As the veracity of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony appears increasingly dubious, even the January 6th Committee’s most ardent defenders are beginning to question the group’s actions.
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson (D), a prominent ally of former President Barack Obama, was among these critics. During an appearance on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” Johnson said, “I’m concerned, as the former federal prosecutor in me[...] that the committee may have overreached on the incident in the vehicle.”
In case you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans not tuning into the January 6th Committee hearings, Johnson referenced Hutchinson’s retelling of a story purportedly told to her about former President Donald Trump attempting to violently wrest control of the presidential limousine from its driver during the so-called “insurrection.”
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“It was colorful, it was vivid, it was collateral to the central charge, and it was secondhand hearsay,” Johnson said of her testimony.
Though Johnson offered several words of praise for the committee, even going as far as to call them a “profile in courage among women,” he stressed that Hutchinson’s account of an alleged incident in the presidential limousine “would not have been admissible in a courtroom.”
“The committee perhaps knows something that the rest of us don’t know. But before I went out with the second-hand hearsay, which is going to get a lot of attention, I’d want to know what the first-hand witness has to say,” he told NBC host Chuck Todd.
We may just find out soon, as members of the Secret Service are reportedly readying a response to Hutchinson’s tall tales.
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