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A federal grand jury Tuesday declined to indict Cassidy Hutchinson — the former White House aide turned star witness against President Donald Trump — on criminal charges, a senior U.S.official confirmed to NBC News.Prosecutors were attempting to indict Hutchinson for statements she made about Trump’s actions on Jan.
6, 2021.The grand jury in Washington returned a “no bill,” meaning the grand jury rejected efforts by the Justice Department to indict Hutchinson.Her name was not mentioned in the courtroom when the no bill was announced, but the senior U.S.
official confirmed it was the Hutchinson case.Attorneys for Hutchinson did not immediately return requests for comment, nor did the Justice Department.The Justice Department’s investigation had centered on Hutchinson’s 2022 testimony before the now-defunct Democratic-led congressional Jan.6 committee, which Trump railed against for years.The failure to secure an indictment is the latest in a string of such denials in cases the Justice Department has brought against those Trump has portrayed as his political enemies.The Hutchinson case was brought by officials in the Civil Rights Division, which is headed by Trump appointee Harmeet Dhillon.
The division has traditionally sought to protect constitutional freedoms by enforcing federal civil rights and anti-discrimination laws.The grand jury’s refusal to indict Hutchinson does not bar the DOJ from attempting to charge her again in the future.Trump has called Hutchinson a “scam artist” who lied under oath and has suggested she be prosecuted.“What is the Justice Department going to do about this?” he wrote in a 2022 post on Truth Social.In March, he posted a link to a Breitbart article about House Republicans referring her to the Justice Department for prosecution.Hutchinson, who’d been a senior aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, made several damaging claims to the committee about Trump’s behavior in the days leading up to...