Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, testified before the Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday that she was “afraid” when she learned of Trump’s plans to go to the United States Capitol on Jan. United States to press his claim that he had not lost the 2020 election.
Hutchinson, a key witness in the select committee’s Jan. 6 investigation into the Capitol riots and the former president’s role in it, told of a Jan. 2 meeting with former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
“As Mr. Giuliani and I walked to his vehicle that evening, he looked at me and said something along the lines of, ‘Gosh, are you up 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 with something like, ‘We’re going to the Capitol. It’s going to be great. The president will be there, he will look powerful. He will be with the members. He’ll 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 US Capitol in his attempt to block the certification of the Electoral College vote showing that he had lost.
Hutchinson continued her testimony, saying she returned to the West Wing afterward and asked Meadows about Giuliani’s comments.
“I just had an interesting conversation with Rudy, Mark. Sounds like we’re going to the Capitol,” she told Meadows. “He didn’t look up from his phone and say something along the lines of, ‘There’s a lot going on, Cass, but I don’t know, on January 6th it might get really, really bad.’
Meadows, who may have had more direct knowledge of Trump’s intentions than any other White House staffer, initially sent text messages to the committee and then declined to testify further in the investigation.
Hutchinson told the committee that learning of Trump’s plan to go to the Capitol, where his supporters would later stage a riot in an attempt to block election certification, scared her.
“In the days leading up to January 2, I was worried about the 6th. I had heard general plans for a rally. I had heard tentative movements to possibly go to the Capitol, but when I heard Rudy’s response on January 6th and then Mark’s response, that was the first, that night was the first moment I remember being scared and nervous for what might happen on January 6 and I had a deeper concern about what happened to the planning aspects of it.”