Cassidy Hutchinson reportedly targeted by criminal referral to Justice Department
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Republican panel led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk aims to reshape Jan. 6 narrative.
- Loudermilk is seeking a DOJ criminal referral accusing Hutchinson of lying.
- Hutchinson received security protection and faced efforts to discredit her.
Good morning! It’s Danielle Battaglia with the latest edition of Under the Dome focused on the Trump administration.
Did you know that when Republicans took over the House they formed their own version of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 committee?
It’s led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican from Georgia, who is trying to reshape how the public views the Jan. 6 insurrection, when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the election certification of President Joe Biden. Part of his work has been to discredit Pelosi’s team and some of the witnesses.
This week, CNN reported based on unnamed sources that Loudermilk is seeking a criminal referral from the Department of Justice against Cassidy Hutchinson, who in 2022, at just 24, was serving as top aide to Mark Meadows, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff.
Meadows had served North Carolina in Congress, representing its southwestern counties, before he joined the Trump administration.
That put Hutchinson in the White House’s inner circle, and she had a front row seat to the events leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021.
I was at the Capitol when members of the media got a surprise announcement that the Jan. 6 committee was going to hold a last-minute meeting because of a new witness who came forward. There was a ton of speculation about who it could be.
When Hutchinson walked into the hearing room, her raw emotions were palpable. She had to testify before several members of Congress. Officers, injured in the attack, sat behind her. I could not count how many reporters were in the next layers of people packed into the room.
She became the committee’s star witness as she testified that the Trump administration knew Jan. 6, 2021 could turn violent, that Meadows allowed the president to believe he could go to the U.S. Capitol after telling his supporters to march there, that she overheard Meadows say that Trump thought Vice President Mike Pence “deserved” to be hung and that Meadows asked for a pardon in the days after Jan. 6.
Immediately following Hutchinson’s testimony, Republicans began working to discredit her.
If you read her biography, which I have, her testimony turned her entire world upside down. She was given a security detail and had to go into hiding.
Now, Loudermilk is accusing Hutchinson, now 29, of lying to Congress.
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