A former press aide in the Trump White House defended her former colleague Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony on Tuesday before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
Sarah Matthews, a deputy press secretary in the Trump administration, tweeted that “[a]nyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump [White House] worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is.”
Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified Tuesday that former President Trump tried to grab the steering wheel from a Secret Service agent when he was told he couldn’t go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and that Trump knew people in attendance at the Ellipse rally that day had weapons.
Before joining the administration in June 2020, Matthews worked for Trump’s reelection campaign. She departed the White House alongside a handful of other aides immediately after the Capitol riot and she sat down with the House committee in February to discuss the White House’s activities on Jan. 6.
Matthews, who now serves as Republicans’ communications director for the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, weighed in Tuesday as Trump took to social media to go after Hutchinson’s testimony, with the former president dismissing her as “bad news” and claiming he hardly knew who she was.
The committee abruptly scheduled its latest hearing this week after previously saying it would continue its public hearings in July. Hutchinson previously testified before the committee in private.
Other Republicans, like Rep. Troy Nehls (Texas) and the House Judiciary GOP, have issued tweets downplaying Hutchinson’s testimony as hearsay.
“For those complaining of ‘hearsay,’ I imagine the Jan. 6 committee would welcome any of those involved to deny these allegations under oath,” Matthews wrote.