Thousands of Trump supporters marched to the Capitol to prevent Joe Biden from being certified as the new president. /
The agents who escorted him on January 6 deny that he intended to participate in the seizure of the Capitol building
A 25-year-old could be the key witness to charge Donald Trump with sedition. As an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows at a key moment in history, Cassidy Hutchinson had a front row seat during the January 6 insurrection. Her testimony on Tuesday was the most explosive and damaging seen so far in the hearings of the congressional committee investigating him. No wonder the president’s supporters yesterday attacked her credibility by any means possible.
Hutchinson told many things that were damaging to the former president, but his supporters have focused on one of the colorful anecdotes about his fits of rage on car day. This is the moment when the president finds out, already inside the secret service car, that he is not being led to the Capitol to march with the protesters, but back to the White House. “I’m the fucking president, take me to the Capitol now!” He would have shouted, Hutchinson says he was told by the services agent who accompanied him in the car, Bobby Engle, in front of the president’s security chief, Tony Ornato, who he did not deny it. At least until yesterday.
Various journalists from prestigious media, from Fox to CNN, say that Ornato saw the committee’s special hearing live and was shocked to hear the anecdote, which he categorically denies. Engle would also have rejected the president throwing himself around his neck to push him away by the clavicle. It is unknown who the driver of the vehicle was, but in a cryptic message from the government agency he reiterates his willingness to collaborate with the investigation and suggests being willing to testify under oath.
purges
Nobody who knows the political intrinsics of the Trump White House has been surprised. The president, coming from the mafia world of real estate and casinos, is famous for purging his entourage to surround himself with loyalists. Much more in regard to his personal safety. In fact, under his leadership, Ornato had been promoted to the highest post in the president’s security, to the concern of those who feared that politicizing the secret services could endanger him and others.
So much so that on January 6, when Trump’s mob shouted “Hang Mike Pence,” the vice president refused to get into the vehicle to which the secret services were urging him for fear that he would be kidnapped so that he could not certify the results. elections, according to the testimonies collected by the committee. Pence preferred to stay with his family in the basement of the Capitol, where frightened congressmen were hiding at the time, rather than return to the White House, where, it is now known, Trump had thrown him to the lions. “They are not here to harm me,” the president responded when his own advisers alerted him that those attending the demonstration were armed.
Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani, his chief of staff Mark Meadows and other members of his closest circles already knew who they were coming for and what was going to happen. That is the most damaging part of Hutchinson’s testimony, who turned out to be a credible witness because of how restrained and even devoted the president was. “As part of the staff, I have always tried to represent him as well as possible and show the country all the good that he has done, I was frustrated and disappointed, on a personal level,” she said on Tuesday. “As an American, disgusted to see that they were going to take over the Capitol for a lie.”
planned insurrection
From their detailed descriptions, which could serve as a script for another season of ‘The West Wing’, it is clear that the assault on January 6 was not a protest that got out of hand, but a well-planned insurrection that It was planned to end in a coup. If the Capitol Police and the Washington DC Police had not been able to repel the assailants, Joe Biden would never have been president.
Some of those who served him faithfully during his term and were even key to saving him from the first impeachment, such as Attorney General Bill Barr, were not willing to go that far. Barr resigned from him on December 14, 2020, three weeks before the assault on Capitol Hill, after infuriating the president by stating in an interview with the Associated Press that the Justice Department had not found any evidence to support the theories of electoral fraud. “You really must hate Trump!” the president yelled at him.
Upon hearing the news in the dining room where he was having lunch, Trump threw the plate of food against the wall in a fit of rage. Hutchinson came in soon after and helped the clerk wipe up the ketchup that was still dripping down the wall and pick up the broken china. It was not the first time. On occasion he had even yanked the tablecloth in a fit, throwing everything on the table into the air.
On Tuesday he must have been just as furious to hear the testimony of the assistant whom he called a “fraud” on his social networks. His followers describe her as “Amber Heard 2”, the actress who accused the actor and his ex-husband of domestic abuse, Johnny Depp. “But even if she’s telling the truth, what’s the fucking problem?” reads a patriots.win poster.
Trump candidates suffer defeats in primaries
The Republican Party candidates who have the support of former President Donald Trump were defeated on Tuesday in primaries in states such as Colorado and Mississippi, although they retained support against more moderate options in conservative Illinois. Colorado Republican voters opted for three politicians critical of Trump in front of a group of candidates who deny the result of the 2020 presidential elections and even participated in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The division of the opposition party is increasingly manifest.