About this episode
On Tuesday in a surprise hearing, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson gave the most damning testimony to date on President Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. Read more: It didn’t take long to find out why the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol chose to hold a surprise hearing on Tuesday: Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson provided what quickly became clear was the most damning testimony to date on President Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 . Reporter Aaron Blake says her testimony is particularly important when it comes to just how much Trump cultivated and even desired the insurrection itself — and whether, crucial from a legal standpoint, his effort to overturn the election was corrupt. Hutchinson stitched together repeated warnings — some involving Trump himself, including that he was warned that his Jan. 6 rallygoers had weapons — about what might happen. Despite these warnings, aides struggled to talk Trump out of a plan to march to the Capitol. And despite warnings about weapons in the crowd the morning of Jan. 6, Trump still directed people toward the Capitol in his speech. Hutchinson, a former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, said Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani had advocated for a march to the Capitol after Trump’s speech on the Ellipse. She said this prompted Meadows to worry “things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6.” Follow all The Post’s coverage of the Jan. 6 hearings here .