The Daily - An Explosive Jan. 6 Hearing

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

On Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, Cassidy Hutchinson was at work in the White House alongside her boss, Mark Meadows, then the chief of staff.Her stunning testimony has provided a fly-on-the-wall account of what Mr. Trump knew about the events that day.Guest: Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times.Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: Ms. Hutchinson’s evidence made her one of the most forceful and compelling witnesses to reveal details about Mr. Trump’s bizarre and violent behavior.The revelations could nudge Mr. Trump closer to facing criminal charges, legal experts said.Here’s a timeline of the key scenes in Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. In explosive testimony, a White House aide told the January 6th committee that on the day of the riot, President Trump was warned ahead of time that his supporters were armed, that he demanded security on the National Mall be removed, and that he sought to personally join the mob at the Capitol. I spoke with my colleague, Luke Broadwater,

about what we learned and how likely it now is that Trump will be charged with a federal crime. It's Wednesday, June 29th. Luke, that has to have been the most astonishing congressional hearing I have ever watched. And I have watched, I dare say, hundreds of congressional hearings. And language almost fails me when I try to characterize the experience of watching that testimony. I'm gobsmacked. It was really astonishing. I, too, have never seen anything like it. To have an aide like that with that kind of access to the president give essentially a fly-on-the-wall

account of one of the most extraordinary days in American history, that is an extremely rare moment on Capitol Hill. So set this all up for us, because everything about this hearing was a surprise. It wasn't even supposed to happen. Yes, that's right. I mean, we were getting ready for a two-week break on Capitol Hill. The committee wasn't supposed to have its next hearing until mid-July. And then all of a sudden, we started to hear rumblings Monday about a surprise hearing. And we started working the phones furiously to figure out what was happening. And who would testify? Yes, and who would testify and what it would be about. And all we were told was that there'll be a hearing tomorrow at one o'clock

and we're going to disclose some new information that we've just recently learned. And that was basically it. And by the morning we learned the surprise witness would be Cassidy Hutchinson, a little known former aide to Donald Trump's final chief of staff, Mark Meadows. And this was an interesting development because the committee had already interviewed Cassidy Hutchinson four times behind closed doors. And over the next two hours or so of the hearing, they would play clips from those previous closed-door interviews and interspered them with her live, in-person testimony. The Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol will be in order. First, I recognize our distinguished vice chair,

Ms. Cheney of Wyoming, for any opening statements she'd care to offer. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And what do we need to know about Cassidy Hutchinson's specific role in this White House? In her role working for the White House Chief of Staff, Ms. Hutchinson handled a vast number of sensitive issues. She worked in the West Wing, several steps down the hall from the Oval Office. Well, Cassidy Hutchinson was in basically every conversation that Mark Meadows was in. Ms. Hutchinson spoke daily with members of Congress, with high-ranking officials in the administration, with senior White House staff, including Mr. Meadows, with White House counsel, lawyers... So she was able to see and hear things as they happened in real time. In short, Ms. Hutchinson was in a position to know a great deal

about the happenings in the Trump White House. And what is the story that she is in front of this committee to tell about January 6th, given the unique access that she has? Well, because of her unique access, she's able to lay out dialogue between key actors in the Trump White House. Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, discussed matters with the White House counsel, or Donald Trump, rant against something openly to his aides. And so you get this sort of unparalleled access like you might in a documentary from a first-person account of discussions.

And what are the first of those reconstructed dialogues that we learn about? So the first one the committee kicks off the hearing with happens four days before the attack on the Capitol on January 2nd. Ms. Hutchinson, do you remember Mr. Giuliani meeting with Mr. Meadows on January 2nd, 2021? I do. He met with Mr. Meadows in the evening of January 2nd, 2021. And we understand that you walked Mr. Giuliani out of the White House that night. She tells a story about how Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, approaches her and... As Mr. Giuliani and I were walking to his vehicles that evening,

he looked at me and said something to the effect of, Castor, are you excited for the 6th? It's going to be a great day. I remember looking at him and saying, Rudy, could you explain what you excited for the 6th? It's going to be a great day. I remember looking at him saying, Rudy, could you explain what's happening on the 6th? He had responded something to the effect of, 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's sort of surprised by this and goes to Mark Meadows afterwards, to her boss, and asks him about it. conversation with Rudy. Mark, sounds like we're going to go to the Capitol. He didn't look up from his phone and said something to the effect of. And he tells her. There's a lot going on,

