Trump knew

A former White House aide testified before Congress that in the run-up to Jan. 6, 2021, Donald Trump’s closest deputy confided in her that “real, real bad” things might happen on that fateful day. It turned out to be a prescient assessment.

On Jan. 6, Trump and his aides were told that his followers had shown up with weapons ranging from knives to handguns to assault rifles. They were told the crowd, which included white supremacist groups in body armor, was likely planning to breach the Capitol. As the attack began, they were told Trump’s followers were over-running Capitol Police. They were later told the mob was calling for the execution of Vice President Mike Pence—and they even brought their own gallows.

The above—according to emails, texts, police radio transmissions and the explosive testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson—was the picture presented to America on Tuesday in a public hearing unlike any other in modern memory. A former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Hutchinson gave eyewitness testimony as to how Meadows barely reacted when he was repeatedly warned of the escalating chaos. By Hutchinson’s telling, it began with Trump being “furious” with aides and the Secret Service for using metal detectors before his incendiary Jan. 6 speech. Trump said his followers should be allowed to keep their weapons, both during his speech and later when they march on the Capitol, since “they’re not here to hurt me,” she testified. When the speech was over, the Secret Service sought to prevent Trump from going to the Capitol, given the violence there, she said. “I’m the [expletive] president, take me to the Capitol now,” Trump told his security detail, according to Hutchinson. Another aide, Tony Ornato, told her Trump sought to grab the wheel of the presidential limousine and then physically assaulted the head of his Secret Service detail, Robert Engel.

Evidence that Trump knew an armed attack was possible and that violence was imminent, but did nothing to stop it, could make the difference in any decision by the Justice Department to prosecute the former president. The surprise hearing included other critical allegations: that Meadows and other top aides sought pardons and that witnesses appearing before the committee have been contacted by unidentified individuals who may be close to Trump—possibly an attempt to tamper with testimony. As for what Trump was planning if he reached the Capitol that day, Hutchinson said Meadows—along withTrump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani and Pennsylvania Representative Scott Perry—discussed Trump entering the House of Representatives as the electoral votes were being counted. Throughout Hutchinson’s testimony, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone loomed large. She testified that Cipollone—who the committee has repeatedly called to testify—warned that if Trump went to the Capitol, “we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable.”

Upon returning to the White House after the speech, Hutchinson testified that Meadows appeared ambivalent about stopping the violence on Capitol Hill, where more than a half dozen people would die and scores of law enforcement personnel would be injured. Meadows, she said, explained that Trump didn’t want to stop the insurrection. She added that, according to him, the president’s reaction to the mob’s calls for the vice president to be killed was that he “deserves it.” —David E. Rovella

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