WASHINGTON – The devastating new testimony of a former White House staffer describing a president who is desperately clinging to power, indifferent to the danger threatening his number 2 and potentially falsifying congressional witnesses, has raised concerns among current and former Donald councilors. on the possible legal and political implications.
However, the reactions were far from unanimous, and some of the former president’s confidants said they doubted whether the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mr Trump’s chief of staff in the White House, ranked particularly high in the pantheon of controversy. in his six years as a national political figure.
A Trump aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, downplayed the impact of Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, acknowledging that it painted a picture of Mr. Trump as unperturbed on Jan. 6, but said it shouldn’t surprise anyone at the time.
However, some current and former associates of Mr Trump have expressed concern that the sum of Ms Hutchinson’s testimony will do him serious political harm as he considers a third presidential campaign.
“Things were going very badly for the former president today,” Mick Mulvani, a former White House chief of staff, wrote on Twitter. “I guess it’ll get worse from here.”
A trusted current adviser called the testimony a “killer.”
Ms. Hutchinson told a House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack, that Mr. Trump had asked aides to stop security detections with metal detectors at his rally at the Ellipse before the riot, although some supporters weapon has already been rejected – to ensure that a larger crowd will appear on television footage during his speech. She said Mr Trump did so even though he knew some of the crowd were armed, explaining that his supporters were not there to attack him.
Ms. Hutchinson testified that a Secret Service agent told her that Mr. Trump had violently attacked – grabbed the wheel and threw himself into another agent’s collarbone – when his lawyer refused to take him to the Capitol as protesters flocked. there on foot, insisting that he be returned to the White House instead.
And when asked about the chanting of Trump supporters that Vice President Mike Pence should be hanged, Ms. Hutchinson testified that her boss, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, quoted Mr. Trump as saying Mike deserves it.
Mr and Mrs Trump’s current and former aides sent each other messages during the hearing, describing a series of revelations that they acknowledged were potentially quite harmful, mostly politically, but also, potentially, legally.
Updated
June 28, 2022, 8:20 p.m. ET
If Mr Trump was indeed warned that people were armed and still encouraged them to go to the Capitol, some private advisers said, this could potentially reinforce the accusation against him of incitement.
Others said it was justifiable for Mr Trump to call on protesters to march “peacefully” to the Capitol in his speech.
Within hours of Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, a number of Trump advisers took advantage of her account of Mr. Trump’s attempts to get behind the wheel of the SUV they were driving as the most explosive new charge against him. and one who most hoped to discredit.
But several also expressed concern about the commission’s suggestion at the end of the day’s hearing that someone close to Mr Trump had tried to falsify or intimidate the commission’s witnesses by reminding them that Mr Trump was reading the commission’s transcripts. Such interference can be prosecuted.
Key revelations from the January 6 hearings
Mr Mulvani, who called the hearing a “stunning two hours”, called the witness falsification warning a “real bomb dropped”.
Tuesday’s testimony was just the latest case in which a former Trump aide or administration official raised his right hand and testified under oath of shocking scenes from Mr. Trump’s behavior behind closed doors. And Mr. Trump has long demonstrated the ability to resist gravity to avoid the most difficult difficulties and even turn them to his advantage.
His first impeachment process, in early 2020, was to raise funds for his re-election campaign and led to a brief increase in opinion polls. His second impeachment garnered the support of both parties, but ultimately failed, and Mr. Trump quickly consolidated – and maintained – his position as the most powerful figure in the Republican Party.
Mr Trump responded to Tuesday’s hearing by posting a dozen messages on his website, Truth Social, in which he attacked Ms Hutchinson and denied her most explosive testimony.
He said he never complained about the size of the crowd at his Jan. 6 rally, never claimed that Mr. Pence deserved to be hanged, and never tried to get behind the wheel when Secret Service agents refused. to take him to the Capitol.
“Her fake story that I tried to grab the steering wheel of a White House limousine to direct her to the Capitol building is sick and deceptive, much like the non-selection board itself,” Mr Trump wrote.
Mr Trump’s course of action has long been to drill holes in specific elements of the prosecutor’s story as a way to discredit the wider narrative and to insist that he is not particularly concerned about the threat posed by the investigation.
This approach took place on Tuesday, as his aides emphasized the extent to which the most explosive parts of Ms Hutchinson’s testimony were based on rumors she told the committee, not on what she herself had witnessed. , and they claim that other elements of her narrative do not correspond to their understanding of the facts.
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