Grand jury doesnt indict ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson: says AP
The Justice Department on Tuesday failed to secure a grand jury indictment against a former White House staffer who provided dramatic but disputed testimony against President Donald Trump before a House committee investigating the Jan.6, 2021, U.S.
Capitol insurrection, according to two people familiar with the matter.A grand jury in Washington rejected prosecutors’ request to return an indictment against Cassidy Hutchinson, said the people, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case.It’s the latest setback in the Justice Department’s efforts to persuade grand jurors in the nation’s capital to bring politically sensitive cases.Details of prosecutors’ allegations against Hutchinson were not immediately clear, but Republican lawmakers had accused her of lying under oath in her explosive testimony in 2022 about Trump’s behavior on Jan.
6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to halt the congressional certification of his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.The effort to indict Hutchinson was hardly isolated.It is part of a surge in politically sensitive actions by the Justice Department in the run-up to next week’s midterm elections targeting perceived adversaries of the president, including a new attempt to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and a search by federal agents of the home of outspoken Trump critic and Democratic U.S.
Rep.Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.It’s highly unusual for grand juries to decline to return indictments, but the Justice Department under Trump has been rebuked by citizens in the nation’s capital in a number of high-profile cases.
A grand jury in Washington earlier this year declined to indict Democratic lawmakers in connection with a video they recorded urging U.S.service members to follow established military protocols and reject orders they believe to be unlawful.Hutchinson declined to comment through her lawy...