CNN’s Wallace Praises Cassidy Hutchinson Testimony — ‘She Was Just Brilliant’

CNN’s Chris Wallace on Tuesday touted former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Hutchinson testified that she was told former President Donald Trump tried to commandeer the presidential suburban during the riot and became borderline violent with the Secret Service. NBC News later reported that agent Bobby Engel was willing to refute that testimony under oath.

As part of CNN’s coverage of the hearings, Wallace said Hutchinson “was a great witness” and “just brilliant.”

Partial transcript as follows:

Can we talk about Cassidy Hutchinson? First of all — and I bow particularly to you, Andy, as somebody involved in prosecutions — she was a great witness. She was absolutely precise. She told you – I mean, if she … overheard a conference session, she’d say, ‘Cipollone went in the room, he left the door open, he was standing in the transom. I was talking … I could hear when I went into the dining room, I stepped back, but the door was open. I could see Mark Meadows, but I could in the background I could hear what Trump and Cipollone were saying.’

She was just brilliant. And really, what you’re all saying is that, to a degree that nobody has up until now, really nobody in all – the think of all the books we’ve read by all these great investigative reporters, none of them ever had the scene inside the beast, right? So, there are some secrets still out there, but she connected the dots more than anybody has between Giuliani on January 2 talking about, well, there’s going to be violence, and then she talks to Meadows, and Meadows says it’s going be real, real bad. And then Cipollone comes in, and then Trump’s knowledge. And, you know, she just connects the dots between the violence.

And remember, she also talks about Meadows talking to Michael Flynn and Stone … but the only thing, which you talked about your quote of the day, when she’s asked about the 2:24 p.m. tweet by Trump, where he basically – when Pence is under attack — and he’s saying, you know, too bad he didn’t show courage. She says … I came in to represent the administration to show all the good it had done. When I read this, I felt frustrated, it was disgusting, it was un-American, it was unpatriotic, and I was watching the Capitol being defaced over a lie.

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