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House Republicans launched a report this week they are saying undermines claims made by a former Trump aide that former President Trump tried to take management of a Secret Service car on Jan. 6, 2021.
Georgia Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, chair of the oversight subcommittee of the House Administration Committee, launched an 81-page report Monday, which investigated “the security failures of January 6th which House Democrats failed to investigate in the 117th Congress.”
(*6*) the report’s preliminary findings element.
Within the report’s findings, the oversight subcommittee reported that unreleased testimony from 4 former White House staff who had been current for Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech contradicts claims by former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
HOUSE GOP REPORT ALLEGES JAN 6 COMMITTEE ‘DELETED RECORDS AND HID EVIDENCE’
Cassidy Hutchinson, a high aide to Mark Meadows when he was White House chief of workers within the Trump administration, retells a narrative involving President Trump because the House Jan. 6 choose committee holds a public listening to on Capitol Hill on June 28, 2022. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post through Getty Images)
“Reps. Thompson and Cheney promoted Cassidy Hutchinson‘s sensational revised testimony and hid witness testimony from White House and Secret Service employees with firsthand knowledge that directly contradicted Hutchinson‘s version of events. Hutchinson conducted three transcribed interviews with the Select Committee before substantially revising her story in her fourth transcribed interview. Despite knowing how significantly her testimony changed, the Select Committee promoted it as fact,” the report detailed, adding that Hutchinson was promoted as a “star witness.”
Hutchinson, who worked as an aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, had claimed before the select committee that on Jan. 6, 2021, she was told Trump allegedly became “irate” and attempted to join supporters at the Capitol ahead of them breaching the government building. The incident reportedly unfolded after Trump delivered a speech at the Ellipse, which is a park just south of the White House fence.
President Donald Trump speaks at a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
“The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now,’” she recounted to the committee in 2022 of what she was informed.
She alleged she was informed Trump tried to seize the steering wheel of a Secret Service SUV earlier than the motive force reportedly informed Trump to take away his hand and that they had been headed to the White House, not the Capitol.
LIZ CHENEY CALLS SPEAKER JOHNSON ‘DANGEROUS’ FOR HELPING TRUMP ‘UNDERMINE OUR REPUBLIC’
Rep. Barry Loudermilk chairs a House subcommittee hearing on July 19, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images )
Loudermilk’s report, nevertheless, discovered that Hutchinson’s testimony was “directly refuted” by Anthony Ornato, who served as White House deputy chief of workers for pperations below Trump after many years within the Secret Service.
“In Ornato’s November 29, 2022, transcribed interview, he directly refuted Hutchinson’s testimony that she allegedly heard the story about what happened in the Beast. Ornato testified that the first time he had ever heard the story Hutchinson claims Ornato told her on January 6, was during Hutchinson’s public testimony,” the report particulars. Hutchinson had informed the committee that she heard the anecdote from Ornato.
A Secret Service agent who was driving the SUV additionally refuted the anecdote, in accordance to the report. The report said that the motive force of the SUV on Jan. 6 testified that Trump “never grabbed the steering wheel.”
“The driver testified that he specifically refuted the version of events as recounted by Hutchinson. The driver of the SUV testified that he ‘did not see him reach [redacted]. [President Trump] never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.’”
Loudermilk’s report decided that the Jan. 6 committee “hid the driver’s full testimony and only favorably mentioned his testimony in its Final Report, it did not release the full transcript.”
The Jan. 6 committee was based in July 2021 to examine the breach of the U.S. Capitol earlier that 12 months by supporters of Trump forward of President Biden formally taking workplace on Jan. 20. The Jan. 6 committee’s investigation was carried out when Democrats held management of the House.
The committee concluded its 18-month investigation final 12 months, when Republicans regained management of the House, and despatched referrals to the Justice Department recommending Trump be criminally prosecuted for his involvement within the lead-up to supporters breaching the Capitol.
Rep. Bennie Thompson earlier than a House Homeland Security Committee listening to on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 10, 2024. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
The committee’s former chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and vice chair, Republican now-former Rep. Liz Cheney, each slammed Loudermilk’s 81-page report on social media quickly after it was revealed. In addition to alleging Hutchinson’s testimony was debunked, the report argued the Jan. 6 committee “deleted” information and employed “Hollywood producers” to promote a political narrative.
LIZ CHENEY CALLS SPEAKER JOHNSON ‘DANGEROUS’ FOR HELPING TRUMP ‘UNDERMINE OUR REPUBLIC’
“Loudermilk is merely trying to deflect from Donald Trump’s responsibility for the violence of January 6th and his own refusal to answer the Select Committee’s questions,” Thompson’s statement said, adding that the report is “dishonest.”
Liz Cheney speaks as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds its final meeting on Capitol Hill, Dec. 19, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
“If your response to Trump’s assault on our democracy is to lie & cowl up what he did, assault the courageous males & ladies who got here ahead with the reality, and defend the criminals who violently assaulted the Capitol, you want to rethink whose facet you’re on. Hint: It’s not America’s,” Cheney tweeted Tuesday.
Hutchinson’s lawyer, William H. Jordan, wrote a letter to Loudermilk earlier this 12 months defending Hutchinson as an trustworthy witness who “courageously stepped forward” to converse with the committee.
“Let me be clear: since Ms. Hutchinson changed counsel, she has and will continue to tell the truth. While other individuals – often men who occupied more senior roles – would not speak with the Select Committee, Ms. Hutchinson and many other witnesses courageously stepped forward. Yet she now finds herself being questioned by you and your Subcommittee regarding her testimony and on matters that may also be the subject of ongoing criminal proceedings against Mr. Trump,” the letter reads.
LIZ CHENEY ADDRESSES CRITICISM OF HER CRITIQUES OF TRUMP AND BIDEN
“Ms. Hutchinson will not succumb to a pressure campaign from those who seek to silence her and influence her testimony, even when done in the name of ‘oversight.’”
Rep. Barry Loudermilk arrives for the House Republican Conference caucus assembly on the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on April 27, 2022. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc through Getty Images)
Last week, Loudermilk launched a separate testimony transcript from Ornato that had been “withheld” and reportedly exhibits the Trump administration reached out to the Washington, D.C., mayor’s workplace forward of Jan. 6, asking her to request as a lot safety for town as she wanted in anticipation of crowds. The testimony reportedly undermines the committee’s report that they didn’t have proof displaying the Trump White House requested National Guard help for Jan. 6.
Cheney spokesman Jeremy Adler known as the report “flatly false” in feedback to Fox Digital on Sunday and that “no transcripts were destroyed.”
“The Committee adhered to its obligations to allow the Secret Service to protect sensitive security information for interviews of its agents before preserving that testimony in the archives,” Adler stated in a press release.
Trump supporters occupy the West Front of the Capitol and the inauguration stands on Jan. 6, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc through Getty Images)
A 2022 letter, despatched by Cheney and Thompson to the final counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, detailed that it adhered to guidelines surrounding delicate testimony from Secret Service brokers, and preserved such testimony in archives that had been then positioned into the management of the National Archives.
TRUMP SAYS FILES DELETED BY JAN 6 COMMITTEE ‘EXONERATED ME COMPLETELY’
Loudermilk stated the report’s launch Monday is “just the beginning” as his committee works “to uncover the facts about January 6.”
“The American people deserve the entire truth about what caused the violent breach at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. It is unfortunate the Select Committee succumbed to their political inclinations and chased false narratives instead of providing the important work of a genuine investigation. In my committee’s investigation, it is my objective to uncover the facts about January 6, without political bias or spin. My report today is just the beginning,” Loudermilk stated in a press release Monday.
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