Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified on Tuesday that her boss, Mark Meadows, was instructed to contact Roger Stone and retired Gen. Michael Flynn the night before the Jan. 6 attack to discuss what would happen the next day, and that she believed Meadows had made those calls.
In a hearing before the House committee investigating the insurrection, Hutchinson also testified that she understood that Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman had set up a “war room” at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 5, where Meadows had indicated he wanted to attend meetings with them.
“I had made it clear to Mr. Meadows that I didn’t believe it was a smart idea for him to go to the Willard Hotel that night. I wasn’t sure everything that was going on at the Willard Hotel, although I knew enough about what Mr. Giuliani and his associates were pushing during this period,” Hutchinson said.
“I didn’t think that it was something appropriate for the White House chief of staff to attend or to consider involvement,” she added. Eventually, Meadows did not go to the hotel and but still called into the meeting.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., also played tape from a deposition by Flynn, during which he pleaded the Fifth in response to whether he believed the violence on Jan. 6 was justified or whether he believed in the peaceful transition of power in the United States.
The hearing was unexpectedly announced a week after the Jan. 6 committee said they were taking a break until the month of July. In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.
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