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Ultimately, a leopard always shows its spots. And so it was that with the swearing of Cassidy Hutchinson the House Select Committee on January 6th showed what it is and what it’s about.
Namely, a bunch of petty, vindictive political opportunists engaged in a vendetta of defamation and deceit.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Donald Trump is guilty as hell. On the night of the attack upon the Capitol, I called for his removal from office via the 25th Amendment or impeachment. I think the last two months of his presidency were a crime against our heritage and Constitution.
And up until the “special” session of Tuesday and its “bombshell” witness, I’ve thought the committee’s work and evidence have been straightforward and convincing.
But the truth wasn’t enough.
At least not for these sharks.
So they called a special, surprise meeting of the committee and trotted out Cassidy Hutchinson. She had been interviewed on video by staff on repeated occasions, for a total of 20 hours, and now it was time for her to take center stage.
Her job was to savage Donald Trump. Instead, she delegitimized the committee.
Her bombshell was a story about a scuffle in the presidential SUV, in which the overweight 74-year-old is supposed to have tried to take over the vehicle, wrestling for the wheel and grabbing at the throat of his security chief. For good effect, he supposedly dropped an f-bomb or two along the way.
But there was a problem with the story.
It, like almost everything Cassidy Hutchinson testified to, was hearsay. She didn’t see it, she didn’t hear it, she said somebody else told her about it. In no court in America is that considered evidence. In no trial under our legal system is hearsay admissible.
But it was fine in the Democrats’ kangaroo court.
Even if it was demonstrably false.
Oddly, the Democrats had Cassidy Hutchinson tell us what happened in the presidential SUV, but they did not call or hear from the federal agents who were actually in the vehicle and whose names we knew. Over the months of staff investigation, nobody apparently ever thought to contact the Secret Service people involved and ask them if what Cassidy Hutchinson said was true.
Reporters weren’t so lax.
Within two hours of her testimony, news organizations had learned that the two Secret Service agents she cited were willing to come before the committee and testify under oath that it never happened, that her account was false.
Neither did the committee do the Google search necessary to discover that Cassidy Hutchinson was one of five very junior White House staffers taken to Mar-A-Lago after the Biden inauguration to stay on as permanent Trump staffers, or ask the natural questions about how that job came to an end and whether or not it left Hutchinson embittered.
Cassidy Hutchinson also testified about Rudy Giuliani, claiming to have, on January 2, 2021, walked “out to the vehicles” after work with him and had him gush about some big glorious event Trump was going to do at the Capitol building on January 6. That seemed to support her narrative that Trump was going to join and lead the mob marching on the Capitol, and that perhaps he was going to directly confront the Congress in its chambers.
Except that it doesn’t make sense and Rudy denies it.
How likely it is that a 24-year-old staffer parks anywhere near the president’s personal lawyer? How likely is it that the president’s personal lawyer is going to tell a young person he doesn’t know anything about secret plans for the illegal seizing of power?
Further, when I asked Rudy Giuliani about it Tuesday evening, he categorically denied it – just as he denied asking for a pardon he said he didn’t need because he had done nothing wrong.
She is their smoking gun.
And her stories don’t add up.
She taught us nothing new about Trump, but she did give us insights into the committee.
This isn’t about January 6, 2021, it’s about November 8, 2022.
This isn’t about protecting the United States, it’s about serving the Democratic Party.
While the nation struggles with crime and inflation, as we try to stay safe and get food for our kids, the Democrats are playing games, fighting a former president who still haunts their dreams.
These aren’t hearings, they are campaign ads.
And yesterday Cassidy Hutchinson showed us that.