WASHINGTON -- A former White House aide testified Tuesday to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, offering details on the activities of then-President Donald Trump and those around him before and during the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In blow-by-blow testimony based on episodes she witnessed or was told about in the West Wing, Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, revealed that Trump demanded to march to the Capitol with his supporters after his speech on the Ellipse, even as the riot was underway.
Recounting a story she said she had heard in the White House, Hutchinson said that Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of the presidential limo from a Secret Service agent on Jan. 6, 2021, when he was told he could not go.
"I'm the f-ing president! Take me up to the Capitol now!" Trump is alleged to have said, according to testimony that Hutchinson gave to the House select committee.
Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, had serious legal concerns about Trump marching to the Capitol on Jan. 6, Hutchinson testified, saying that he had told her, "We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable."
She also described an outburst by Trump when he learned that William Barr, the former attorney general, had publicly shot down his false allegations of a stolen election. He beat the table and threw dishes, splattering ketchup on the wall, Hutchinson said, adding that it was not the first time she had seen the president smash crockery in a rage.
Her testimony was part of a previously unscheduled hearing by the House select committee focused on her firsthand experiences in the presence of Meadows and Trump.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the committee chairman, opened the hearing by saying it would focus on "details of what transpired in the office of the White House chief of staff just steps from the Oval Office as the threats of violence became clear and indeed violence ultimately descended on the Capitol in the attack on American democracy."
Hutchinson said she first became aware of expectations for Jan. 6 after a White House meeting involving Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, she said.
As Giuliani was leaving the White House on Jan. 2, he asked her if she was "excited" for Jan. 6, she said. When she asked what was happening on that day, Hutchinson testified that Giuliani told her, "We're going to the Capitol."
When Hutchinson conveyed Giuliani's comments to Meadows, she testified, he told her, "There's a lot going on," before delivering an ominous warning about things potentially getting "real, real bad."
"That evening was the first moment I remember feeling scared and nervous for what could happen on Jan. 6," Hutchinson testified. "And I had a deeper concern for what was happening with the planning aspects of it."
Hutchinson testified that Meadows was worried as early as Jan. 2 that Trump's rally could get out of control, telling her, "Things might get, real, real bad on Jan. 6." But she described Meadows as scrolling through his phone, unresponsive and negligent during pivotal moments on Jan. 6 in particular.
The hearing added evidence that some people in the crowd on Jan. 6 were armed, including with assault rifles.
Anthony Ornato, the former White House chief of operations, warned Meadows on Jan. 6 that the crowd seemed ready for violence, and had knives, guns, bear spray, body armor, spears and flagpoles. She said Meadows did not look up from his phone, but asked Ornato whether he had informed Trump, which Ornato said he had.
"He almost had a lack of reaction," Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson testified that Trump demanded that his supporters be able to move around freely even though he knew they were armed, objecting to the presence of magnetometers to detect weapons. The committee played police radio transmissions describing people carrying weapons.
She testified that she was "in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, 'You know, I don't f-ing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the f-ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the f-ing mags away.'"
As rioters stormed the Capitol chanting "Hang Mike Pence," Trump endorsed the violence.
Hutchinson testified that Meadows said of Trump, "He doesn't want to do anything," and "he thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong."
She said she was deeply unsettled that Trump continued to tweet against Pence as the violence continued, denigrating him even as the crowd was braying for his execution.
"As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie," she said.
The new evidence comes on top of multiple people charged in the riot who were found with loaded guns. The Justice Department has also accused the Oath Keepers of stashing weapons just outside Washington. At a hearing last July, former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn testified to seeing the outline of a gun on one rioter's hip.
COMMITTED REPUBLICAN
Hutchinson opened her testimony to the Jan. 6 committee with a reminder that she had been a committed Republican before this moment. Before working for Trump, she testified she was an aide on Capitol Hill, working for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
She then sought out a job in the White House and worked there, rising in responsibilities, from 2019 through January 2021. The committee displayed photos to demonstrate how close Hutchinson was to Republicans. One showed her smiling with Scalise. Another showed her walking at the White House with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as well as Meadows.
Committee Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., made the point in introducing Hutchinson, noting that a "significant number of Republicans" have testified, and she is the latest.
Thompson said he and Cheney called this hearing because they had obtained new information about what Trump and his top aides were doing in the critical hours leading up to and during the Capitol attack.
"It hasn't always been easy to get that information because the same people who drove the former president's pressure campaign to overturn the election are now trying to cover up the truth about Jan. 6," Thompson said. "But thanks to the courage of certain individuals, the truth won't be buried. The American people won't be left in the dark. Our witness today, Cassidy Hutchinson, has embodied that courage."
Cheney noted that Hutchinson had already sat for four taped interviews with the committee and that she was a familiar face on Capitol Hill because she had played a prominent role in the White House's legislative affairs office.
"We will begin to examine evidence bearing on what President Trump and members of the White House staff knew about the prospect for violence on January 6th even before that violence began," Cheney said.
The point Cheney keeps making at these hearings is that the people providing some of the most damning testimony are all Republicans, and most were handpicked or appointed by Trump.
Trump and those in his orbit have tried to undercut the committee's work by saying it is a partisan witch hunt, led by Democrats and Republicans who despise the former president. But it's more challenging to attack the taped, or live, testimony from Trump's own aides and family members, and that has grown to annoy Trump.
Hutchinson said Meadows and Giuliani expressed interest in receiving presidential pardons after the violence of Jan. 6.
Alyssa Farah, a former White House communications director, sought to push back against anticipated arguments from Republicans that Cassidy Hutchinson was merely a "low-level staffer."
"She was anything but," Farah said during an appearance on CNN ahead of the expected testimony from the Meadows aide.
"She was so plugged in that I would often go to her as the White House communications director to get intel on the president's schedule, his movements, things we were considering as far as events," Farah said. "She also was on a first-name basis with most members of congressional leadership. She would text with them. So she's seen everything. She's been in so many rooms. She was always on Air Force One."
Tuesday's hearing was unexpected because the Jan. 6 panel had previously signaled it would not hold any more hearings until July, after it evaluated additional evidence.
The panel's last hearing, on Thursday, featured testimony from former Justice Department officials describing Trump's efforts to undo the 2020 election results. The committee also identified five Republican lawmakers who allegedly sought pardons.
In a break with its past five hearings this month, the panel provided no advance confirmation about the witness list Tuesday and members did not appear on television beforehand.
CORRECTION: Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified Tuesday that she was told by a member of then-President Donald Trump’s security team that Trump had fought a security official for control of the presidential SUV on Jan. 6 as he left a political rally and demanded to be taken to the Capitol as the riot began. A story in Wednesday’s editions failed to make clear that Hutchinson didn’t witness the reported confrontation, which has since reportedly been denied by two Secret Service agents.
Information for this article was contributed by John Wagner, Jacqueline Alemany, Amy B. Wang, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Rosalind S. Helderman, Eugene Scott and Matt Brown of The Washington Post and by Luke Broadwater of The New York Times.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Mark Meadows when he was White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, is seen on-screen, as the House Jan. 6 select committee holds a public hearing Tuesday. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Mark Meadows when he was White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, is seen in a photo on-screen with Meadows, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as the House Jan. 6 select committee holds a public hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Mark Meadows when he was White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, is seen as the House Jan. 6 select committee holds a public hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford