to launch in the first place. Google also initially refused to approve President Trump’s Truth Social due to concerns over its moderation policies. And abroad, Apple has bowed to authoritarian regimes — removing apps used by dissidents in China and Russia at the request of those governments.

RELATED: Upgrade to a dumbphone

http://www.fotogestoeber.de via iStock/Getty Images

The problem runs deeper than censorship. Apple and Google have used their dominance to dictate the design and speech choices of developers. App makers are often forbidden from communicating key information to users — such as the availability of cheaper subscription pricing outside of Apple and Google’s walled gardens.

The scope of their power is staggering. Roughly 91% of Americans own a smartphone. More than 99% of those devices run on Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android operating systems. And 88% of the time spent on those phones is inside apps — not on web browsers.

Without real guardrails, that bottleneck becomes a single point of failure. It’s a choke point ready to be exploited by governments, activist groups, or corporations that want to control speech.

Some openly defend the current system precisely because it allows Apple and Google to keep disfavored apps off the market. Even before Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X), Apple and Google pressured the company to increase moderation. After Musk’s takeover, activist organizations lobbied Apple and Google to ban X altogether if Musk didn’t reinstate stricter content rules.

An open app ecosystem benefits everyone. Conservatives celebrating Big Tech’s apparent political shifts should remember how easily those loyalties change. Liberals worried about “tech bro” influence should support guardrails that limit partisan manipulation — regardless of who holds power.

Digital free speech shouldn’t depend on the shifting preferences of Apple executives or Google policy teams. Congress must act to restore balance and ensure pluralism. The Open App Markets Act and the App Store Freedom Act offer real, durable solutions. They deserve bipartisan support.

Dems Lecture About ‘Political Violence’ After Years Of Leftist Threats, Attacks, And Assassination Attempts

Blue politicians never fail to use the acts of violent radicals, whose roots are assigned by the corporate media to the right, to grandstand about the evils of Republicans.

No Amount Of Nancy Pelosi’s Revisionist History Can Erase Her Key Role In J6 National Guard Delay

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-11-at-10.01.23 AM-e1749654185503-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-11-at-10.01.23%5Cu202fAM-e1749654185503-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]Pelosi’s claim that she ‘begged’ Trump to send the National Guard to the Capitol on January 6th is a proven lie.

US Navy JAG Officer Accused Of Making Violent Threat Against J6 And ICE Agents

'Hunt down every J6 and ICE agent'

No, you’re not a ‘xenophobe.’ You’re just awake.



America is on fire — again. But this time, it’s not just cities burning — it’s our identity.

In Los Angeles, mobs of masked agitators — many waving the Mexican flag, others clutching Palestinian flags, and some burning the American flag — have taken to the streets, firing guns into the air, hurling rocks at ICE vehicles, blocking traffic, and setting fires.

America doesn’t need a savior. It needs a reckoning.

Where is the outrage from the media? Where are the helicopters? The FBI raids? The solitary confinement cells? When a handful of peaceful Americans entered the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a great many politely walking between velvet ropes, they were branded “insurrectionists.” Grandmothers were hunted down. Veterans were jailed without bail. But in Los Angeles, when foreign nationals tear through city streets waving foreign flags, they’re “demonstrators.”

Give me a break.

Illegal alien anarchy

What we saw in California over the weekend was the result of an illegal invasion. And it isn’t new. These aren’t “immigrants.” A great many are illegal aliens — a term defined by law — who have broken federal immigration law, ignored due process, and poured over our borders with the help of a regime that has openly defied the Constitution.

I personally know families who have tried for years to bring a spouse or child to America the legal way. They wait. They pay. They follow the rules. But if you’re an educated Christian refugee from Africa or a skilled engineer from India, you’re told to stand in line. Meanwhile, if you’re a cartel mule from Honduras or a “gotaway” with a gang affiliation, you get flown around the country on the taxpayers’ dime.

We’ve abandoned every principle that once defined American immigration: Learn English. Pledge allegiance. Assimilate. Respect the flag.

Instead, we have mobs chanting slogans that would have triggered national security alerts a decade ago. Now they trigger hashtags. And while President Trump is calling out the National Guard, California’s “leaders” stall, the courts shrug, and citizens remain unprotected.

This isn’t incompetence. It’s sabotage.

