A former White House aide potentially delivered the kind of political blow to Donald Trump that his would-be rivals for the Oval Office in 2024 have not yet been able to land.
Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee Tuesday presented startling glimpses of uncontrolled rage sure to sear into the public consciousness.
The vivid portrayal was laid out for the American public as Trump is considering another run for the presidency in 2024 and potential rivals are stepping up to try to loosen his grip on Republican voters. Former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tweeted afterward that it was “A very, very bad day for Trump.”
But the former president has maintained his hold on the Republican Party despite scandals and controversies that would have ended the careers of other politicians.
And his supporters have seized on doubts raised about one of the most jarring parts of Hutchinson’s testimony: a second-hand account of Trump trying to grab the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle after his Secret Service detail refused his demand to be driven to the U.S. Capitol, where he had directed a mob of his supporters as Congress was set to certify the election.
Trump, in a social media post during the hearing, denied the incident took place, though he has previously acknowledged he wanted to head to the Capitol.
Tony Ornato, a long-time Secret Service agent who was working at the time as a deputy chief of staff to Trump, has privately disputed Hutchinson’s testimony that he told her that Trump reached for the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle or lunge toward a Secret Service agent who allegedly tried to stop him, according to a person familiar with the matter. Some other aides called it an unlikely scenario.
Hutchinson’s lawyers, Jody Hunt and William Jordan, released a statement Wednesday, saying she “stands by all of the testimony she provided yesterday, under oath, to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.”
Some Democrats have noted that Hutchinson gave sworn testimony while contradictory accounts have only been leaked anonymously to the media. They also point out that Hutchinson never claimed to witness the steering wheel incident, only that she had heard about it from Ornato.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Gugliemi said in a statement that the agency has been cooperating with the House probe “and will continue to do so, including by responding on the record to the Committee regarding the new allegations surfaced in today’s testimony.”
The Jan. 6 panel would welcome anyone who wishes to provide additional information under oath, said a committee official who asked not to be identified.
The account of Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, had a power that anonymous reports of misconduct do not as she testified live on television, showing her face and looking the American public in the eye to deliver her version under oath. She comes with conservative bona fides including internships prior to her White House work with Republican Senator Ted Cruz and House Republican Whip Steve Scalise.
“The truth is, yesterday was devastating” for Trump, Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Wednesday. “But if any of her testimony is proven to be false, it undercuts all of it.”
While “people don’t trust Donald Trump,” he said, it’s not yet clear how the pushback on that single part of Hutchinson’s testimony affects the credibility of the rest of her account.
Hutchinson’s testimony capped a series of riveting hearings in which former Trump White House and Justice Department officials have portrayed the former president relentlessly pursuing a campaign to hold on to power on the basis of fraud claims his top advisers repeatedly told him were unfounded. The inquiry promises more potentially damaging revelations with additional hearings scheduled for next month.
Tuesday’s hearing also raised the possibility of new legal jeopardy for Trump and his allies as vice-chair Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, suggested the panel has evidence of efforts to intimidate witnesses, which is a federal crime.
Hutchinson’s testimony also suggested Trump and his top aides set their plans for Jan. 6 fully aware that they were likely to provoke violence. She said Meadows warned her on Jan. 2 that “things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6.”
Trump has remained the most prominent leader of his party’s dominant populist wing in the face of numerous past scandals from vulgar comments endorsing sexual assault on women revealed during his 2016 presidential campaign to two presidential impeachment trials, the final one on charges of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
Yet, even though Republican candidates competed to outdo each with displays of loyalty to win his endorsement in this year’s primaries, there are signs his influence on voters was already waning. A potential 2024 rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has gained on him in some polls of early primary states.
Mulvaney pointed to “stunning” revelations in the hearing that could undermine GOP loyalty to the former president, including testimony that Meadows and Trump’s private adviser Rudy Giuliani sought presidential pardons for their roles in the effort to overturn the election.
He also cited evidence that Trump knew protesters in the crowd at his rally were armed with weapons when he urged them on to the Capitol to “fight” the election count.
Ed Rollins, who once ran the pro-Trump Great America PAC and recently formed the “Ready for Ron” PAC to urge DeSantis to make a 2024 presidential bid, said it’s too early to predict the impact that today’s hearings will have on Trump’s political standing.
Rollins said that the hearings contend with a crowded political environment that includes recent Supreme Court decisions on abortion and guns, the “terrible economy,” Russia’s war on Ukraine, and the high cost of gasoline and food, and President Joe Biden’s “overall weakness.”
“I think a lot of people are going to take a wait-and-see attitude and see if Trump can be viable or whether he runs or not,” Rollins said.
