Cassidy Hutchinson, former assistant to Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to President Donald Trump, is now at the center of a federal criminal investigation.
According to sources, the Justice Department has assigned its Civil Rights division to investigate Hutchinson for potential prosecution and has convened a grand jury targeting her.
Hutchinson was reportedly referred by House Republicans earlier this year to the DOJ for criminal charges. A December 2024 congressional report prepared at the direction of Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) accused Hutchinson of committing “perjury when she lied under oath to the Select Committee” and of “secretly communicating” with former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) regarding her testimony.
In 2022, Hutchinson sat for six transcribed interviews and one publicized hearing with the January 6 Select Committee. During that time, she provided what the committee described as valuable material in her fourth closed-door interview.
Hutchinson testified before the committee about an alleged incident on January 6, 2021, in which President Trump got into a scuffle with a Secret Service agent and attempted to wrest control of his presidential limousine after his speech at the Ellipse. She claimed she heard about it from Tony Ornato, Trump’s former White House deputy chief of staff—a claim Ornato has denied.
The January 6 Select Committee reportedly relied on secondhand hearsay in its proceedings. A March 2024 report by the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight noted that the committee did not interview the two Secret Service agents involved until months later and that testimony from four White House employees, which was redacted and suppressed, directly contradicts Hutchinson’s claims.
The December 2024 congressional report deemed Hutchinson’s willingness to testify under oath to false claims as proof of her unreliability as a witness.
Hutchinson’s attorneys have stated in an August court filing that prosecution for her past testimony is not merely speculative but a present looming threat, citing the DOJ’s assignment of its Civil Rights division and the convening of a grand jury. A federal grand jury was recently empaneled to hear evidence about Hutchinson’s congressional testimony.
