Federal prosecutors have been presenting evidence to a grand jury in Washington, D.C., on whether former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson may have lied to Congress in her testimony related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, two sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
Hutchinson, a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, drew the ire of President Trump’s base when she testified in 2022 before the House committee tasked with investigating the 2021 Capitol attack.
In a series of depositions and public committee testimony, she said 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 didn’t care and tried to order officials to remove the magnetometers.
She also relayed a story she said was told to her by then-White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato, in which Mr. Trump grew incensed after his lead Secret Service agent declined to drive him to the Capitol after the president had delivered a speech to supporters. During that address on the White House Ellipse, he had encouraged them to go to the Capitol, where Congress was confirming the Electoral College results from the 2020 election. He told his supporters that “after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you.”
Hutchinson testified that Ornato had told her that Mr. Trump lunged at the steering wheel.
Her account was later contradicted by Mr. Trump’s driver, who in sworn testimony claimed that the president never tried to grab the steering wheel.
CBS News could not determine precisely which parts of Hutchinson’s testimony are being scrutinized by prosecutors. According to media reports, Republican allies in the House of Representatives made the referral to the Justice Department.
CBS News has reached out to Hutchinson’s counsel for comment.
In an unusual move, the Civil Rights Division — and not the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. — is handling the Hutchinson investigation, sources said. It was not immediately clear why that office was assigned the case.
The recent flurry of grand jury activity in the investigation was first reported by Punchbowl News.
