Unreliable Claims From Jan. 6 Hearing Already Debunked

The Select Committee on Jan. 6 hosted a last-minute hearing on Tuesday. Some outlets see it as a smoking gun. Others don’t believe it. We’ll break down the most significant takeaways.

Twenty-five-year-old Cassidy Hutchinson was the star of the night. She was the former Trump White House Chief of Staff’s aide. The testimony she gave was based on second-hand accounts and quotes. Some are calling it hearsay.

She said that Trump grabbed the steering wheel of his security detail after the Secret Service refused to allow him to go to the Capitol with supporters. Right after the testimony had aired, the Secret Service agents in question, that would have been in the vehicle with Trump, said they were willing to testify under oath that this story was completely fabricated.

Hutchinson tried to prove her relevance to the situation with a handwritten note she claimed to have authored. The note, from Jan. 6, was a statement intended for former President Donald Trump to release. Shortly after the testimony, a spokesperson for Eric Herschmann, former Trump White House lawyer, says that he wrote the note and that it was in his handwriting.

With the two examples above, Hutchinson's credibility is very low. Knowing this, she also testified that Trump wanted an armed mob present in his crowd for the optics, that he knew his crowd wanted violence, and that he wanted the violent and armed crowd to march to the Capitol.

Democrats have a two-pronged goal here. The Democrat-led Jan. 6 committee wants to indict Trump on incitement charges to prevent him from running in 2024. They also want the nation's focus to remain on Trump and Jan. 6 rather than other domestic issues occurring under Democrats. Unreliable and possibly perjurious testimony helps them do that.