By Stephen Macaulay
“As an American, I was disgusted.”
Amen, Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testifying to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
Disgusted.
“She’s one of them. Or was.” — John Karl, ABC News chief Washington correspondent, talking about Ms. Hutchinson in relation to the Republicans who, by and large, have heretofore been resistant to what has been explained and exposed, chapter and verse, about what Donald Trump and his enablers did before, during, and after January 6, 2021.
Disgusted.
“I said, ‘The rioters are getting really close. Have you talked to the president?’” Hutchinson recalled asking her boss, then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
“Meadows said, ‘No. He wants to be alone right now.’”
Mark Meadows. Profile in sniveling servility.
Disgusted.
Hutchinson on hearing a noise in the White House dining room in December 2020 and finding ketchup on the wall, a broken plate on the floor and a valet cleaning up the mess: “The valet had articulated that the president was extremely angry at the attorney general’s AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall.”
Then-Attorney General Bill Barr had told the Associated Press that an investigation by the Department of Justice had found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. If there was a “steal” it had been “stopped” before it happened in any measurable way, whether it was by Venezuelans, Italians or who knows who else.
Disgusted.
Trump was being taken back to the White House from the Ellipse in an armored SUV because his intended destination was deemed to be a dangerous place. Hutchinson says, she had been told by another White House aide, security official Tony Ornato, “The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now’ — to which Bobby [Engel, part of the president’s security detail] responded, ‘Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing.’ The president reached up toward the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, ‘Sir you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.’”
And then, Hutchinson testified (remember: she is under oath) that she was told by Ornato that Trump grabbed Engel as though he was going to strangle him.
Disgusted.
“I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and ‘leaker’), and when she requested to go with certain others of the team to Florida after my having served a full term in office, I personally turned her request down. Why did she want to go with us if she felt we were so terrible? I understand that she was very upset and angry that I didn’t want her to go, or be a member of the team. She is bad news!” -- Donald Trump on Truth Social, after Hutchinson’s testimony.
Let’s see: He doesn’t know who she is (other than being “a total phony and ‘leaker’”) yet he “personally turned her request down.” Seems somewhat at odds, but how is that any different than anything else Trump has said?
Disgusted.
During Hutchinson’s testimony, video was shown of portions of the testimony of Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor of the United States, being questioned by Liz Cheney. He repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment, as is his right.
Cheney: "General Flynn, do you believe the violence on January 6 was justified?"
Flynn: "I said, I said the Fifth."
Flynn, a retired lieutenant general in the U.S. Army resistant to talking about the transfer of power that he had sworn an oath to uphold.
Hutchinson, 26, or seven years fewer than Flynn had served in the military, was out there, defending democracy against those who would have twisted it to their own ends.
Disgusting.