Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump White House aide who delivered bombshell testimony to the House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, defended the anecdotes she recounted under oath in her first TV interview since her Capitol Hill testimony.
“What would I have to gain by coming forward? It would have been easier for me to continue being complicit and to stay in the comfortable zone,” Hutchinson said in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning.”
CBS also reported that Hutchinson had testified to grand juries in Fulton County, Georgia, and Washington, DC, about the 2020 election aftermath, but noted it’s unclear how substantial that testimony was in forming the criminal cases now filed against former President Donald Trump.
Hutchinson recounted that an attorney she initially worked with, who had been provided through Trump’s political connections and money, had made clear to her the less she recalled to House investigators, the better. She answered several questions in her initial interviews – before switching attorneys – with “I don’t know” or “I don’t recall,” but it “was information I very clearly recalled.”
Her testimony last year revealed that Trump was aware of the potential for violence on January 6, 2021, but forged ahead with his attempts to rile up his supporters.
Hutchinson also testified that she had heard a secondhand account that Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol on January 6 that he lunged to the front of his presidential limo and tried to turn the wheel.
Secret Service agent Bobby Engel, whom Hutchinson said witnessed the incident, and then-White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato, whom she said she heard the story from, have both said they don’t remember it.
But Hutchinson told CBS, “I know what I…
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