Jan. 6 committee holds sixth hearing

Not long after the rioters broke into the US Capitol, former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone rushed into Mark Meadows' office demanding a meeting with former President Donald Trump, the former White House chief of staff's aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the Jan. 6 committee.

"I remember Pat saying to him something to the effect of, 'the rioters have gotten to the Capitol. We need to go down and see the President now,'" Hutchinson said in a videotaped interview.

Cipollone emphasized the need for action to control the situation to Meadows, Hutchison added.

Meadows then handed his phones to Hutchinson and walked out of his office with Cipollone, she told the committee.

Aides to former President Donald Trump were left speechless amid the first half of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony on Tuesday, acknowledging to CNN that her testimony was "a bombshell" with potentially huge repercussions for Trump. 

"This is a bombshell. It's stunning. It's shocking. The story about the beast – I don't have words. It's just stunning," said one Trump adviser. 

The Trump adviser, who was in a group text chat with several other Trump aides and allies as the hearing played out, said that "no one is taking this lightly." 

"For the first time since the hearings started, no one is dismissing this," the adviser said. 

Another Trump ally told CNN the testimony from Hutchinson, a former top aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, would seal Meadows' fate as "persona non grata" to the former President. 

The startling revelations from Hutchinson's testimony about Trump's erratic behavior and state of mind on Jan. 6 could make it easier for Republican presidential hopefuls to challenge the former President in a primary should he run, the Trump ally added. 

"This is basically a campaign commercial for Ron DeSantis 2024," said the Trump ally.  

Cassidy Hutchinson testified that former President Trump asked her former boss, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, to speak with Trump associates Roger Stone and Gen. Mike Flynn, Trump's onetime national security adviser, on the evening of Jan. 5, 2021.

She added that Meadows spoke with Stone and Flynn but she did not know what they discussed.

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney pointed out during Tuesday's hearing that Flynn has appeared before the committee, at which time, "he took the Fifth Amendment," invoking his right against self-incrimination when asked about the events surrounding Jan. 6, 2021.

Cheney then played a portion of the video of Flynn's prior testimony in which she asked him if he believed the violence on Jan. 6, 2021 was justified. Flynn responded, "take the fifth."

In a follow-up question, when Cheney asked Flynn if he believes in "the peaceful transition of power in the United States of America," he responded, "the fifth." 

The Jan. 6 committee is back after taking a short break.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson described former President Trump's angry reaction after former Attorney General Bill Barr said in an interview with the Associated Press that the Department of Justice had not found evidence of widespread voter fraud after the 2020 election.

Hutchinson testified that after learning about the interview Trump went down to the White House dining room and threw a plate against the wall, shattering it.

"Around the time that I understand the AP article went live, I remember hearing noise coming from down the hallway, so I poked my head out of the office, and I saw the valet walking towards our office. He had said, get [chief of staff Mark Meadows] down to the dining room. The President wants him. So, Mark went down to the dining room, came back to the office a few minutes later." 

She continued: "After Mark had returned, I left the office and went down to the dining room and I noticed that the door was propped open and the valet was inside the dining room changing the table cloth off of the dining room table. He motioned for me to come in and then pointed towards the front of the room near the fireplace mantle and the TV where I first noticed there was ketchup dripping down the wall and there's a shattered porcelain plate on the floor." 

Hutchinson said she grabbed a towel and started wiping the ketchup off the wall to help the valet out.

Cassidy Hutchinson testified during the hearing that she was told that former President Donald Trump became "irate" when informed by security that he would not be going to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, because the situation was not secure.

And she testified that she heard a secondhand account of how Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol that he lunged to the front of his presidential SUV and tried to turn the wheel. 

Tony Ornato, then-White House deputy chief of staff, told Hutchinson that Robert Engel, who was the Secret Service agent in charge on Jan. 6, 2021, repeatedly told Trump on their way back to the White House after Trump’s Ellipse speech that it wasn’t safe to go to the Capitol.  

According to Hutchinson, Ornato recounted Trump screaming, “I’m the F’ing President. Take me up to the Capitol now.” 

Trump then “reached up toward the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel,” Hutchinson remembered learning. She added that, according to Ornato, Trump used his other hand to “lunge” at Engel. 

Here's how Hutchinson described the President's anger at being prevented from going to the Capitol:

Engel and Ornato have both testified to the committee behind closed doors, but their statements have not been used in today's hearing.

Asked by CNN for comment about today's testimony regarding Trump allegedly lunging at his security detail and other claims about security on Jan. 6, a Secret Service spokesperson said the US Secret Service has "been cooperating with the Select Committee since its inception in spring 2021, and will continue to do so, including by responding on the record to the committee regarding the new allegations surfaced in today’s testimony."

CNN's Josh Campbell contributed reporting to this post.

Watch the moment from Hutchinson's testimony here.

Former President Trump wanted to go to the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, following his speech at the White House Ellipse, much to the dismay of national security officials who were following the situation in real time and learned that the Secret Service was scrambling to find a way for him to go minutes before the violence began to escalate, according to National Security Council chat logs from that day that were revealed for the first time during Tuesday’s hearing. 

The NSC chat logs provide a minute-by-minute account of how the situation evolved from the perspective of top White House national security officials on Jan. 6, 2021. They also appear to contradict an account by former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in his book in which he says Trump never intended to march to the Capitol.

The chat logs also show how situation at the Capitol clearly began to escalate just before 1 p.m. ET as lawmakers gathered in the House chamber to count Electoral College votes and while Trump was on stage at the White House Ellipse – moments before he called for his supporters to march. 

“Capitol Police are now reporting multiple breaches in their anti-scaling fence,” a 12:57 p.m. ET message says.

“Capitol is now calling for all available to respond,” another message sent at 1 pm reads. “They have taken over the stage over there.”

Six minutes later, this message was sent to the NSC chat, but Trump’s plans remained unclear: “about to use non-lethal force at the Capitol.”

It was not until 1:17 p.m. ET that NSC officials knew Trump was in the motorcade and appeared to be headed back to the White House: “Looks like he is coming home for now.”

“Mogul in the Oval,” the final message, sent at 1:20 p.m. ET said. 

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadow, told the Jan. 6 committee that she received a call from GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy after former President Donald Trump told protesters at his rally to march to the US Capitol.

"I was still in the tent behind the stage, and when you're behind the stage, you can't really hear what's going on in front of you. So when Mr. McCarthy called me with this information ... he sounded rushed but also frustrated and angry at me," she said Tuesday. "I was confused because I didn't know what the President had just said."

When McCarthy relayed what Trump had just said, he accused Hutchinson of having lied to him.

"He then explained the President just said he's marching to the Capitol. 'You told me this whole week you aren't coming up here. Why would you lie to me?' I said, 'I wasn't lying to you, sir. We're not going to the Capitol.' "

Hutchinson said she assured him there were no plans to go to the Capitol and he pressed a little more, frustrated, but believed her ended the call.

She told the committee that she confirmed with White House official Tony Ornato that they weren't going to the Capitol and then let McCarthy know. "He didn't respond after that."

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, said former White House counsel Pat Cipollone told her that "we need to make sure that this doesn't happen," referring to going to the Capitol.  

On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Hutchinson also spoke to Cipollone, who said "something to the effect of 'please make sure we don't go up to the Capitol. Keep in touch with me. We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.'"

"In the days leading up to the 6th, we had conversations about potentially obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral count," she said.