The Jan. 6 committee hearings have been going on for almost three weeks now, and they’ve dropped plenty of bombshells. But things got next level on Tuesday. During a hearing only announced the day before, a surprise witness took the stand: Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. She was there — or had close access to — all that transpired that fateful day. And her testimony produced so many over-the-top claims that it seemed to break what’s left of Trump’s weird brain.
Among Hutchinson’s claims, delivered under oath, are that Trump knew some of his supporters were packing heat before he gave his inciting speech; that he tried to join them as they stormed the Capitol; that when a Secret Service agent wouldn’t let him, he tried to choke him; that he threw his particularly ketchup-heavy lunch at the wall; and still more. Oh, and there was also apparently witness tampering.
It was a pretty explosive hearing, and Trump did not take it well. Of course, we know this because, after he was permanently banned from Twitter, he created his own Twitter clone.
Over on Truth Social, Trump is losing his mind over Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony before the Jan. 6 committee. pic.twitter.com/A4HbvfvuRS
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) June 28, 2022
Trump started by playing one of his classic cards: the “I don’t know this former employee who’s saying incriminating things about me” line. “I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and “leaker”),” he wrote. He called her “Bad news!” and later repeated the Holden Caulfield-esque insult “A Total Phony!”
He also played another favorite Trump card: simply denying what’s been said about him. He denied he “complained” about the crowd size, which he called “massive.” About all the armed people seen in plenty of photos of the protests outside the Capitol, he claimed there “were no guns found or brought into the Capitol Building…So where were all of these guns?” He then naturally changed the subject. “But sadly, a gun was used on Ashlii Babbitt, with no price to pay against the person you used it!”
He also took aim at the bit about him lunging at a Secret Service agent. “Her Fake story that I tried to grab the steering wheel of the White House Limousine in order to steer it to the Capitol Building is ‘sick’ and fraudulent, very much like the Unselect Committee itself,” he wrote. He also added, “She changed lawyers a couple of days ago, and with it, her story totally changed! SHOCKER???”
He also didn’t like that there “is no cross-examination of this so-called witness. This is a Kangaroo Court!,” he said of a hearing, which is not a trial.
But that was just the beginning.
still goin pic.twitter.com/tyOwKlfIJi
— Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) June 28, 2022
“I NEVER SAID, “MIKE PENCE DESERVES IT (to be hung). Another made up statement by a third rate social climber!” Trump wrote. At one point, he posted, “Bad handwriting, that of a Whacko?”
Trump will likely be raging against this for a while, so sit back and enjoy if you’re one of the people who signed up for his shady service. In the meantime, it appears that Fox News is finally ready to move on and throw its weight behind the “Don’t Say Gay” bill guy who likes to bully students.