Donald Trump angrily hit a surprise witness who testified that he knew some rioters were armed at the US Capitol on January 6, but wanted to join them anyway.
A U.S. House committee investigating the uprising heard from former White House assistant Cassidy Hutchinson on Tuesday, who provided details of how Mr. Trump tried to physically grab his driver’s steering wheel so he could join them.
Ms Hutchinson testified that Mr. Trump was told that some of his supporters were armed at an earlier White House rally, but wanted them to go to the Capitol anyway.
After the trial, Mr. Trump of Hutchinson said on social media: “A Total Phony !!!”
Ms Hutchinson, the main help to Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, told the trial that Mr. Trump was angry on the morning of the riot over security lines for a White House rally over his false allegations that the 2020 election was stolen.
Mr Trump said guns, knives, copper knuckles and other weapons were being confiscated from the security investigations. Trump encouraged more people to be allowed on the ground, she claimed.
The evidence revealed that White House attorneys were trying to thwart his plans to go to the Capitol that day when Congress would certify Joe Biden’s election victory.
She told the committee that a lawyer Mr. Trump advised that it would be “foolish” to include some of the inflammatory language the defeated president wanted to add to his spoken language that he used despite warnings.
Days before January 6, White House lawyer Pat Cipollone suggested that there were “serious legal concerns” as Mr. Trump would go to the Capitol with the crowd, Ms Hutchinson said.
On the morning of January 6, Mr Cipollone said that if Mr Trump did go to the Capitol to intervene in the election certification, “we are going to be charged with every crime imaginable,” she told the House committee.
According to the former senior assistant, after Mr Trump tried to disrupt control of the wheel to go to the Capitol, he “then used his free hand to jump to the staff in an attempt to be driven there. “
She also said she helped White House staff wipe ketchup off the walls of the Oval Office dining room after Mr. Trump allegedly threw a plate of food against the wall after learning that his attorney general, William Barr, had said there was no evidence of widespread vote-rigging
She also remembered how she worked with Mr. Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani walked out of the White House when asked if she was “excited about the 6th.”
“We’re going to the Capitol, it’s going to be great, the president’s going to be there, he’s going to look powerful,” she recalled. Giuliani said.
Photo of smoke in the Sitting Room during the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021
/ APMs Hutchinson said she felt “frustrated, disappointed … I was really sad” about the events.
“As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. “We watched as the Capitol building was violated over a lie,” she said.
After her testimony, the committee’s vice president, Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, said, “We are all in her debt.”
Ms Cheney added that some witnesses told the committee that they had received calls from figures related to Mr Trump before giving their testimony in which they were asked to be, among other things, a ‘team player’.
“I think most Americans know that the attempt to influence witnesses to testify to untruths presents very serious concerns,” she said.
The panel does not have the power to Mr. Trump to charge of any crimes, but the Justice Department is conducting its own investigation into Jan. 6.