Cassidy Hutchinson testified she was not present for the SUV altercation
House Republicans’ March 2024 release of a previously undisclosed transcript put the Secret Service driver’s account alongside Cassidy Hutchinson’s disputed 2022 testimony. The Associated Press reported that the transcript of the Select Committee’s interview with the officer who drove the presidential SUV contradicted some of Hutchinson’s testimony but corroborated other aspects, including Donald Trump’s attempt to join the mob scene at the Capitol.
The driver said he did not see the altercation Hutchinson described. He said Trump “never grabbed the steering wheel.” He also said, “I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all,” according to the transcript.
Hutchinson had described an angry, defiant Trump at her 2022 testimony before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. The surprise hearing had been announced just 24 hours earlier. She said Trump tried to let armed protesters avoid security screenings at a rally that morning to protest his 2020 election defeat. The Associated Press said her testimony was seen at the time as particularly powerful given her proximity to power as special assistant to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
She testified that Trump later grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him go to the Capitol. As the events there spiraled toward violence and the crowd chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” she testified that Trump declined to intervene. A mob of Trump supporters had stormed the Capitol to halt the congressional certification of his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Hutchinson’s description of the altercation inside the presidential SUV was regarded as particularly explosive, even as she acknowledged that she was relaying what she had heard from a White House security official and did not have firsthand knowledge of the episode because she was not there. The Associated Press said her account was quickly disputed. Trump denied much of what she said on Truth Social, calling her a “total phony” and “bad news.”
Hutchinson also alleged that members of Trump’s inner circle dangled job opportunities and financial assistance while she cooperated with the committee. She testified that her own lawyer, a former ethics counsel in the Trump White House, told her “the less you remember, the better.” Hutchinson told the committee, “It feels ridiculous, because in my heart I knew where my loyalties lied, and my loyalties lied with the truth.” She added, “And I never wanted to diverge from that.”
The Associated Press reported that the Justice Department on Tuesday failed to secure a grand-jury indictment of Hutchinson, a former White House staffer. The outlet said a Washington grand jury had rejected prosecutors’ request, citing two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Details of prosecutors’ allegations were not immediately clear. Republican lawmakers had accused Hutchinson of lying under oath in her 2022 testimony. Her attorney did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Tuesday.
The Associated Press characterized the reported refusal as the latest setback in Justice Department efforts to persuade grand jurors in the nation’s capital to bring politically sensitive cases. The outlet described the effort to indict Hutchinson as part of a surge in politically sensitive actions in the run-up to the following week’s midterm elections, targeting what it called perceived adversaries of the president.
The Associated Press listed a new attempt to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and a search by federal agents of the Minnesota home of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom it described as an outspoken Trump critic. The outlet said it is highly unusual for grand juries to decline to return indictments and that the Justice Department under Trump had been rebuked by citizens in the nation’s capital in a number of high-profile cases.
Earlier in 2026, a Washington grand jury declined to indict Democratic lawmakers over a video in which they urged U.S. service members to follow established military protocols and reject orders they believed to be unlawful.
The U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump in 2021 on allegations that he incited the mob that attacked the Capitol, and the Senate later acquitted him. Under Biden, the Justice Department charged Trump with felony offenses, accusing him of illegally working to overturn his 2020 election loss in the run-up to the Capitol attack. Then-special counsel Jack Smith abandoned the case after Trump’s 2024 presidential victory. Longstanding Justice Department policy says a sitting president cannot face criminal prosecution.
Hutchinson, a native of Pennington, New Jersey, previously worked in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and interned for Republicans, including Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.