Our rights usurped

And the most dangerous part? We’ve been living under a kind of soft martial law for decades.

Since 1938, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure quietly restructured the judiciary under a corporate framework that operates outside the Constitution. These rules merged law and equity courts, nullifying constitutional guarantees and opening the door for administrative tyranny in family courts, juvenile courts, and beyond.

Don’t believe me? Try asserting your First, Fourth, or Fifth Amendment rights in a family court. You’ll be laughed out of the room — if your children haven’t already been taken based on an anonymous tip and a judge’s rubber stamp.

If martial law is officially declared, the Constitution is suspended. That’s not conjecture — that’s legal doctrine. Read Ex parte Milligan (1866), in which the Supreme Court ruled that martial law cannot be imposed where civilian courts are open. Guess what? They’re not “open” any more — they’re rigged, corrupt, and run by private bar guilds with no accountability to the people.

RELATED: The culture war isn’t a distraction — it’s the main front

Photo by Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images

It’s an old tactic. In 1933, Adolf Hitler used the Reichstag fire to suspend civil liberties and pass the Enabling Act. In 1992, Peru’s President Alberto Fujimori used a wave of urban chaos and domestic terrorism to declare martial law and dissolve the legislature. In post-9/11 America, we got the Patriot Act, a surveillance dragnet sold to us under the guise of “security.” Now we’re watching the same script play out again — engineered chaos followed by calls for federalized control and, eventually, constitutional suspension under the banner of “safety.”

Welcome to the final phase of the coup.

While MAGA people wait for Trump to ride in on a white horse, they miss the point: He’s not going to save us. He can’t. No one man can reverse decades of infiltration, judicial fraud, and corporatist collusion.

And note to MAGA: Trump gave immunity to the creators of the COVID-19 vaccine, and his “one big, beautiful bill” is fraught with overspending and a government AI takeover, in which all participants have been granted immunity for wrongdoing for a decade.

We’re done being silent

America doesn’t need a savior. It needs a reckoning.

It needs state nullification, legal rebellion, and mass resistance.

If waving a Mexican or Palestinian flag while burning the Stars and Stripes makes you feel at home, then I’ve got a simple solution: Go home.

Because this isn’t your country. You didn’t build it. You’re not assimilating. You’re here to take, not contribute.

And to my liberal neighbors still crying about how “un-American” it is not to allow these criminals to stay: What’s un-American is letting our Constitution be shredded. What’s un-American is flooding our cities with criminals while veterans sleep under bridges.

What’s un-American is weaponizing immigration to collapse a sovereign nation.

We’re not xenophobes. We’re patriots, and we’re done being silent.

Fact-check: President Trump authorized 20,000 National Guard troops for duty on Jan. 6, 2021



The former Democrat co-chairman of the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 continues to lie about President Donald J. Trump’s authorization of the D.C. National Guard on Jan. 6.

Amid the backdrop of the Los Angeles anti-ICE riots, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) took to social media on June 8 and claimed, “Trump refused to call the National Guard during the Jan 6th insurrection.”

'Pelosi will never go for it.'

— (@)

The truth is that several days ahead of time, President Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard troops for duty on Jan. 6. Under the law, those troops would need to be requested by a governor or, in the case of the District of Columbia, the mayor.

Democrat politicians refused Guard help

Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser rejected the offer of National Guard troops in a Jan. 5 letter to the Department of Defense.

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven A. Sund requested Guard troops days in advance during meetings with the House and Senate sergeants at arms. At the time, the House sergeant at arms, Paul Irving, reported to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The late Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger reported to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Sund was later told by Stenger that the National Guard request would not have flown because, as Irving put it, “Pelosi will never go for it.”

The sergeants at arms are two of the three voting members of the Capitol Police Board, which is responsible for security at the Capitol. The board refused Chief Sund’s requests for the National Guard until mid-afternoon on Jan. 6, after the Capitol had been breached and the grounds overrun with tens of thousands of protesters.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense inspector general’s report regarding the events of Jan. 6, 2021, the use of National Guard troops was discussed during a White House meeting on Jan. 3, 2021.

In attendance were acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, presidential Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and Sec. Miller’s chief of staff, Kash Patel.

