Federal prosecutors have been weighing a perjury and obstruction of justice case against Cassidy Hutchinson, who implicated President Donald Trump in the January 6 Capitol riot in testimony four years ago, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The efforts mark the Justice Department’s intent to proceed against Hutchinson, a former aide to ex-Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, though prosecutors are not expected to ask a federal grand jury in Washington to return an indictment at least until after the midterms, the sources say.
Hutchinson testified as a star witness to the committee that investigated the riot, recounting that Trump encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol even though he knew many were armed. She sat for several interviews in addition to her public testimony, where she recalled hearing that Trump had lunged at one of his Secret Service agents after being told he could not join his supporters at the Capitol.
In recent months, prosecutors at the Justice Department have focused on the fact that the former special counsel, Jack Smith, did not corroborate much of Hutchinson’s account to the committee, and the Secret Service’s denial of any altercation in the presidential limo, the sources say.
By comparing the transcripts of Hutchinson’s interviews with the committee and against her testimony to Smith’s team, prosecutors have been trying to construct a case based on how her testimony has changed, the sources say.
Prosecutors have also taken a special interest in Hutchinson’s claim that she had penned a statement on a notecard for Trump to release during the Capitol riot—a claim disputed by former Trump White House counsel Eric Herschmann, who said he had written the note.
It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors intend to ultimately proceed with both perjury and obstruction charges, which have been under consideration for several months. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Hutchinson and her lawyer did not respond to texts and calls seeking comment. Hutchinson, now 29, has kept a low profile since publishing a memoir of her time in Trump’s first administration in 2023 titled “Enough.”
Punchbowl News first reported the Justice Department’s interest in charging Hutchinson.
The grand jury investigation is the latest example of the Justice Department pursuing criminal cases against Trump’s perceived political enemies. Trump fired former Attorney General Pam Bondi in April partly for moving too slowly to bring such cases, sources familiar with the matter said.
Some Justice officials have been skeptical about whether there is a viable criminal case against Hutchinson, in part due to the high bar for successfully prosecuting perjury charges, the sources say. To prove that Hutchinson lied to Congress, prosecutors would need to show beyond a reasonable doubt that Hutchinson lied, that she did so knowingly, and that it materially impacted the investigation, former US Attorney Joyce Vance tells WIRED.
The investigation into Hutchinson became a priority for the DOJ after a criminal referral by Representative Barry Loudermilk, a Georgia Republican who for years has been deeply critical of the January 6 committee investigation. Loudermilk had separately sought to depose Hutchinson until he was blocked by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was concerned it could surface damaging texts of a sexual nature between lawmakers and Hutchinson.
In an unorthodox move, the referral ended up getting assigned to the Civil Rights Division at the DOJ, as opposed to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia or the Criminal Division, which would usually handle public corruption cases.
Under Justice Department guidelines, the Civil Rights Division is only supposed to take cases with a nexus to a civil rights violation. The division is led by Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump loyalist who has been a reliable advocate for the Trump administration’s prosecutorial agenda.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: wired.com
