Yahoo! News
Cassidy Hutchinson says she was ‘scared’ about Trump’s plan to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6
David Knowles, Senior Editor – June 28, 2022
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified before the House select committee on Tuesday that she was “scared” when she learned about plans for Trump to go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to press his assertion that he had not lost the 2020 election.
Hutchinson, a key witness in the Jan. 6 select committee’s investigation into the Capitol riot and the former president’s role in it, recounted a Jan. 2 meeting with then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
“As Mr. Giuliani and I were walking to his vehicle that evening, he looked at me and said something to the effect of, ‘Gosh, are you excited for the 6th? It’s going to be a great day.’ And I remember saying, ‘Rudy, can you explain what’s happening on the 6th?’” Hutchinson testified. “He responded something to the effect of, ‘We’re going to the Capitol. It’s going to be great. The president is going to be there, he’s going to look powerful. He’s going to be with the members. He’s going to be with the senators. Talk to the chief about it, talk to the chief about it. He knows about it.’”
The testimony provided the first eyewitness account that the Trump White House had indeed planned for the then president to personally go to the U.S. Capitol in his bid to block the certification of the Electoral College vote showing he had lost.
Hutchinson continued her testimony, saying she then returned to the West Wing and asked Meadows about Giuliani’s comments.
“I just had an interesting conversation with Rudy, Mark. Sounds like we’re going to go to the Capitol,” she told Meadows. “He didn’t look up from his phone and said something to the effect of, ‘There’s a lot going on, Cass, but I don’t know, things might get real, real bad on January 6th.”
Meadows, who perhaps had more direct knowledge of Trump’s intentions than any other White House staff member, initially provided text messages to the committee, then refused to testify further in the investigation.
Hutchinson told the committee that learning of the plan for Trump to go to the Capitol, where his supporters would later stage a riot in an effort to block the certification of the election, frightened her.
“In the days before January 2nd I was apprehensive about the 6th. I had heard general plans for a rally. I had heard tentative movements to potentially go to the Capitol, but when hearing Rudy’s take on January 6th and then Mark’s response, that was the first, that evening was the first moment that I remember feeling scared and nervous for what could happen on January 6th, and I had a deeper concern for what was happening with the planning aspects of it.”