A federal grand jury in Washington on Tuesday refused to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide whose televised 2022 testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee made her a star witness against President Donald Trump.
Two people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press that grand jurors rejected the Justice Department’s request for an indictment. They spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the case, and an attorney for Hutchinson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The rejection surfaced in open court. Neville S. Hedley, a senior Justice Department lawyer, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui that the grand jury had not concurred in a proposed indictment. He did not name the target, The Washington Post reported, but people familiar with the case said it was Hutchinson.
Prosecutors in the department’s Civil Rights Division had sought to charge her with making false statements, CNBC reported. CBS News had reported earlier that the department was seeking an indictment over her testimony.
A rare setback
Grand juries almost never decline to indict, because prosecutors need only show probable cause. Washington grand jurors have nonetheless turned down several politically sensitive cases since Trump returned to office, including a bid earlier this year to charge Democratic lawmakers over a video urging service members to refuse unlawful orders.
The decision lands a week before the Nov. 3 midterms, as the department pursues other cases against Trump critics, including a third attempt to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey. The Wall Street Journal also confirmed Tuesday’s grand jury outcome.
The disputed testimony
Hutchinson, then a special assistant to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified at a surprise June 28, 2022, hearing. She said Trump wanted armed supporters let into his rally without passing through security screening and that he refused to act as rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”
Her most explosive claim was secondhand. She said Tony Ornato, then a White House official, told her Trump reached for the steering wheel of the presidential SUV and lunged at Robert Engel, the head of his security detail, when Engel refused to drive him to the Capitol.
Trump called her a “total phony” at the time. In March 2024, House Republicans released the committee’s interview with the Secret Service officer who drove the vehicle. He said Trump “never grabbed the steering wheel” and that he did not see the president lunge into the front seat, though he backed up her account that Trump wanted to go to the Capitol.
Republican lawmakers have long accused Hutchinson of lying under oath. She told the committee at the time that her “loyalties lied with the truth.”
Hutchinson, a native of Pennington, New Jersey, previously worked in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and interned for Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
The grand jury’s decision does not bar prosecutors from presenting the case again. The Justice Department had not commented publicly as of Tuesday evening.
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