4:45 p.m. update
NEW YORK (AP) — The news story that reportedly caused former President Donald Trump to throw his lunch against a White House wall came because of an interview that former Attorney General William Barr had arranged with The Associated Press.
The story, which was published on Dec. 1, 2020, quoted Barr as saying that the U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.
In testimony before the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson recalled “hearing noise coming from down the hallway” around the time the AP interview was published.
She noticed a door propped open in a West Wing dining room room where Trump had eaten, and a valet who was changing a dining room tablecloth.
“He motioned for me to come in and then pointed towards the front of the room near the fireplace mantle and the TV when I first noticed there was ketchup dripping down the wall and there was a shattered porcelain plate on the floor,” Hutchinson said.
The valet told her that Trump was angry about Barr’s interview with AP and had thrown his lunch against the wall, she said.
“I grabbed a towel to clean up ketchup from the wall,” she said.
The story had been written by AP Justice Department reporter Michael Balsamo, who had been told a day earlier that Barr wanted him to come in for lunch. In videotaped testimony to the committee, Barr said that he “felt it was time to say something” about the voter fraud claims.
Recognizing the importance of the statement when Barr said the department had uncovered no evidence of voter fraud, Balsamo asked him to repeat it, and he did. He quickly filed his story from an office in the Justice Department when lunch was over.
Neither Balsamo nor AP editors had any comment Tuesday about Hutchinson’s testimony.
Shortly after the interview that day, Barr went to the White House for a previously scheduled meeting with Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, for whom Hutchinson was a special assistant.
“I told my secretary that I thought I would probably be fired and told … not to come back to my office, so you might have to pack up,” Barr said in his videotaped testimony, released in an earlier hearing.
He was asked to see Trump, who was “as mad as I’ve ever seen him,” and suggested that the attorney general hated him.
Barr resigned as attorney general a few weeks later.
4 p.m. update
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump dismissed the presence of armed protesters headed to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and even endorsed their calls to “hang Mike Pence,” a key former White House aide told House investigators Tuesday, describing chaotic scenes inside and outside the executive mansion as Trump argued to accompany his supporters.
Trump was informed that some of the protesters in the crowd outside the White House had weapons, but he told officials to “let my people in” and march to the Capitol, testified Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a special assistant to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Hutchinson depicted a president flailing in anger and prone to violent outbursts as the window to overturn his election loss closed and as aides sought to rein in his impulses. Told by security officials that it wasn’t safe to go to the Capitol after he addressed his supporters, he lunged toward the steering wheel of the presidential SUV.
Hutchinson said she was told of the altercation in the armored vehicle — dubbed “The Beast” — by Meadows’ deputy shortly after it happened.
It wasn’t clear what Trump would have done at the Capitol as a violent mob of his supporters was breaking in. But there were conversations about him “going into the House chamber at one point,” Hutchinson said.
As his supporters laid siege to Congress, both Trump and Meadows appeared unconcerned about cries in the crowd to “hang Mike Pence!” The president tweeted during the attack that Pence didn’t have the “courage” to object to President Joe Biden’s victory as he presided over the joint session of Congress that day.
Hutchinson quoted Meadows as saying that Trump “thinks Mike deserves it.”
And as for the rioters, Meadows said, “He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
Hutchinson’s explosive testimony – featured in a surprise hearing announced just 24 hours earlier — came as the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection holds a series of hearings to inform the public about what happened as Trump’s supporters beat police, broke in through windows and doors and interrupted the certification of Biden’s victory.
“As an American I was disgusted,” Hutchinson told the committee, reacting to Trump’s tweet about Pence. “It was unpatriotic, it was un-American, and you were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.”
“I still struggle to work through the emotions of that,” she added.
Hutchinson quoted Trump as directing his staff, in profane terms, to take away the metal-detecting magnetometers that he thought would slow down supporters who’d gathered in Washington. In videotaped testimony played before the committee, she recalled the former president saying words to the effect of: ”“I don’t f-in’ care that they have weapons.”
“They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f-in’ mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here,” Hutchinson testified.
Before they left the Ellipse, where Trump had addressed them between the White House and the Washington Monument, she said, she received an angry call from House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who had just heard the president say he was coming to the Capitol. “Don’t come up here,” McCarthy told her, before hanging up.
