Cassidy Hutchinson’s detailed account depicts a runaway leader who staged the attack on the Capitol to try by all means to retain his office
Just when it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse, the devastating evidence provided to the Jan. 6 committee this week by Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, finally ruined the former president’s image during the hours when a mob stormed the Capitol in Washington.
The college intern, who arrived to the White House in the summer of 2018 with great political ambition and meticulous zeal, had become an indispensable assistant in an administration plagued with intrigue. After spending some time in the offices of the wildest Republicans in Congress, including Steve Scalise and Senator Ted Cruz, Hutchinson maintained contact with the Capitol and attended every Meadows meeting a short walk from the Oval Office.
An exceptional witness, the 26-year-old young woman exposed before the committee the detailed chronicle of the hours that shocked Americans on January 6, 2021. The story of an estranged president who, after being warned that his followers were carrying alarming-caliber weapons, only expressed concern that the camera angle showed a packed house on the televised broadcast of his speech.
A runaway president who tried to grab the wheel of the presidential car and furiously threw himself in the neck of a Secret Service agent because he wasn’t allowed to go to the march for security reasons. A president who, after haughtily throwing his lunch against the wall of the dining room of the Oval Office, stepped out of his duties for hours while watching the images of violence on television, with utter disinterest in the victims of the attack .
Hutchinson’s testimony, who is trying to dismantle Trump officials, is important because it directly links Trump and the White House to the preparations for the attack on Capitol Hill, and establishes that everyone knew in advance just how much violence it could unleash. According to this testimony, Hutchinson first learned of secret preparations for the January 2 attack while escorting a delighted Rudy Giuliani to his vehicle after meeting Meadows and others at the White House. The president’s attorney at law announced that they would march to Capitol Hill and “succeed.” The assistant told Meadows about it, and Meadows replied that “a lot of things were going on, which could get really bad on January 6th.”
White House intelligence reports warned of impending violence two days earlier, on Jan. 4. National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien informed Meadows, Secret Service and cabinet deputy Anthony Ornato, who is responsible for the president’s security.
Hutchinson explained that on January 5, Trump ordered Meadows to contact two complicated supporters, Roger Stone and former General Michael Flynn, who had recently been pardoned. Both were already in Washington, and Stone, who specializes in dirty operations, had himself photographed ostentatiously with members of the Oath Keepers, as if they were his personal guard.
Meadows would meet Giuliani, John Eastman – the alleged legal architect of the coup – and others at the Willard Hotel, where, for lack of a better name, they had established the “war room.” Hutchinson suggested it might be inappropriate to go, and in the end Meadows decided to call instead of going in person.
Following the aide’s report, intelligence reports warned at 8:00 a.m. on January 6 of the presence of heavy weapons and body armor among the crowd that arrived at Plaza de la Elipse, where Trump and his entourage were to deliver a speech to the March. At 10 a.m. Hutchinson and Ornato spoke to Meadows about the weapons, but the chief of staff waved it off, making sure the president had been notified as well.
But Trump was furious for other reasons. Behind the platform of the Elipse he complained because the people, ‘his people’, did not fill the square to listen to his speech. The crowd was searched at security points, where their weapons were seized. The president demanded that the metal detectors be dismantled and that his faithful be given free access.
The president had no intention of jeopardizing his final act: not only to avoid the official certification ceremony of Joe Biden as the new president of the United States, but to march with his supporters to the Capitol and deliver a speech in the United States. Huis to confirm his claim that the country faced unacceptable electoral fraud after losing the election.
But at 1:10 p.m., after his speech at La Ellipse, the Secret Service had already ruled out the president’s departure, and back at the White House, Trump lost control and attempted to attack his bodyguards in the vehicle. We would have to wait three more long hours of desperate attempts at persuasion by allies and relatives for him to finally, and after a statement from Joe Biden, deign to do something. In a video at 4:17 p.m., the president finally asked the abusive to go home.
The next day, amid resignations and talks to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office, Trump was persuaded to make a video in which he again refused to condemn the violent people, admitting that the elections were over. In the days that followed, some stakeholders called for a presidential pardon, including Meadows, who received $1 million from Trump’s political committee through a conservative organization he leads. Ornato, a Secret Service loyalist promoted to White House chief, has denied attacking the former president in the vehicle.
Cassidy Hutchinson, for her part, received a message tacitly warning her not to cooperate with the Commission from an associate of Mark Meadows. The text was shown at the end of the Commission’s public hearing to publicly acknowledge that many witnesses continue to be harassed.
Source: La Verdad
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