Cass, but I don't know. Things might get real, real bad on January 6th. Things could get real, real bad. Right. And this very much becomes a running theme of this testimony from Hutchinson, this idea that there was pre-planning related to January 6th we didn't know about, and lots of warnings not to do things that were being pre-planned. Yes, and the committee starts to show examples of warnings that White House staff was receiving about the potential for violence on January 6th. On January 3rd, the Capitol Police issued a special event assessment. These are posts on social media about right-wing extremist groups. These are some warnings from intelligence agencies. In that document, the Capitol Police noted that

the Proud Boys and other groups planned to be in Washington, D.C. on January 6th and indicated that, quote, unlike previous post-election protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counter protesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th. And it becomes very apparent as this crowd has assembled in Washington, that things could turn violent. There are reports that police in Washington, D.C. had arrested several people with firearms or ammunition following a separate pro-Trump rally in Freedom Plaza on the evening of January 5th. Are those some of the reports that you recall hearing about? They are. And the warnings continue right up until January 6th.

I recall Tony and I having a conversation with Mark probably around 10 a.m., 10, 15 a.m. And she says at one point, Tony Ornato, a former Secret Service official, goes into Mark Meadows and sort of starts laying out all the weapons they're hearing reports of in the crowd. Tony mentioning knives, guns in the form of pistols and rifles, bear spray, body armor, spears, and flagpoles. Spears were one item, flagpoles were one item, then Tony had related to me something to the effect of, and these effing people are fastening spears onto the ends of flagpoles.

Ms. Hutchinson, here's a clip of your testimony regarding Mr. Meadows' response to learning that the rally attendees were armed that day. What was Mark's reaction, Mr. Meadows' reaction to this list of weapons that people had in the crowd? I remember distinctly Mark not looking up for his phone. I remember Tony finishing his explanation and it taking a few seconds for Mark to say his name to the point where I almost said, Mark, did you hear him? And then Mark chimed in and was like, alright, anything else?

Still looking down at his phone. And Tony looked at me and I looked at Tony and Tony said, no sir, do you have any questions? He's like, what are you hearing? And I looked at Tony and I was like, sir, he just told you about what was happening down at the rallies. And he was like, yeah, yeah, I know. And then he looked up and said, have you talked to the president? And Tony said, yes, sir. He's aware too. He said, all right, good. Hearing all this, Meadows says, have you told this to the president? And Ornato says he has. So, Ms. Hutchinson, is it your understanding that Mr. Ornato told the president about weapons at the rally on the morning of January 6th? That's what Mr. Ornato relayed to me.

And in fact, Cassidy Hutchinson testifies that she is sort of backstage with Donald Trump. When we were in the offstage announce area tent behind the stage, with Donald Trump. When we were in the offstage, announced area tent behind the stage, he was very concerned about the shot, meaning the photograph that we would get because the rally space wasn't full. And she hears these warnings being relayed

about all the people with the guns and the weapons. And Donald Trump's main concern is not that there are a bunch of angry people with weapons in the crowd, but that he wants them to get closer so they can form a bigger crowd. And he was angry that we weren't letting people through the mags with weapons. And so he says, basically, get the metal detectors out of the way. I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don't effing care that they have weapons. Let's not put people through metal detectors. They're not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away.

Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away. They're not here to get me. Wow. So he wants to remove security, knowing full well that these supporters are armed. Yes, and Hutchinson testifies that he says, basically, let's march them to the Capitol. Did these conversations happen two to three minutes before he took the stage that morning? Let's reflect on that for a moment. President Trump was aware that a number of the individuals in the crowd had weapons

and were wearing body armor. And here's what President Trump instructed the crowd to do. We're going to walk down, and I'll be there with you. We're going to walk down. We're going to walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here, we're going to walk down to the Capitol. anyone you want, but I think right here we're going to walk down to the Capitol. So what this testimony seems to have done by this point

is to recast what Donald Trump would have understood by the time he walks out onto that stage and says things like, march to the Capitol. Until this testimony, we didn't understand that he would have been very aware when he gave those remarks that the people in front of him were armed and dangerous. Yes, absolutely. It gets at Donald Trump's knowledge of the possibility of violence. You know, previously, some of his supporters have said, well, he can't be held responsible

for just using incendiary language. And you don't know what a crowd will do sometimes when you speak to them. But if he knew ahead of time that they had brought all these weapons, you know, the kind of weapons you would only see if you were planning to do violence. He should well have known what the possibility for violence was given that, and yet he went out and made that speech anyway. And so what happens next in this testimony? Well, Hutchinson starts to describe what I think to most viewers would be a pretty shocking moment. And let's turn back now to the president's plans to travel to the Capitol on January 6th. And that is Donald Trump and his top advisors openly discussing

whether Trump could lead a march to the Capitol. When you were talking about a scheduled movement, did anyone say what the president wanted to do when he got here? Not that I can specifically remember. I remember... And Hutchinson says they discussed he should give a second speech at the Capitol. There were discussions about him having another speech

outside of the Capitol before going in. I know that there was a discussions about him having another speech outside of the Capitol before going in. I know that there was a conversation about him going into the House chamber at one point. Or whether Donald Trump himself should go into the House of Representatives as they're trying to certify the election for Joe Biden. An extraordinary possibility. Right. I mean, this is unheard of for the losing president to come in and try to disrupt the proceedings. We don't have any precedent for this in American history. And she says that Trump sort of believes this is going to happen the whole time, even as he gets pushback from his top advisors. And Mr. Cipollone said something to you like, make sure the movement to the Capitol does not happen. Is that correct? That's correct. According to her, she says Pat Cipollone, who's the

top lawyer in the White House, says if this were to happen, basically they would have committed several crimes and they would be charged with every crime in the book. Mr. Cipollone said something to the effect of, please make sure we don't go up to the Capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen. Bobby Engel, the head of Trump security detail. After Donald Trump leaves the Ellipse, he's being driven in a car away from the Capitol. Right. I looked at Tony and he had said, did you effing hear what happened in the Beast? I said, no, Tony, I just got back. What happened? what happened. Tony proceeded to tell me that... That in the ride, Donald Trump is insistent

about going to the Capitol and redirecting his vehicle that way. And when Bobby Head relayed to him, we're not, you don't have the assets to do it, it's not secure, we're going back to the West Wing. The president had a very strong, very angry response to that. Tony described him as being irate.

The president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now. And apparently says, I'm the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now. And apparently says, I'm the effing president. The president reached up towards 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. And essentially gets into an altercation. Wow. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel.

And when Mr. Renato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles. Now, I do think we should note that Donald Trump has denied this story. And Hutchinson says, by her own admission, she only heard this secondhand and she did not see these events take place. But it was an extremely dramatic moment told under oath in front of Congress. So, Luke, how do you make sense of this shocking story of the president's behavior? Well, it's a dramatic scene that sort of sums up where we are in the Trump presidency at the moment. And that is, Trump has only, you know, 90 minutes or a couple hours left in his chance to try to

wrest the election from Joe Biden, the election that Joe Biden won. And he's running out of options. And so he's now enraged, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, and he's taken back to the White House against his will and turns on the riot to watch it. And with that, we take a break in the action at the congressional hearing. Hutchinson stands up and walks out of the room. And I look back at one of the Capitol police officers who'd been assaulted that day and out of the job for months. And he stands up and applauds for Hutchinson. We talked to him afterwards. He says it was the first White House insider to testify publicly about what was going on around them and what Donald Trump was doing.