In the days before the attack, Hutchinson said that she was “scared, and nervous for what could happen” after conversations with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Meadows and others.
Meadows told Hutchinson that “things might get real, real bad,” she said. But she described him as unconcerned as security officials told him about the people at Trump’s rally who had been caught with weapons – including people wearing armor and carrying automatic firearms.
Giuliani told her it was going to be “a great day” and “we’re going to the Capitol.”
As a White House insider, she told stories of a raging president who was unable to acknowledge his defeat. At the beginning of December, Hutchinson said, she heard noise inside the White House around the time an Associated Press article was published in which then-Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department had not found evidence of voter fraud that could have affected the election outcome.
She said she entered a room and noticed ketchup dripping down a wall and broken porcelain. The president, it turned out, had thrown his lunch at the wall in disgust over the article and she was urged to steer clear of him.
The 25-year-old, who was a special assistant and aide to former Trump chief of staff Meadows, had earlier provided a trove of information to congressional investigators and had sat for interviews behind closed doors. The committee called the surprise hearing this week after she agreed to give public testimony.
In excerpts of her closed-door testimony, Hutchinson told the committee in recent months that she was in the room for White House meetings where challenges to the election were debated and discussed, including with several Republican lawmakers.
She revealed that the White House counsel’s office cautioned against plans to enlist fake electors in swing states, including in meetings involving Meadows and Trump lawyer Giuliani. Attorneys for the president advised that the plan was not “legally sound,” Hutchinson said.
During her separate depositions, Hutchinson also testified about her boss’ surprise trip to Georgia weeks after the election to oversee the audit of absentee ballot envelope signatures and ask questions about the process.
The panel has held five hearings so far, mostly laying out Trump’s post-election campaigning to various government institutions in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress.
The committee has used the hearings to detail the pressure from Trump and his allies on Pence, on the states that were certifying Biden’s win, and on the Justice Department. The panel has used live interviews, video testimony of its private witness interviews and footage of the attack to detail what it has learned.
Lawmakers said last week that the two July hearings would focus on domestic extremists who breached the Capitol that day and on what Trump was doing as the violence unfolded.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent, putting his hand on the man’s throat after he was told he would not be taken to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to testimony by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
“The president had a very strong, very angry response to” being told the Secret Service couldn’t take him to the Capitol after his speech on the Ellipse that day, Hutchinson testified during Tuesday’s hearing before the Jan. 6 committee.
Trump moved to the front of the presidential limo and reached toward the steering wheel, Hutchinson said.
The head of Trump’s Secret Service detail Bobby Engel grabbed Trump’s hand off of the steering wheel, Hutchinson said she was told by Anthony Ornato, Trump’s chief of operations. Engel was present for the conversation.
“Sir, you need to take your hand off of the steering wheel, we’re going back to the West Wing, we’re not going to the Capitol,” Hutchinson recounted being told by Ornato.
“Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge toward Engel and when Mr. Ornato recounted the story to me, he motioned to his clavicles.” Engel was in the room when Ornato told the story to Hutchinson and he did not correct or disagree with the story nor has he stated it was untrue since, Hutchinson said.
ORIGINAL STORY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Cassidy Hutchinson, a key aide in Donald Trump’s White House, told the House committee investigating the violent Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on Tuesday that Trump was informed that the supporters he addressed that morning had weapons but he told officials to “let my people in” and march to the Capitol.
Trump demanded to accompany them, she said, and at one point he aggressively grabbed the steering wheel in the presidential limousine after he was told by security officials that it wasn’t safe. Hutchinson, who was an aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, said she was told that by Meadows’ deputy.
She said she wasn’t sure what he would have done at the Capitol as a violent mob of his supporters was breaking in. There were conversations about him “going into the House chamber at one point,” Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson quoted Trump as directing his staff, in profane terms, to take away the metal-detecting magnetometers that he thought would slow down supporters who’d gathered in Washington. In videotaped testimony played before the committee, she recalled the former president saying words to the effect of: ”“I don’t f-in’ care that they have weapons.”
“They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f-in’ mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here,” Hutchinson testified.
As Trump spoke to thousands of supporters on the Ellipse behind the White House — and more gathered on the Washington Monument grounds, Hutchinson said, she received an angry call from Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who had just heard the president say he was coming to the Capitol. “Don’t come up here,” McCarthy told her, before hanging up.
