GOP lawmakers push for charges against former White House aide for Jan. 6 testimony

By Annie Grayer, Katelyn Polantz, Evan Perez, CNN

(CNN) — Republicans on Capitol Hill are asking the Justice Department to consider bringing criminal charges against Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in President Donald Trump’s first administration who became a star congressional witness about the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, according to two sources familiar with recent developments.

GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk made a criminal referral of Hutchinson to the Justice Department in recent days, the sources said. He accused Hutchinson of lying to Congress in her summer 2022 testimony when she alleged Trump was aware of the potential for violence on January 6, 2021, and forged ahead with his attempts to rile up his supporters.

Loudermilk has long attempted to reframe the public perception of the events at the Capitol, including by scrutinizing the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot and found Trump was “directly responsible” for the riot. Loudermilk’s referral was co-signed by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who chairs the committee under which Loudermilk is running a probe of January 6.

The Justice Department’s press office didn’t respond to inquiries about the referral. Both current and former lawyers for Hutchinson didn’t respond to multiple inquiries this week from CNN. CNN has reached out to Loudermilk for comment.

It’s not uncommon for Congress to make criminal referrals regarding witnesses that have come before it previously, especially in heavily charged political situations, and referrals don’t necessarily lead to charges. A referral at times could add to a criminal investigation or prompt one. They are often treated by the Justice Department as suggestions.

A referral and possible Justice Department action against Hutchinson could refocus attention on a fraught aspect of the work years ago of the House Select Committee and prosecutors. It also comes a time when the Trump administration has pursued politically charged criminal cases against former government figures whom Trump considers opponents.

Hutchinson has drawn scrutiny for years

Hutchinson, 29, was the top aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows at the end of the first Trump administration. The select committee created by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi considered her a key eyewitness to several episodes leading up to January 6, in addition to witnessing some of Trump’s real-time reactions that day.

Her testimony drew significant blowback from Republicans. Justice Department prosecutors under former President Joe Biden’s administration interviewed her during their inquiry into Trump and other powerful Republican figures — and took some of her accusations seriously, sources familiar with the probe at the time have told CNN.

Hutchinson testified she had heard a secondhand account that Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol on January 6 that he lunged to the front of his presidential limo and tried to turn the wheel.

A Secret Service agent and White House deputy whom Hutchinson said were also aware of the story have said they don’t remember it.

Hutchinson had alleged the lawyer she initially worked with, Stefan Passantino, who was the top ethics attorney in the first Trump administration, had made clear to her that the less she recalled to House investigators, the better.

Before her blockbuster testimony in June 2022, Hutchinson dropped Passantino and got a new lawyer. Once she switched attorneys, she shared more information with the former select committee both through closed-door interviews and in a public hearing.

Passantino has repeatedly said he acted ethically in representing Hutchinson, ushered her through cooperative rounds of testimony and believed she had been truthful initially. Legal ethics investigators in Washington, DC, and Georgia both dropped inquiries into Passantino that arose after Hutchinson’s testimony.

The FBI and Biden-era Justice Department prosecutors investigated Hutchinson’s accusations about the Trump-backed lawyer and others who may have been involved in Hutchinson’s account of events, sources have told CNN. No charges were brought.

Passantino and a law firm who represents him didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.

The federal investigators’ questioning of Hutchinson predated the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith, and her accusations never became part of Smith’s now-public findings in the January 6-related case against Trump.

Yet House Judiciary Committee’s Republicans have continued to raise questions about Hutchinson’s role in the criminal investigation and as a House Select Committee witness.

Smith told the committee in a closed-door interview three months ago that his office evaluated Hutchinson’s claims about Trump on January 6.

Ultimately, Smith said, she wasn’t a powerful witness in his probe of Trump. Many of Hutchinson’s stories were secondhand, and thus not admissible in court because they were hearsay, Smith noted. Other stories were squishier on the facts of what happened, he said.

Smith said Justice Department investigators had interviewed people she spoke with, including an officer who was in the car with Trump that day.

“The version of events that he (the other witness) explained was not the same as what Cassidy Hutchinson said she heard from somebody secondhand,” Smith said.

On another point, Smith said he had “a conflict” between stories, from her and others, about whether Hutchinson wrote a specific note in the White House.

Smith’s team also found different witnesses “seeing it from a different perspective,” Smith told the committee, when asked about a story Hutchinson told of Trump not wanting his supporters to go through a security check for weapons at his January 6 rally on the Ellipse.

Smith declined to assess how reliable her testimony was.

“I don’t recall reaching any sort of conclusion like that because we were, again, far away from trial,” he told the House Judiciary Committee. “We hadn’t made final determinations.”

Another former Justice Department prosecutor, Thomas Windom, who worked on the January 6 investigation before and during Smith’s special counsel tenure, has already been referred by the House Judiciary Committee to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. The committee has accused him of obstructing the current Congressional investigation looking back at the January 6 work.

Windom hasn’t been charged with a crime. In an interview last year, the committee didn’t ask him explicitly about Hutchinson, according to a public transcript. Windom largely declined to answer questions in his interview, following his lawyer’s advice.

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