“The president told Mr. Miller that there would be a large number of protesters on January 6, 2021, and Mr. Miller should ensure sufficient National Guard or soldiers would be there to make sure it was a safe event,” Milley said.

Patel, who is now FBI director, said Trump did all he was constitutionally allowed to do.

“He said, ‘If you need up to 20,000 National Guardsmen and women, not just in Washington, D.C., but anywhere in the country, you have my authorization,’” Patel recalled.

Miller recalled the discussions this way: “The president said while we’re leaving, ‘Hey, one more thing,’ and we all sat back down and discussed what was going on on Jan. 6,” Miller said.

'I am stunned by the repeated statements by Pelosi.'

“The president was doing just what I expect the commander in chief to do, any commander in chief to do. He was looking at the broad threats against the United States, and he brought this up on his own. We did not bring it up.”

During a series of conference calls on Jan. 6, the Pentagon balked at the “optics” of having National Guard troops at the Capitol. Thus began a critical three-hour, 19-minute delay in putting boots on the ground at the Capitol.

The career officers at the Pentagon were more concerned with politics than with ensuring that the National Guard made it to the Capitol, said Casey Wardynski, former assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and Reserve affairs and a 30-year U.S. Army veteran who served former President Donald Trump at the Pentagon from 2019 to 2021.

“Instead of looking after what’s best for the country, they were looking to cover their asses and do what was best for their careers and for the perception of their favorite institution, the Army,” Wardynski told Blaze News.

New Jersey police arrived before National Guard

U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, said information uncovered by his investigators was ignored by the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee and left out of the Pentagon inspector general report issued in November 2021.

“It took too long for the D.C. National Guard to arrive at the Capitol. The 113th Wing Capital Guardians have a proud history protecting our nation’s capital and serving our nation’s leadership. Nevertheless, the New Jersey State Police from nearly 150 miles away responded to the Capitol before the D.C. National Guard.”

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

In Jan. 6 HBO documentary footage obtained by Loudermilk’s subcommittee, Pelosi expressed exasperation that the Guard was not at the Capitol, at nearly the same hour that her House sergeant at arms was refusing Sund’s desperate pleas for National Guard help.

Sund told Blaze News in 2024 that if Pelosi had simply granted his Jan. 3 request for the National Guard, “I don’t think we would be here discussing this today.”

“I am stunned by the repeated statements by Pelosi about there not being any National Guard deployed to the Capitol in advance of the attack on January 6,” Sund said, “when it was her sergeant at arms for the House of Representatives who denied my request for support on January 3, and then again repeatedly for 71 minutes while we were under attack on January 6.”

Sund said the response to his urgent request for help was “absolutely abysmal,” noting that by the time Guard members arrived at the staging location near the Capitol, they were no longer needed.

“They could have not shown up and it wouldn't have changed a thing,” Sund told Blaze News.

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Feds settle multimillion-dollar lawsuit in the death of Ashli Babbitt



Nearly four and a half years after Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd shot and killed Ashli Babbitt at the U.S. Capitol, her husband on June 6 signed an agreement to settle his $30 million wrongful-death suit against the federal government.

The agreement includes a $4.975 million payout. Other terms were not immediately announced.

'She was alive and breathing after being shot.'

“This fair settlement is a historic and necessary step for justice for Ashli Babbitt’s family. Ashli should never have been killed, and this settlement destroys the evil, partisan narrative that justified her outrageous killing and protected her killer,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Twenty-five percent of the lawsuit settlement will be held in a trust account against any possible award to Babbitt’s former attorney, Terrell N. Roberts III. Roberts asked to intervene in the lawsuit earlier this year, claiming he is owed 40% of any settlement amount.

Roberts terminated his relationship with Aaron Babbitt in early 2022. Babbitt’s D.C. attorney, Richard Driscoll, demanded that the issue be arbitrated by the Attorney/Client Arbitration Board of the District of Columbia Bar.

Despite repeated corporate media claims to the contrary, Judicial Watch handled the wrongful-death lawsuit pro bono.

Although the federal government admitted no liability in the settlement agreement, it is a tacit admission by the U.S. Department of Justice that Byrd was reckless and used excessive force when he slid from a hidden position in the House Speaker’s Lobby and fired one shot at Babbitt, who had climbed into a sidelight window just outside the entry doors.

