2 years ago
Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as a top aide to former Donald Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, on Tuesday delivered bombshell testimony to the Jan. 6 committee about the inner workings of Trump's White House as his election subversion push mounted.
Over the course of a couple hours Tuesday, she laid out her knowledge of Trump’s post-election campaign to hold onto power — from his desire to go to the Capitol as unrest by his supporters became a riot to his efforts at letting armed rallygoers join him on the Ellipse hours before the attack.
Here are the top moments from her testimony:
Trump lunging for the Beast's wheel
Hutchinson told the committee that she heard from a top presidential security official, Tony Ornato about an altercation on Jan. 6, as Trump continued pressing to go to the Capitol following his speech to supporters at the "Stop the Steal" rally on the Ellipse. When Trump was told he would return to the White House instead of going to the Capitol on Jan. 6, while being driven in the presidential vehicle known as "the Beast," Hutchinson recalled hearing that he became irate.
She said she heard from Ornato that Trump lunged for the steering wheel of the car and was physically restrained by the head of his Secret Service detail, Robert Engel.
Ornato "described [Trump] as being irate. The president said something to the effect of ‘I am the f---ing president. Take me up to the Capitol now,'" Hutchinson said. She added that, while Ornato relayed this story to her, Engel sat silent.
Trump throwing food at the wall
After then-Attorney General Bill Barr gave an interview to The Associated Press in December 2020 saying there was no widespread voter fraud, Trump was so enraged that he threw his plate of food at the wall, smearing it with ketchup, Hutchinson said.
“There was ketchup dripping down the wall and a shattered porcelain plate on the floor,” Hutchinson testified, noting that aides nearby conveyed the president was "extremely angry" at the Barr interview. She told the committee that she then grabbed a towel and started wiping the ketchup off the wall alongside a presidential valet.
A call from 'angry' McCarthy
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Hutchinson on Jan. 6 to relay his concern that Trump would try to come to the Capitol on Jan. 6 after the then-president mentioned it on stage at the Ellipse rally, she testified.
“He sounded rushed and frustrated and angry,” Hutchinson said, adding that the California Republican told her Trump had offered assurances for a week that he would not be coming to the Capitol on Jan. 6. McCarthy then asked Hutchinson, as she remembered it: “Why would you lie to me?"
“Figure it out," she said McCarthy told her on Jan. 6, as Congress prepared to certify the 2020 election results. "Do not come up here."
A spokesperson for McCarthy did not immediately return a request for comment about Hutchinson's recounting of the call.
Meadows' warning — then non-reaction
Hutchinson's boss at the time of the Capitol attack, then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, told her on Jan. 2 that "things might get real, real bad" four days later, she recalled. But four days later on Jan. 6, when he was told the Capitol Police were being overrun, she recalled that he “almost had a lack of reaction."
“I remember him saying something to the effect of, ‘How much longer does the president have left in his speech?’“ Hutchinson said. She had to wait about 20 to 25 minutes to talk to Meadows that afternoon while he was on a call in a secure vehicle, she said.
“It wasn’t something he regularly did.”
Trump okaying weapons at 'Stop the Steal'
Minutes before the then-president took the stage at the Ellipse rally of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021 — a gathering to amplify his baseless election fraud claims that he vowed would be "wild" and later metastasized into the Capitol riot — Hutchinson said she heard Trump urging the Secret Service to remove security magnetometers and let in people with weapons.
His rationale, as she recalled it, was allowing in armed rallygoers because “they’re not here to hurt me.”
Trump wanted the rally space to be full and “full and for people to not feel excluded,” Hutchinson said, and was “f---ing furious” people were turned away.
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