‘This is a bombshell’: Trump aides left speechless by Hutchinson testimony
Aides to former President Donald Trump were left speechless amid the first half of Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony on Tuesday, acknowledging to CNN that her testimony was “a bombshell” with potentially huge repercussions for Trump.
Trump was already bracing for an explosive day of testimony from Hutchinson, who previously told the House select committee that the former President approved of rioters chanting violent threats against Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021.
“This is a bombshell. It’s stunning. It’s shocking. The story about ‘The Beast’ — I don’t have words. It’s just stunning,” said one Trump adviser, referring to the presidential limousine.
“This paints a picture of Trump completely unhinged and completely losing all control which, for his base, they think of him as someone who is in command at all times. This completely flies in the face of that,” the adviser added.
The Trump adviser, who was in a group text chat with several other Trump aides and allies as the hearing played out, said that “no one is taking this lightly.”
“For the first time since the hearings started, no one is dismissing this,” the adviser said. [Continue reading…]
With what may prove the most damning testimony about a sitting president’s actions in American history, the former right hand of ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows stitched together every element of the panel’s case against Donald Trump. The Capitol riot committee has painted the former president’s potential criminal culpability for his effort to overturn the election in stark hues: investigators have portrayed Trump fuming atop an increasingly conspiracy-addled West Wing and working to corrupt the peaceful transfer of power at any cost.
Yet it was their sixth hearing that most clearly cast Trump as a uniquely pernicious force, thanks to a soft-spoken but bell-clear witness.
“I was disgusted,” Hutchinson said of Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6, particularly after he tweeted an attack on Mike Pence as the then-vice president was fleeing rioters who’d called for his execution. “It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.” [Continue reading…]