The lawsuit complaint, filed on Jan. 5, 2024, alleged that Byrd was negligent in the handling and use of his Glock 22 sidearm and reckless in his decision to fire into the crowded hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby.

The suit also claimed the Capitol Police department was negligent in its supervision of Byrd, who has a long disciplinary history that includes firing his pistol into a fleeing vehicle near his home in 2004 and leaving his gun on a toilet tank in the Capitol Visitor Center.

Aaron Babbitt filed claims against the Capitol Police in June and September 2021 and augmented the claims in February 2022 and January 2023, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego.

RELATED: Capitol Police name permanent chief hours after union slams controversial interim pick

Ashli Babbitt was a 14-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force and the Air National Guard.Photos courtesy of Micki Witthoeft and Aaron Babbitt

The suit was brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act against the entire federal government, of which the Capitol Police department is a part.

According to the lawsuit, Byrd’s bullet struck Ashli Babbitt in the left anterior shoulder at 2:44 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. The round “perforated her left brachial plexus, trachea, upper lobe of the right lung and second anterior rib, and came to rest in her right anterior shoulder.

“Video recordings show her alive and conscious, writhing uncontrollably immediately after the shooting,” the suit stated. “Ashli remained conscious for minutes or longer after being shot by Lt. Byrd. Ashli experienced extreme pain, suffering, mental anguish and intense fear before slipping into pre-terminal unconsciousness."

“Furthermore, nothing about the wound track described in the autopsy report would be expected to result in immediate death or instantaneous loss of consciousness,” the suit said, “and Ashli’s lungs contained blood, further confirming that she was alive and breathing after being shot.”

Babbitt was unarmed, hands raised

Although Byrd claimed that he feared for his life at the time he shot Babbitt, he “later confessed that he shot Ashli before seeing her hands or assessing her intentions or even identifying her as female,” the lawsuit said. “Ashli was unarmed. Her hands were up in the air, empty and in plain view of Lt. Byrd and officers in the lobby.

“Ashli posed no threat to the safety of anyone,” the suit said.

The killing became a polarizing event for Jan. 6 and drew vile responses from the left, with many claiming that Babbitt deserved to be shot because they believed her to be a rioter who was part of a mob. Death threats and harassment were directed at Aaron Babbitt. Immediately after the shooting, people would call the Babbitts' pool-cleaning business and ask, “Can Ashli come over and clean my pool?”

A self-described “anarchy princess” stomped on a birthday floral tribute to Babbitt on the steps of the Capitol in October 2022. The woman, Brianne Marie Chapman, often heckled Babbitt’s mother, Micki Witthoeft, at public events.

'Then-Lieutenant Byrd’s weapon was left unattended in a public restroom for approximately 55 minutes.'

Long investigations carried out by news media and Judicial Watch Inc. revealed that Ashli Babbitt tried to stop rioting that erupted in the Speaker’s Lobby hallway between 2:36 and 2:44 p.m. She shouted at rioters to stop and eventually threw a left hook to the face of rioter Zachary Alam to end his spree of vandalism and mayhem.

The suit was filed in San Diego, but the Biden DOJ immediately moved to have it transferred to the friendly confines of federal court in the District of Columbia. Judicial Watch was still fighting to move the case back to California when the “settlement in principle” was first announced May 2.

The DOJ declined to prosecute Byrd in 2021, stating there was not enough evidence that the officer willfully used excessive force in killing the 14-year U.S. Air Force veteran. The shooting-justification report was loaded with errors and did not use the proper U.S. Supreme Court litmus test for fatal use of force.

Byrd promoted, rewarded

A U.S. House subcommittee outlined how the Capitol Police covered up Byrd’s identity for eight months in 2021, paid more than $35,000 to house him in an admiral’s suite at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, provided $37,000 in unrestricted retention bonuses, and helped Byrd open a GoFundMe account that brought in more than $164,000.

Former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) made a $200 donation to Byrd's GoFundMe on Nov. 18, 2021. At the time, Kinzinger was a member of the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Kinzinger wrote on social media, “A worthy cause, as this man has faced quite an onslaught of misinformation and extreme threats.”

Capitol Police planned to use money from the Officers’ Memorial Fund for fallen officers to pay Byrd’s expenses, including overtime pay he lost by being off work following Jan. 6, the House report said. The plan was to submit Byrd’s proposal ahead of any other Memorial Fund payments, including those for 90 officers injured on Jan. 6.

