While Smith maintained that he had strong evidence against Trump overall, he was far less enthusiastic about the Hutchinson claims. Smith said that the much-reported account was legal chum as based on a “second or even thirdhand witness” and directly contradicted by those who had firsthand knowledge. He added:
“If I were a defense attorney and Ms. Hutchinson were a witness, the first thing I would do was seek to preclude some of her testimony because it was hearsay, and I don’t have the full range of her testimony in front of me right now, but I do remember that that was a decent part of it.”
The former Mark Meadows aide was made the star of the J6 hearings despite Democrats knowing that she was directly contradicted in her claims. Smith said that they found no support for the claims:
“We interviewed, I think, the people she talked to, and we also interviewed, if my recollection is correct, officers who were there, including the officer who was in the car. And that officer, if my recollection is correct, and I want to make sure I’m right about this, said that President Trump was very angry and wanted to go to the Capitol, but the version of events that he explained was not the same as what Cassidy Hutchinson said she heard from somebody secondhand…. a number of the things that she gave evidence on were secondhand hearsay, were things that she had heard from other people and, as a result, that testimony may or may not be admissible, and it certainly wouldn’t be as powerful as firsthand testimony.”
Like so many other debunked viral stories, the media seemed to just shrug and move on after the testimony. After playing up the account in wall-to-wall coverage and cover pages, the press has again moved on with little self-awareness or circumspection.
The account further undermines the work of the J6 Committee which spent millions in high-scripted public hearings, including the hiring of television producers to perfect the made-for-television moments. Not only were opposing witnesses left out of the hearings, but even cooperative witnesses were tightly scripted and records (including statements from Trump) were misleadingly edited to maintain the narrative.
As figures like Rep. Vice Chair Liz Cheney were lionized in primetime by the media as champions of the truth, she and other members were fully aware that they were withholding contradictory evidence and presenting highly manipulated accounts. Note, this was not the usual “fact too good to check.” They did check and found contradictions . . . and then presented the narrative anyway in a type of show trial.
If the J6 committee was structured to allow a bipartisan and balanced inquiry, these conflicts and contradictions could have been identified and addressed. Instead, the narrative rather than the facts drove the proceedings.