DOJ Is Seeking an Indictment of Cassidy Hutchinson, the Jan. 6 Witness Who Testified Against Trump
Prosecutors are presenting evidence to a D.C. grand jury on whether the former White House aide lied to Congress, and the Civil Rights Division is handling the case.
Federal prosecutors are asking a grand jury in Washington to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide whose testimony about President Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021, became one of the most dramatic moments of the House investigation into the Capitol attack, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke to CBS News.
Prosecutors have been presenting evidence to the grand jury on whether Hutchinson may have lied to Congress in testimony related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the sources said. CBS News could not determine which parts of her testimony are being scrutinized. According to media reports, Republican allies in the House of Representatives made the referral to the Justice Department.
Hutchinson was an aide to Mark Meadows, who served as Mr. Trump's White House chief of staff. She drew the anger of the president's base when she testified before the House committee that investigated the attack. She told the panel that Mr. Trump and Meadows had been warned on Jan. 6 that some of his supporters were carrying weapons to the Capitol, but that Mr. Trump said he did not care and tried to order officials to remove the magnetometers at the entrance to his rally.
She also relayed a story she said was told to her by Tony Ornato, then the White House deputy chief of staff. In that account, Mr. Trump became furious after his lead Secret Service agent declined to drive him to the Capitol following his speech to supporters at the Ellipse. In that address, Mr. Trump had encouraged the crowd to go to the Capitol, where Congress was certifying the Electoral College results of the 2020 election, and said that "after this, we're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you." Hutchinson testified that Ornato told her Mr. Trump lunged at the steering wheel.
That secondhand account was later contradicted. Mr. Trump's driver gave sworn testimony that the president never tried to grab the steering wheel.
The handling of the case is unusual. Sources said the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, rather than the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, is running the Hutchinson investigation. It was not immediately clear why that office was given the case. The recent burst of grand jury activity was first reported by Punchbowl News.
A grand jury indictment would be a striking turn for a witness who became a public figure after her testimony. Hutchinson has given interviews describing the fallout from testifying, including the period she spent in hiding. Lying to Congress is a federal crime, but prosecutors must show that a statement was knowingly false and material, a standard that is difficult to meet when a witness is repeating what someone else told her, as Hutchinson did about the steering wheel episode.
The Justice Department has not publicly confirmed the investigation. A grand jury can hear evidence without returning an indictment, and the sources did not say whether prosecutors have decided to bring charges or how many witnesses have appeared. The development comes as the department faces scrutiny over several politically charged prosecutions, including questions raised by judges about how grand juries were used in other high-profile cases.