The Capitol Police general counsel worked directly with Pelosi's staff to find ways to assist Byrd after the shooting. A police source who was in attendance at a Capitol meeting with Pelosi told Blaze News the speaker emerita declared that Byrd was not to be touched.

RELATED: Lawmaker who visited El Salvador to spring MS-13 gang member attacks Ashli Babbitt as a ‘domestic terrorist’

U.S. Capitol Police Officer Steven Robbs peers into the House Speaker’s Lobby after Lt. Michael Byrd shot Ashli Babbitt. A wrongful-death lawsuit filed against Byrd said tactical officers were in the hallway when Byrd aimed and fired at Babbitt at 2:44 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.Photo by Tayler Hansen

Capitol Police assigned Byrd a dignitary protection detail and planned to provide him with a department-issued shotgun for personal protection. However, Byrd failed the FBI background check and the shotgun proficiency test, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said.

Byrd was promoted to captain in 2023. Loudermilk said he was troubled by the promotion, asking then-Chief J. Thomas Manger to provide more information on the standards used for the promotion. Manger never responded, a Capitol Hill source told Blaze News.

Blaze News reached out to the USCP for comment.

Blaze News investigations exposed how Capitol Police have covered for Byrd for nearly 25 years. Byrd was recommended for termination in 2001 when an internal affairs investigation found he abandoned his post in the Speaker’s Office for a card game in a nearby cloakroom. When Byrd was confronted by a supervisor, he lied, defying video evidence to the contrary, the investigation found.

Byrd was suspended for a week after a 2015 incident in which he shouted at a Montgomery County police officer working security at a Maryland high school football game.

Byrd “became argumentative with the officer and began yelling profanities at the officer, calling him a ‘piece of sh**, a**hole, and racist,’” according to a report issued in 2024 by Rep. Loudermilk. Byrd accused the officer of “targeting the ‘black side’ of the field and then jumped the fence” to confront him.

In 2019, Byrd was again referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility for leaving his Glock pistol in a Capitol Visitor Center restroom.

“Then-Lieutenant Byrd’s weapon was left unattended in a public restroom for approximately 55 minutes before it was discovered by another officer,” Loudermilk wrote. Byrd was suspended without pay for 33 days.

Loudermilk disclosed that the records of three other OPR discipline cases against Byrd were somehow missing.

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Controversial assistant chief embroiled in 2010 fraud scandal named acting Capitol Police chief



Sean P. Gallagher, the assistant U.S. Capitol Police chief who became embroiled in a time-card fraud scheme in 2010 and was blamed by a top department commander for disastrous inaction in the USCP Command Center on Jan. 6, has been named acting chief of the department.

The U.S. Capitol Police Board made the appointment as the search begins for a permanent replacement for just-retired Chief J. Thomas Manger. The three-member board includes the House and Senate sergeants at arms and the architect of the Capitol. The police chief serves as a non-voting member.

'Supervisors are held to a lower standard, even when the conduct is criminal.'

Gallagher’s appointment as acting chief will most likely not lead to him being offered the permanent job, according to Capitol Hill sources who spoke with Blaze News on the condition of anonymity. Still, his appointment was described by several police sources as a morale-killer among the rank and file.

Gallagher has drawn fire throughout his nearly 25 years with U.S. Capitol Police, including a felony-level time-cardfraud case that involved him forging the signature of a USCP inspector in order to file bogus overtime claims, internal documents show.

Gallagher was one of the subjects of a scathing Jan. 6 whistleblower letter that alleged that he and the then-chief "simply watched, mostly with their hands in their laps" while officers fought for their lives across Capitol grounds after tens of thousands of protesters surrounded the building.

“It’s the white shirts that are so corrupt,” one source told Blaze News on June 2. “They’re the ones who almost got us killed on January 6.”

Acting Capitol Police Chief Sean Gallagher joined the department in 2001. His tenure has been marred by controversy.Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

The move to place Gallagher in the top spot was most likely intended as a resume pad to help him move on to another law enforcement department or agency, sources said.

Manger, who joined as chief in July 2021 and retired May 30, oversaw massive budget growth in the wake of Jan. 6. He submitted a budget request to the current Congress for nearly $1 billion.

