What We Know About Cassidy Hutchinson, The Gen Z Aide Who Testified Against Trump & Jan. 6
"It was un-American."
The most-searched woman in the United States right now is Cassidy Hutchinson, the surprise witness who dropped some major bombshells about Donald Trump at Tuesday's January 6 hearing in Washington, D.C.
She testified that the president lunged for a steering wheel, grabbed at a guy's neck, threw a plate of ketchup against the wall and didn't seem to care if his MAGA supporters had guns on the day of the Capitol attack.
But who is Cassidy Hutchinson, and how did she know all this?
Hutchinson, 26, worked in the Trump White House during the Capitol attack last year as a top aide to the president's then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
And it sounds like she had a lot of tea to spill.
On Tuesday, Hutchinson told the January 6 committee that Trump was determined to join his supporters in marching on the Capitol the day of the attack.
She said he was so determined that he actually lunged for the wheel of his limo -- and then for a secret service agent's neck -- when they wouldn't take him there that day. Hutchinson says she was in the car for that moment.
"The president said something to the effect of, 'I am the f*cking president,'" she recalled, per Politico. "'Take me up to the Capitol now.'"
Hutchinson also said she was horrified by Trump's tweets attacking then-Vice President Mike Pence, whom some of the rioters wanted to hang.
"It was un-American," she said, per the New York Times. "We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie."
Hutchinson added that Trump told his staff to stop using security checkpoints for his supporters, even though he'd been told that some were toting guns and other weapons.
She also shared some additional info about what she saw in December 2020, in that period when Trump was supposedly trying to find ways to overturn the election he lost.
At one point, she says he hurled a plate against the wall after he was told that there was nothing to back up his claims of major election fraud.
"There was ketchup dripping down the wall and a shattered porcelain plate on the floor," she said.
She added that several of Trump's allies, including Rudy Giuliani, asked him for pardons after the Capitol attack.
Hutchinson's testimony was the most explosive yet to come out of the hearings, which are going over Trump's role in encouraging the January 6 attack over his false election claims.
Trump tried to downplay Hutchinson's role in the White House after her testimony, saying on his Truth Social network that he hardly knew her.
"She is bad news!" he wrote in a screenshot captured by Mashable. He also denied her testimony about the limo, the plate-throwing and the bit about the gun checks.
But others say there was no missing Hutchinson in Washington, and she definitely had the access to see what she says she saw.
Sarah Matthews, Trump's former deputy press secretary, tweeted that anyone downplaying Hutchinson's role "doesn't understand how the Trump WH worked."
That, or she says they're simply "scared of how damning this testimony is."
Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans on the January 6 committee, also described how close Hutchinson was to the action.
"She worked in the West Wing, several steps down from the Oval Office," she said, per the New York Times. Cheney also said that she was "in a position to know a great deal about the happenings in the Trump White House."
