The House select committee investigating the riot at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, held a surprise hearing to reveal recently obtained information. The hearing included both live and taped testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

Hutchison sat for four separate videotaped interviews with the committee.

"In recent days, the select committee has obtained new information dealing with what was going on in the White House on January 6th and days prior," Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson said. "Specific, detailed information about what the former president and his top aides were doing and saying in those critical hours. First-hand details of what transpired in the office of the White House chief of staff just steps from the Oval Office as the threats of violence became clear."

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney said Hutchinson's testimony will be "relevant to each of our future hearings" which will "supply greater detail, putting the testimony today in a broader and more complete context."

"In her role working for the White House chief of staff, Miss Hutchinson handled a vast number of sensitive issues. She worked in the West Wing several steps down the hall from the oval office. She spoke daily with members of Congress, with high-ranking officials in the administration, with senior White House staff, including Mr. Meadows," Cheney said.

Several days before the riot, Hutchinson said that White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told her that things "might get real, real bad on January 6."

"I remember leaning against the doorway and saying, 'I just had an interesting conversation with Rudy, Mark. It sounds like we're going to go to the Capitol.' He didn't look up from his phone and said something to the effect of 'there's a lot going on, Cass, but I don't know, things might get real, real bad on January 6."

"That evening was the first moment that I remember feeling scared and nervous for what could happen on Jan. 6," she said.

The committee then showed evidence that some of the protesters who attended President Donald Trump's speech at the Ellipse were armed with a variety of weapons. Several protesters around the Capitol were also armed with pistols and AR-15s.

"They had weapons and other items that were confiscated pepper spray knives, brass knuckles, tasers, body armor, gas masks, batons, blunt weapons," Cheney said. "And those were just from the people who chose to go through the security for the president's event on the Ellipse, not the several thousand members of the crowd who refused to go through the mags."

Hutchinson testified that President Trump was aware his supporters had weapons but did not care.

"When we were in the off-stage announce tent, I was part of a conversation ...I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the president say something to the effect of, 'You know, I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away,'" she said.

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