Manger’s final six months in office were marred by high-profile security failures. In January 2025, a man was admitted through the Capitol Visitors Center checkpoint armed with a 9mm handgun hidden in his waistband. The man was later detained after he exited the Library of Congress.

On March 4, a congressional staff member who attempted to bring a loaded handgun through a security checkpoint told Capitol Police that he successfully brought the weapon through security the day before.

Manger blamed the security lapses on “the hardest kind of failure to address: human failure.”

Former Capitol Police Lt. Tarik K. Johnson, who was suspended for nearly 18 months after Jan. 6 by former acting Chief Yogananda Pittman and the Office of Professional Responsibility, said if Gallagher is named permanent chief, the truth about Jan. 6 will never come out.

“If he gets the position permanently, January 6th will go down in history as an insurrection caused by President Trump,” Johnson wrote on X, “as Gallagher will ensure nothing comes out that would disturb the insurrection narrative.”

Johnson was one of the first officials to call out the Jan. 6 inaction of Gallagher and Pittman that he said endangered House and Senate members as the Capitol was overrun. The leadership vacuum in the Command Center delayed evacuations and set up the conditions leading to the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt just outside the Speaker’s Lobby, Johnson has said.

Capitol Police radio transmissions show that Johnson pleaded for permission to evacuate the U.S. Senate just before 1:30 p.m. that day, but was greeted by complete silence from the Command Center. Johnson eventually acted on his own, rushing senators and staff to safety just as an angry crowd moved toward the main Senate entrance.

Johnson’s suspension was officially because he wore a red Make America Great Again ball cap as he moved in and out of the crowds on Jan. 6. Johnson counters that the real reason for his discipline and demotion was that his decisions exposed the failures of senior leaders assigned as area commanders for the Capitol that day.

Gallagher’s appointment is a head-scratcher, sources said, given a checkered history that includes sustained charges of felony-level time-card fraud in 2010 that cost taxpayers at least $10,000.

Overtime fraud discovered

Documents obtained by Blaze News in 2024 showed that Gallagher was recommended for termination for a time-card fraud scheme involving himself and two lieutenants under his command.

According to Rhoda Henderson, a retired USCP sergeant and whistleblower, the other participants in the fraud scheme included Deputy Chief John Erickson and former Lt. Wendy Colmore, who left the department in 2015 for a post in the U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms office.

According to Office of Professional Responsibility disciplinary records obtained by Blaze News, Gallagher forged his supervisor’s signature on overtime pay submissions, using a different color pen for the forged signature from the one he used for his own. The fraud scheme was discovered in 2010 and sparked a long investigation.

An OPR memo dated Dec. 18, 2013, recommended Gallagher’s termination “for having defrauded the government of more than $10,000.”

U.S. Capitol Police Assistant Chief Sean Gallagher testifies during the House Committee on Administration Subcommittee on Oversight hearing on March 12, 2024.Photo by Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

“The offense is egregious and, absent any mitigating factors, warrants nothing less than termination,” the memo read. “This offense was willful and frequent, occurring on eight occasions. Captain Gallagher misrepresented his times, forged his supervisor’s signature on overtime authorization forms, falsified pay certification sheets, and forged his supervisor’s signature on pay certification sheets to defraud the government for significant personal gain.”

Despite the fraud alleged, Gallagher kept his job. A Capitol Police source told Blaze News that then-Capitol Police Chief Kim C. Dine intervened in Gallagher’s case. Dine assigned the discipline investigation to Inspector Daniel Malloy, the supervisor whose signature Gallagher was accused of forging. Chief Dine left the job in 2015.

The OPR investigation recommended that Gallagher be demoted from captain to lieutenant, but Gallagher escaped with only a 10-day unpaid suspension.

Jim Konczos, chairman of the Capitol Police Labor Committee’s executive board at the time of the overtime fraud investigation, described a department culture in which “supervisors are held to a lower standard, even when the conduct is criminal.”

Gallagher was promoted to assistant chief in October 2023 from his previous title of deputy chief and head of the Protective Services Bureau. He was named inspector in June 2018 and became commander of the Dignitary Protection Division. He became deputy chief in 2019. From 2010 to 2018 he was assistant commander of the Dignitary Protection Division and the Capitol Division. From 2008 to 2010, Gallagher was assistant commander of the Investigations Division.

