Trump wants to know whether Cassidy Hutchinson will be prosecuted for telling tall tales
Congressional investigators released a report last week marking some of the distance the Jan. 6 Select Committee and one of its star witnesses journeyed away from the truth as a means to "legislatively prosecute" former President Donald Trump.
The Republican front-runner is now wondering whether there will be consequences for one of the individuals caught casting shade on him with tall tales.
"Our great Secret Service has totally CRUSHED Cassidy Hutchinson's (who I barely knew) made up (FAKE!) stories about me roughing up Secret Service Agents from the back seat of the Beast (Limo)," Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social.
"Has she now changed her testimony?" added Trump.
House Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) released a report last week indicating the Jan. 6 committee erased records; hid numerous transcribed interviews; failed to turn recordings over to Republican lawmakers; suppressed evidence that failed to conform to Democrats' preferred narrative; and colluded with Fulton County's scandal-plagued Democratic district attorney.
The congressional report, penned by the House Administration Committee’s oversight subpanel, also highlighted an instance when the Jan. 6 committee went out of its way to lend credence to sensational gossip without giving a hearing to known witnesses whose firsthand accounts would ultimately paint an entirely different picture.
Blaze News previously reported that Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as assistant to Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows, sat for six transcribed interviews and one publicized hearing with the committee. In her fourth transcribed interview in June 2022, she provided the committee with something they obviously figured they could use. After all, the Jan. 6 committee scheduled Hutchinson's public hearing to take place eight days later.
Despite knowing of other witnesses who may have provided contradictory testimony — including the Secret Service agents featured in the story — the committee put Hutchinson on the stand. She then spun a yarn about how Trump got into a scuffle with a Secret Service agent and attempted to wrest control of the presidential limousine.
Hutchinson claimed that on Jan. 6, Tony Ornato, a former Secret Service agent and Trump's deputy chief of staff, "described [Trump] as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, 'I'm the f'ing president, take me up to the Capitol now,' to which [Secret Service Agent Bobby Engel] responded, 'Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing.'"
"The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel," continued Hutchinson. "Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, 'Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel.'"
Hutchinson, who apparently even got the type of vehicle at the heart of her story wrong, suggested that Trump then lunged toward Engel.
The congressional report released last week indicated that the Jan. 6 committee only got around to interviewing the witnesses with actual insights into the story months after Hutchinson shared her fiction with the nation — when "it was obvious Republicans would win control of the House."
Ornato "directly refuted Hutchinson's testimony," telling the Jan. 6 committee in a Nov. 29, 2022, transcribed interview that "the first time he had ever heard the story Hutchinson claims [he] told her on January 6 was during Hutchinson's public testimony."
Hutchinson's story was also contradicted by the Secret Service agent who was driving Trump to and from the Ellipse on Jan. 6.
While the Jan. 6 committee did not bother to ask the agent about Hutchinson's alternate history during his Nov. 7, 2022, transcribed interview, the agent brought it up anyway, insisting that he "did not see him reach [redacted]. [President Trump] never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn't see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all."
"The testimony of these four White House employees directly contradicts claims made by Cassidy Hutchinson and by the Select Committee in the Final report," said the Oversight report. "None of the White House employees corroborated Hutchinson's sensational story."
In his Truth Social post Monday, Trump wrote, "Will she be prosecuted for what she did and said? What about the Unselect J6 Committee. They destroyed almost everything, including real evidence and findings. What's going to happen with them — Serious crimes have been committed?"
Extra to seeking accountability for Hutchinson and the committee at large, Trump also recently suggested that former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) "should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee."
Cheney, the Jan. 6 committee's vice chairwoman, was the one to press Hutchinson to testify under oath during the public hearing about what she imagined Trump had done when being driven away from his speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.
After Hutchinson testified under oath, Cheney gave her a hug, later telling ABC News' "This Week," "What Cassidy Hutchinson did was an unbelievable example of bravery and of courage and patriotism in the face of real pressure."
"I am absolutely confident in her credibility. I'm confident in her testimony," added Cheney.
It appears Cheney's confidence was misplaced. While she has yet to walk back her supportive remarks, voters spared her the need, ousting her in the 2022 Wyoming Republican primary in a landslide vote.
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