MAGA rioter pleads guilty after insisting that Ashli Babbit didn't exist

A California man pleaded guilty Thursday to the oft-used misdemeanor charge of parading in the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection.

Philip Weisbecker, 50, of San Diego County, is not accused of violence in the Capitol. But his over-the-top rhetoric in the wake of his day in the Rotunda may have set him apart.

Weisbecker told the judge he now lives near the Mexican border, the San Diego Tribune reported. But at the time of the riot he lived in Ocean Beach, CA -- the home county of rioter Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by an officer as she tried to breach the House Chamber.

As reported last October at RawStory.com, that led to this priceless narrative in the FBI criminal complaint:

“Weisbecker talked about Ashli Babbitt, who was supposedly shot in the U.S. Capitol and was from O.B. (Ocean Beach). Weisbecker said she did not exist as he knew everyone from that area, and that he has asked his friends, and no one knew her. Weisbecker asked where her [Ashli Babbitt's] funeral was. He stated it had not been here [San Diego] so she [Ashli Babbitt] was not from here [San Diego]. Weisbecker said Babbitt was not actually her last name.”

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Weisbecker would also claim that statistics show Donald Trump is still president and that Antifa caused the Capitol riot and other conspiracies. In Thursday’s virtual hearing, he was more subdued, as the Tribune reported:

“In the plea agreement read during the hearing, Weisbecker admitted to entering the Capitol, going into Pelosi’s offices, and then spending a considerable amount of time in the Rotunda. The judge noted there were no allegations tying him to violence or destruction.”

But there was this: “The plea comes a week after another man with San Diego ties — former Coronado resident Jeffery “Alex” Smith — was tentatively sentenced to three months in prison on the same charge.”

And Weisbecker seems to have made himself the object of extra curiosity:

“The plea agreement also provided that Weisbecker would “allow law enforcement to sit down with him before sentencing and review his social media postings from around the time of the breach and the instances he was interviewed by authorities about the case,” the newspaper reported.

A sentencing hearing has been set for June 27. Weisbecker faces up to six months in prison.

You can read the criminal complaint against him here.