The USCP Public Information Office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

‘Two bumps on a log’

A 16-page whistleblower letter sent to Congress in September 2021 faulted Deputy Chief Gallagher and acting Chief Pittman for inaction that led directly to injury of officers and put lawmakers in danger.

“In the Command Center, they simply watched, mostly with their hands in their laps,” wrote former Deputy Chief Jeffrey J. Pickett. “They did not try to help or assist as officers and officials were literally fighting for each other, their lives, and the Congress.”

The signature on the whistleblower letter was redacted, but Pickett later acknowledged writing the document.

“What I observed was them mostly sitting there, blankly looking at the TV screens showing real-time footage of officers and officials fighting for the Congress and their lives,” Pickett wrote. “This observation of their inaction was reported and corroborated by other officials and non-USCP entities.”

Pickett said he believed the inaction was intentional.

“It is my allegation that these two, with intent and malice, opted to not try and assist the officers and officials, blame others for the failures, and chose to try and use this event for their own personal promotions,” Pickett wrote.

“These two instead, while officers were being injured, elected to do nothing, lie and attempt to profit professionally,” Pickett wrote. “They chose to watch, as one non-USCP witness stated, ‘like two bumps on a log,’ make calls, and start to blame everyone for their failures.”

Former acting U.S. Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman testifies before a U.S. Senate committee on April 21, 2021.Photograph by Greg Nash/The Hill/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Pittman, who was named acting chief for the six months prior to Manger being named chief, in February 2023 became chief of police at the University of California at Berkeley. Although she did not yet qualify for Capitol Police retirement pension, Manger granted her five months of leave without pay until she reached the retirement threshold.

The department has been mired in other scandals since January 6. Former Officer Harry Dunn and Special Agent David Lazarus gave conflicting and apparently false testimony in the trial of four Oath Keepers and one associate in 2022.

Lazarus testified that he witnessed a confrontation between members of the Oath Keepers and Dunn in the Small House Rotunda, but at the time he cited, he was not even in the Capitol. The Oath Keepers had left the building prior to Lazarus meeting up with Dunn, according to a multi-part Blaze News video series by Steve Baker.

Lieutenant Michael L. Byrd, who shot and killed Babbitt at 2:44 p.m. outside the Speaker’s Lobby, was shielded from public view for seven months, hidden in a luxury hotel room at the Joint Base Andrews military facility in Maryland.

Capitol Police paid for $21,000 in security upgrades to Byrd’s Maryland home, awarded Byrd nearly $40,000 in unrestricted retention funds, and helped him establish a GoFundMe campaign that netted more than $164,000, according to a November 2024 letter from U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.).

Byrd had been accused of abandoning his post in the Speaker’s Office for a nearby cloakroom card game in 2001, then lying about it to internal affairs investigators.

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Fee-hungry ex-lawyer puts settlement of $30 million Ashli Babbitt lawsuit at risk, court filing says



The Maryland attorney who three years ago dropped Aaron Babbitt as a client in the shooting death of his wife on Jan. 6 is endangering a final settlement of the $30 million wrongful-death lawsuit between Judicial Watch Inc. and the U.S. Department of Justice, an attorney told a District of Columbia federal court on May 19.

Terrell N. Roberts III, who walked away from the case in February 2022, rejected an offer to set aside 25% of any financial settlement in a dedicated trust account while the issue of what fees, if any, Roberts is owed is determined in arbitration by the Attorney Client Arbitration Board of the District of Columbia Bar.

'We are representing Ashli’s family pro bono!'

“Plaintiffs are concerned by Mr. Roberts’ role in this case, which is frustrating completion of the settlement,” said Judicial Watch attorney Robert Sticht, who represents Aaron Babbitt of San Diego and the estate of his late wife, Ashli Babbitt.

Roberts wants U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes to decide the issue of attorney fees, arguing that arbitration could take six months. He also wants the judge to revisit her rejection of a charging lien against the settlement.

The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, claimed May 19 that the settlement agreement is for less than $5 million. Parties in the suit would not comment on the news story or the alleged amount. The Post reported incorrectly that Judicial Watch and Washington, D.C., attorney Richard Driscoll would take one-third of any settlement.

