Prosecutors in the justice department’s civil rights division are seeking criminal charges against Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top Trump White House aide who gave explosive testimony to the committee that investigated the US attack on the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The potential charges involve lying to Congress, the person said.
Hutchinson, a former top aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, told the panel among other things that the deputy chief of staff for operations told her that Trump did not want to return to the White House on January 6 and at one point grabbed the wheel of his SUV to try and join supporters at the Capitol. Republicans have long disputed this account.
DoJ’s efforts to indict Hutchinson were first reported by Punchbowl News on Thursday.
“The department does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations, or the lack thereof,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.
In April, the New York Times reported that prosecutors in the justice department’s civil rights division, which handles investigations into civil rights crimes, had been tapped to investigate Hutchinson. It was seen as a highly unusual move at the time since the investigation would typically be handled by the US attorney for the district of Columbia. Hutchinson also said she was under investigation by the department of justice in filings in an unrelated case.
The case is the latest example of how Trump has used the justice department to prosecute his rivals. Last year, DoJ indicted former FBI director James Comey on charges of lying to Congress and Letitia James on mortgage fraud. Both indictments were dismissed after a judge ruled the prosecutor overseeing them had been unlawfully appointed. The department has since filed a new indictment against Comey for posting a picture of sea-shells arranged in a formation that said “8647.”
The Trump justice department has also filed charges against the non-profit Southern Poverty Law Center and the journalist Don Lemon.
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