And many people saw that as an act of courage. We'll be right back. Luke, when the committee reconvenes... Committee will be in order. And the second part of this hearing gets underway, Hutchinson testifies about what's happening deep inside the White House during the riot at the Capitol, which is something I think we have all long wanted to understand. So describe what she says. Ms. Hutchinson, I'd like now for us to listen to a description, your description of what transpired in the West Wing during the attack. Now, this was the part of the testimony that was most extraordinary to me.

For context, in this clip, you describe the time frame starting at about 2 p.m. Hutchinson says, as the ride is unfolding. I see Pat Cipollone barreling down the hallway towards our office and rushed right in, looked at me, said, is Mark in his office? And I said, yes. She is in Mark Meadows' office and witness to discussions between him and Pat Cipollone at the White House Council. And she gives the committee almost a back and forth of dialogue about what's being said. And I remember Pat saying to him something to the effect of,

the rioters have gotten to the Capitol, Mark. We need to go down and see the president now. And Mark looked up at it and said, he doesn't want to do anything, Pat. And Pat said something to the effect of, Mark, something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood's going to be on your effing hands. This is getting out of control. I'm going down there. And at that point, Mark stood up. And then they walked out and went down to the dining room. The White House starts to get reports from the Capitol. I had heard conversations in the Oval Dining Room at that point talking about the Hang Mike Pence chants.

That the mob, as they're breaking into the building, is chanting Hang Mike Pence. Right. And Cipollone again tries to implore Meadows to go back into the president and convince Donald Trump to do something. I remember Pat saying something to the effect of, Mark, we need to do something more. They're literally calling for the vice president to be effing hung.

And Mark had responded something to the effect of, you heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong. And Meadows responds, you heard him. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong. And Meadows responds, you heard him. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong. To which Pat said something, this is effing crazy. It's an extraordinary admission that the sitting president endorsed chance from the mob to hang his own vice president.

President Trump's view that the rioters were not doing anything wrong and that, quote, Mike deserved it, helps us to understand why the president did not ask the rioters to leave the Capitol for multiple hours. So as White House aide after White House aide goes into Donald Trump to try to convince him to put out a message calling off the mob, he doesn't do it. Right. In fact, he put this tweet out at 2.24 p.m.

Instead, he sends out a tweet that says, Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should be done. Ms. Hutchinson, what was your reaction when you saw this tweet? As a staffer that works to always represent the administration to the best of my ability and to showcase the good things that he had done for the country. I remember feeling frustrated, disappointed, and really, it felt personal. It was really sad. As an American, I was disgusted.

It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie. And it was something that was really hard in that moment to digest, knowing what I'd been hearing down the hall in the conversations that were happening seeing that tweet come up and knowing what was happening on the hill and it's something that I it's still I still struggled to work through the emotions of that and look at this point in the hearing, if this is even possible,

there's yet another bombshell. Yes, absolutely. As you can see on the screen, the 25th Amendment to the Constitution creates a process for the transition of power if a president is unfit or unable to serve. Hutchinson says members of the president's cabinet were distressed enough by the assault on the Capitol and his encouragement of the mob and his refusal

to intervene. Ms. Hutchinson, you told us that you were hearing about discussions related to the 25th Amendment. That they began quietly discussing invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. From what I understood at the time, and from what the reports were coming in, there's a large concern of the 25th Amendment potentially being invoked, and there were concerns about what would happen in the Senate if it was, if the 25th was invoked. This prospect of him being the first president in American history to leave office because his own cabinet invoked the 25th Amendment against him is one reason Trump agrees the next day to release a video agreeing to the peaceful transfer of power. Because he worried, frankly, that his presidency would be ripped from him by members of his own cabinet. It would be the most ignominious end to a presidency in American history.

Even then, on January 7th, 2021, the day after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the president still could not bring himself to say, quote, but this election is now over. So look, how does this testimony ultimately come to an end? Well, if you know anything about this committee, they always save at least one major revelation for the end of each one of their hearings.