In the days before the attack, Hutchinson said that she was “scared, and nervous for what could happen” ahead of the riot after conversations with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Meadows and others.
Meadows told Hutchinson that “things might get real real bad,” she said. Giuliani told her it was going to be “a great day” and “we’re going to the Capitol.” She described Meadows as unconcerned as security officials told him that people at Trump’s rally had weapons – including people wearing armor and carrying automatic weapons.
A month earlier, Hutchinson said, she heard noise inside the White House around the time an Associated Press article was published in which then-Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department had not found evidence of voter fraud that could have affected the election outcome.
She said she entered a room and noticed ketchup dripping down a wall and broken porcelain. The president, it turned out, had thrown his lunch across the wall in disgust over the article and she was urged to steer clear of him.
The 25-year-old, who was a special assistant and aide to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, has already provided a trove of information to congressional investigators and has sat for four interviews behind closed doors. But the committee called the hearing this week to hear her public testimony.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said that in recent days, the panel had received information about what Trump and his aides were saying during critical hours of Jan. 6 and that it was critical for the American people to hear that information immediately.
The committee’s vice chairwoman, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, said the hearing would shed light on Trump’s conduct at the time, the “actions and statements” of senior advisers and also what they knew about the prospect of violence in the days before the violent attack. She told the panel in earlier interviews that Meadows was warned about possible unrest.
Her appearance was cloaked in extraordinary secrecy. The committee announced the surprise hearing with only 24 hours’ notice, and Hutchison’s appearance was only confirmed to The Associated Press by a person familiar with the matter.
While it is unclear what new evidence she might provide Tuesday, Hutchinson’s testimony is likely to tell a first-hand story of Trump’s pressure campaign, and how the former president responded after the violence began, more vividly than any other witness the committee has called in thus far.
In brief excerpts of testimony revealed in court filings, Hutchinson told the committee she was in the room for White House meetings where challenges to the election were debated and discussed, including with several Republican lawmakers. In one instance, Hutchinson described seeing Meadows incinerate documents after a meeting in his office with Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., Politico reported in May.
She also revealed that the White House counsel’s office cautioned against plans to enlist fake electors in swing states, including in meetings involving Meadows and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Attorneys for the president advised that the plan was not “legally sound,” Cassidy said.
During her three separate depositions, Hutchinson also testified about her boss’ surprise trip to Georgia weeks after the election to oversee the audit of absentee ballot envelope signatures and ask questions about the process.
She also detailed how Jeffrey Clark — a top Justice Department official who championed Trump’s false claims of election fraud and whom the president contemplated naming as attorney general — was a “frequent presence” at the White House.
The plot to remove the then-acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, unraveled during a Jan. 3, 2021, meeting in the Oval Office when other senior Justice Department officials warned Trump that they would resign if he followed through with his plan to replace Rosen with Clark.
The House panel has not explained why it abruptly scheduled the 1 p.m. hearing as lawmakers are away from Washington on a two-week recess. The committee had said last week that there would be no more hearings until July.
The precise subject of Tuesday’s hearing remained unclear, but the panel’s announcement Monday said it would be “to present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony.” A spokesman for the panel declined to elaborate and Hutchinson’s lawyer did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
The person familiar with the committee’s plans to call Hutchinson could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The nine-member committee’s investigation has continued during the hearings, which started three weeks ago into the attack by Trump supporters. Among the evidence, the committee recently obtained footage of Trump and his inner circle taken both before and after Jan. 6 from British filmmaker Alex Holder.
Holder said last week that he had complied with a congressional subpoena to turn over all the footage he shot in the final weeks of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, including exclusive interviews with Trump, his children and then-Vice President Mike Pence.
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the panel’s Democratic chairman, told reporters last week that the committee was in possession of the footage and needed more time to go through the hours of video.
The panel has held five hearings so far, mostly laying out Trump’s pressure campaign on various institutions of power in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, when hundreds of the Republican’s supporters violently pushed past police, broke into the building and interrupted the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
The committee has used the hearings to detail the pressure from Trump and his allies on Pence, on the states that were certifying Biden’s win, and on the Justice Department. The panel has used live interviews, video testimony of its private witness interviews and footage of the attack to detail what it has learned.
Lawmakers said last week that the two July hearings would focus on domestic extremists who breached the Capitol that day and on what Trump was doing as the violence unfolded.
