Here’s what Trump had to say…
As Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, gave testimony on Tuesday (June 28) before the Jan. 6 panel, former President Donald Trump took to social media to discredit it.
Weighing in on Hutchinson’s testimony during the public hearing, Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he “hardly” knows who Hutchinson is, despite her serving as a senior aide to Meadows and before that serving on Trump’s Office of Legislative Affairs.
Hutchinson testified about an altercation Trump had with his security detail on Jan. 6, and also about Rudy Giuliani and Meadows’s plans to seek presidential pardons from Trump.
“I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and ‘leaker’),” Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that when Hutchinson “requested to go with certain others of the team to Florida after my having served a full term in office, I personally turned her request down.”
Despite claiming he hardly knew her, Trump went on to question why Hutchinson would “want to go with us if she felt we were so terrible? I understand that she was very upset and angry that I didn’t want her to go or be a member of the team. She is bad news!”
Trump’s claims not to know Hutchinson aren’t unusual for the former President, as Trump typically claims not to be aware of someone following public criticism of him, especially those who were a part of his administration.
This tactic was most evident during his impeachment proceedings when Trump claimed not to know the US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland after Sondland came forward to testify.
Trump said the same about a former member of his foreign policy panel, George Papadopoulos, who had previously lauded as “an excellent guy” but changed that opinion when Papadopoulos was sentenced to two weeks in prison for lying to the FBI about interactions with Russian contacts. After Papadopoulos’s sentencing, Trump claimed, “I never even talked to the guy.”