For the last 10 minutes of these two hours. Yes. And this one, once again, they had a bombshell. Ms. Hutchinson, did Rudy Giuliani ever suggest that he was interested in receiving a presidential pardon related to January 6th? He did. Ms. Hutchinson, did White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows ever indicate that he was interested in receiving a presidential pardon related to January 6th? Ms. Meadows did seek that pardon, yes, ma'am. Thank you, Ms. Hutchinson.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you, Ms. Hutchinson. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. The committee has said time and again that an attempt to seek a pardon is likely evidence of a guilty conscience. It's likely evidence that the person expressing interest in the pardon knows they've done something wrong, knows they've done something probably illegal, and they want to get immunity from prosecution as they leave office. Right. And so if you are the January 6th committee and one of your goals is to explore what crimes were committed at the end of the Trump presidency, at the end of the Trump presidency, this is pretty damning evidence against certain high-ranking allies of Donald Trump that they perhaps thought that they could potentially face legal liability for what happened on January 6th and the days before it.

The chair requests those in the hearing room to remain seated until the Capitol Police have excluded the witness and members from the room. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. Let's talk about what this sudden emergency hearing and Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony means for that question of whether or not Donald Trump and those around him are likely to face criminal charges from the Department of Justice over their conduct on January 6th. How are you thinking about that at the end of this hearing? One key question that we've always wanted to investigate as reporters, and in fact, I'm sure the Justice Department also wants to investigate, is the question of intent. Did Donald Trump know or should have known various things that were happening as they happened?

happened and what we heard from Cassidy Hutchinson is Donald Trump was made very much aware that there was a potential for violence and he was made very much aware that a mob was laying siege to the Capitol and he was made very much aware that they wanted to hang his own vice president and so the idea that Donald Trump didn't know what was happening, I think, has changed in many people's minds. And so to the extent that is useful to prosecutors, I can guarantee you they're watching this hearing. Each hearing that's gone by, the committee has introduced evidence for potentially a new line of prosecution. They have talked about him defrauding his donors. They have talked about him perpetrating a fraud on the American people. They have talked about a conspiracy to interrupt and obstruct Congress.

They have talked about a fake elector scheme. a conspiracy to interrupt and obstruct Congress. They have talked about a fake elector scheme. And finally on this one, there was talk essentially evidence of dereliction of duty, of a mob coming into the Capitol, of violence afoot, and the commander-in-chief doing nothing for hour after hour after hour. But Luke, where in reality does this leave the idea of prosecuting the president? Because at

the end of the day, and correct me if I'm wrong, from what we've heard, we've still never been told by anyone who testified that Donald Trump encouraged the rioters to enter the Capitol, right? He never told them to break in. He never instructed them to bring weapons or to hurt anyone. And Cassidy Hutchinson, for all the power of her testimony, didn't change that understanding, right? That's very true, Michael. We do not have testimony along those lines. And we also do not have testimony that Donald Trump communicated directly or privately or

secretly with anybody who broke into the Capitol that day. But we have been promised in these final hearings that there will be evidence that links Donald Trump to a greater degree, or at least people in Donald Trump's orbit, to the violent extremists, to the people who attack the Capitol. The committee has not presented that evidence yet. But if past hearings are any guide, when the committee says they're going to do something, they often do it. Well, Luke, until the next hearing, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, in the latest fallout from the overturning of Roe v. Wade,

a Texas judge temporarily blocked a ban on abortions there in the latest case of abortion rights advocates pausing so-called trigger laws. But in Tennessee, a federal court allowed an abortion ban to take effect. The state will now prohibit the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy. And the death toll of migrants who traveled across Texas in a tractor-trailer has risen to at least 51, 39 men and 12 women. to at least 51, 39 men, and 12 women. Many of them are believed to have died from extreme heat and dehydration.

And Ghislaine Maxwell, who conspired with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually exploit underage girls, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a judge who said she played a pivotal role in facilitating their abuse. In remarks to the court, Maxwell acknowledged the victim's pain, but stopped short of either apologizing or accepting responsibility. Thank you. by Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Bilboro. See you tomorrow.