“I can say, contrary to initial WPOST report, @JudicialWatch is not getting a third (or any portion) of any settlement,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton posted on X. “We are representing Ashli’s family pro bono!”

Sticht now looks prophetic, as he tried to caution the news media against reporting that Judicial Watch would reap a windfall in the case.

Sticht was chastised and silenced by Judge Reyes at a May 12 hearing when he tried to announce to the press listening on the court’s audio feed that Judicial Watch will take no fees from the Babbitt lawsuit.

“This is crazy, and it is costing a lot of money,” Sticht said of the delays caused by the fee dispute. “And just so the court knows, for the record and all the press who may be on the telephone, Judicial Watch does not a get fee out of this settlement.”

RELATED: Federal judge explodes in Ashli Babbitt court hearing as wrongful-death case slows

Photo (left): John Sullivan; Photo (right): Aaron Babbitt

Judge Reyes talked over Sticht and chastised him for speaking directly to the media.

“Mr. Sticht, did I not just tell you that when I start talking, you stop?” Reyes snapped.

Roberts represented Babbitt from shortly after Babbitt’s wife was shot to death Jan. 6 by U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd. Roberts abandoned the case in late February 2022 but has still been seeking up to 40% of the financial settlement being negotiated by Judicial Watch. Babbitt was left to find new legal counsel after Roberts fired him as a client “for cause.”

Judicial Watch agreed to be bound by the decision of the arbitration board. Driscoll, who represents Aaron Babbitt for the narrow issue of the fee dispute with Roberts, filed for D.C. Bar arbitration May 9. He said now that Babbitt has asked for arbitration, both parties are required to take part under bar association rules.

Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 25% is the maximum fee allowed for all plaintiff attorneys combined.

Sticht said because “the likelihood of Mr. Roberts recovering such a fee is minimal, at best, given his admittedly brief and limited involvement in the legal matter,” the 25% set-aside “protects Mr. Roberts for an inability to recover an award.”

“Mr. Roberts rejected plaintiffs’ offer,” Sticht wrote in the court filing.

Roberts sought a charging lien from the court against the gross amount of any settlement. Judge Reyes rejected the idea, but allowed Roberts to be an intervenor in the case for the limited purpose of keeping tabs on settlement developments.

Roberts said if he is compelled to participate in arbitration, he will ask Judge Reyes to issue a stay in the lawsuit until the issue of attorney’s fees is settled.

RELATED: Ashli Babbitt stood up to him — now J6er 'Helmet Boy' faces new charges

Aaron Babbitt with his late wife Ashli, who turned 35 three months before she was killed on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.Photo courtesy of Aaron Babbitt

“As a fundamental matter, arbitration is not an efficient option at this juncture,” Roberts wrote to the court. “The process could take up to six months (if not more). That is too long given that we are a hair’s breadth from a settlement. The court could more practically handle the matter of attorney’s fees in a fraction of the time it would take to arbitrate the case.”

Sticht said that idea “goes well beyond the limited intervention the court permitted.”

“Mr. Roberts presents no justification for why the court should reconsider these issues,” Sticht wrote.

Roberts’ attempts to cash in on the lawsuit have added drama and frustration to an already tense courtroom atmosphere. Since the first hearing on the lawsuit on Aug. 6, 2024, Judge Reyes has repeatedly lost her temper with Sticht, shouting at him to “stop talking” and accusing him of giving “snide” answers to her questions.

Brian Boyd, a DOJ trial attorney, said in the filing that the government supports the proposed 25% set-aside because it “is sufficient to protect Mr. Roberts’ interests.”

Boyd said Judicial Watch’s agreement to abide by the arbitration panel’s decision “and disperse [sic] to Mr. Roberts that portion of the set-aside funds that ACAB determines Mr. Roberts is owed, if any, should eliminate Mr. Roberts’ concern regarding his ability to collect fees to which he is entitled.”

Trial in the $30 million lawsuit is set for July 2026. The election of President Donald J. Trump last November vastly changed the DOJ’s demeanor toward the case and pushed the government toward a settlement.

In the years since Babbitt was killed, President Trump has expressed support and sympathy for the Babbitt family while ripping Lt. Byrd as a “thug” and a “coward.” The president expressed his belief that Ashli Babbitt “was murdered.”

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