The surprise testimony of a former White House aide has given explosive details of former President Donald Trump’s response to the January 6 riots.
Cassidy Hutchinson told the committee investigating the attack on the Capitol what she saw during the period leading up to the violent insurgency, including Mr. Trump’s temperament and aggressive behavior with his security detail.
Here’s what we learned this morning.
Trump: “They’re not here to hurt me”
Mr. Trump was “furious” on the morning of January 6, 2021, Ms. Hutchinson said, because he was angry about the extra space occupied by magnetometers looking for weapons before his fiery speech that day.
Protesters were gathering outside the White House to hear Mr. Trump at the “Stop the Steal” rally, with some carrying AR-15-style rifles, but he wanted security to stop shouting because there more people could come in and the crowd seemed bigger.
Ms. Hutchinson, then a senior aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, said Mr. Trump’s words were:
“Take off your magnets (magnetometers); they’re not here to hurt me.”
Donald Trump talking to Mark Meadows before the rally in front of the White House. (House Select Committee via AP)
He testified that White House security officer Tony Ornato had told him Trump knew the protesters were armed.
Four people were killed on the day of the attack, one of whom was shot dead by police and the other by natural causes.
More than 100 police officers were injured and one died the next day.
After his speech, Mr. Trump wanted to join supporters who stormed the Capitol as Congress voted to certify President Joe Biden’s victory, demanding that his details take him there.
He said Mr. Trump was in the back seat of the presidential limousine, or “beast,” and tried to get behind the wheel of the heavily armored presidential vehicle, after he had said:
“‘I’m the effing president. Take me to the Capitol now.’
When the head of her security detail, Bobby Engel, told her this was not happening, she said:
“The president had a very strong, very angry response. Tony described it as anger,” he stated.
After Mr. Trump had tried to get behind the wheel and failed, he said he “threw himself” at Engel.
“When Mr. Ornato told me this story, he made a gesture towards his collarbone (collarbone),” he said.
He said the confrontation was broadcast to him later that day by Mr. Ornate in an office, while Mr. Engel was there.
Cassidy Hutchinson testified about the president’s actions during Capitol Day riots. (Photo AP / Pool: Andrew Harnik)
Trump tossed the lunch, left the ketchup “dripping” down the wall
Mrs. Hutchinson also spoke of the weeks leading up to the riots.
In December, Mr. Trump learned that his attorney general, William Barr, told The Associated Press that there was no fraud on a scale to tip the presidential election.
He described the scene in his office after the article was published:
“I noticed for the first time that there was ketchup dripping down the wall and there was a broken porcelain plate on the floor,” he said.
“The valet had articulated that the president was very angry about AP’s interview with the attorney general and had thrown the lunch against the wall.”
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He said it was not the only time the former president had thrown dishes.
The social “fusion” of Trump’s truth
As the unscheduled hearing took place today, Mr. Trump posted on his own social media site:
“Her fake story that I tried to grab the steering wheel of the White House limousine to take her to the Capitol building is‘ disease ’and fraudulent,” he wrote.
“There is no interrogation of this so-called witness. This is a kangaroo court!”
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But another White House cabinet ex-chief, Mick Mulvaney, said the “explosive” revelations would likely lead to other people testifying, adding that he knows Mrs. Hutchinson and doesn’t “think she’s lying.”
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White House lawyers worried about “every crime imaginable”
On the morning of Jan. 6, White House attorney Pat Cipollone reiterated his concern that if Trump went to the Capitol to intervene in the certification of the election, “We will be charged with every crime imaginable.”
Ms. Hutchinson also testified that Trump’s attorneys had tried to suppress the president’s speech on Jan. 6 and were also trying to stop his plans to go to the Capitol that day.
Ms. Hutchinson said attorney Eric Herschmann said “it would be nonsense” to include some of the language the defeated president wanted to add to his speech: comments like fighting for Trump, or him telling the crowd, “I’ll be there with you. “
Herschmann warned that this language should not be included because of legal issues and the perspective it would represent.
That language finally stayed on the script as Trump gathered the crowd to “fight like hell” and promised to join them at the Capitol.
Days before Jan. 6, Cipollone suggested there were “serious legal concerns” if Trump went to the Capitol with the crowd, and Ms. Hutchinson recalled saying:
“We have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Ms. Hutchinson also recalled walking with Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to the White House earlier in the day and said she asked him if she was “excited about day 6.”
“Let’s go to the Capitol, it will be great, the president will be there, he will look powerful,” Giuliani recalled.
When he went back inside and told Mr. Meadows of that conversation, he told him that many things were happening.
“Things could get really, really bad,” Mr. Meadows told him.
Trump condemns Pence in the midst of a crisis
As the crowd besieged the Capitol, a makeshift guillotine had been erected at the National Mall and rioters roamed the halls looking for congressional leaders as they mocked “Hang (then Vice President) Mike Pence.”
Mrs. Hutchinson recalled the conversations in the oval office while making a phone call to Mr. Meadows and later when White House attorneys begged the chief of staff for Mr. Trump to act.
He recalled that the then chief of staff said:
“You’ve heard it. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
Trump then tweeted in the midst of the siege that Mr. Pence did not have the courage to do what he wanted: reject voters from the battlefield states, stopping Biden’s election.
Mrs. Hutchinson described the wave of sadness that struck her.
“As an employee who always works to represent the administration to the best of my ability to show the good things I had done for the country, I remember feeling frustrated, disappointed … I was very sad,” he said.
“As an American, I was disgusted. He was unpatriotic.
“He wasn’t American. We were watching the Capitol building be disfigured by a lie.”
ABC / children