A federal grand jury in D.C. rejected an attempt by the Justice Department to indict former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson for the account she gave lawmakers of President Donald Trump’s actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a grand jury matter.
In a brief court appearance Tuesday afternoon, Neville S. Hedley, who introduced himself as the acting senior litigation counsel at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui that the grand jury had not concurred on the proposed indictment. Hedley did not specify the defendant, but the people familiar said he was referring to Hutchinson.
The failure of the Justice Department to secure the indictment marks the latest rebuke of its efforts to prosecute one of the president’s political enemies. Attorneys for Hutchinson could not immediately be reached for comment.
The decision to present a case to federal grand jurors followed years of calls from Trump and his Republican allies for Hutchinson to face legal consequences for providing what they contend was false and damaging testimony about what Trump said and did as his supporters stormed the Capitol that January day. The case was presented to the grand jury by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, in an unusual move for a false-statements investigation, The Washington Post has reported.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It is exceedingly rare for grand juries to reject indictments, in part because prosecutors only need to convince a majority of grand jurors that there is probable cause that a crime was committed — a relatively low threshold. But the Justice Department’s campaign to target Trump’s perceived adversaries has repeatedly been rebuffed by grand juries and judges, including in February, when another federal grand jury in D.C. refused to indict six Democratic lawmakers over their comments to military service members.
The case against Hutchinson is one of several criminal investigations into Trump’s perceived foes that the Justice Department has sought to advance in recent weeks.
Federal prosecutors this month filed charges for the third time against former FBI director James B. Comey, a staunch critic of Trump, accusing him in a criminal complaint of leaking sensitive government information. Comey has denied the allegations, and the case has not been presented to a grand jury.
Earlier this month, federal authorities searched the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) as part of an investigation into her immigration paperwork and separately announced charges against a powerful Virginia Democrat, state Sen. L. Louise Lucas. Hedley’s brief court appearance Tuesday in D.C. interrupted a daylong hearing in the case of two former FBI officials charged with lying to Congress. That case, which the defendants contend is politically motivated, has yet to be presented to a grand jury.
The Justice Department began investigating Hutchinson — who was an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in Trump’s first administration — after two of Trump’s Republican allies in Congress, Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, referred her to the department this year for potential prosecution over what they alleged was false testimony.
In 2022, Hutchinson, then 25, gave an explosive account of Trump’s behind-the-scenes actions on Jan. 6 to the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol.
Her testimony during the televised hearing garnered 13 million viewers when it aired June 28, 2022, according to Nielsen.
At the hearing, Hutchinson testified that Trump urged his supporters to march on the Capitol despite knowing they were armed. She testified that another White House aide at the time, Anthony Ornato, told her that Trump had lunged at a Secret Service agent inside the presidential SUV after being told he could not accompany the group as it marched from the Ellipse.
When that failed, she continued, Trump “reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel.” Then, she said, the president “used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel,” the head of his security detail, who was riding in the armored limousine with him.
But the Secret Service agent who drove Trump and Engel that day disputed Hutchinson’s testimony in an interview conducted months after her hearing, a transcript of which was released in 2024 by the Department of Homeland Security.
No other witnesses corroborated Hutchinson’s account of Trump in the limo, though several of those interviewed attested that the president was visibly angry.
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