By the Associated Press.
The House Jan. 6 committee held a sudden hearing Tuesday delivering alarming new testimony about Donald Trump’s actions that day.
Witness Cassidy Hutchinson is a lesser-known White House aide who had proximity to power as an adviser to the president and his chief of staff Mark Meadows. She rebuffed Trump’s team warnings against testifying and provided first-hand knowledge of what she saw and heard in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.
She described an angry and defiant Trump who ignored repeated warnings against summoning the mob to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and then refused to intervene to stop the violence as rioters laid siege.
Hutchinson said President Trump fought security officials for control of the presidential SUV as he struggled to get to the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, even after he had been told that some of his supporters were armed. Trump said that the protesters were “not here to hurt me,” Hutchinson recalled.
Told by security officials that it wasn’t safe to go to the Capitol after he addressed his supporters, Trump lunged toward the steering wheel of the armored vehicle, she said.
Officials with the Secret Service confirmed Trump asked to return to the Capitol, but did not confirm that he lunged for the steering wheel.
