House GOP alleges January 6 committee withheld transcripts that undercut some of their most explosive claims

The January 6 committee withheld witness transcripts from the public that undercut some of their most explosive claims about the insurrection, House Republicans alleged in a report released Monday.

Some of the withheld transcripts include testimony from the driver of Trump’s SUV on January 6 and Trump White House officials, who poured cold water on the claim that, while driving home after his rally that day, he physically lunged toward the front of the car to try to force his security detail to take him to the Capitol.

“The testimony of these four White House employees directly contradicts claims made by Cassidy Hutchinson and by the Select Committee in the Final Report,” the new GOP report said, referring to the Trump White House aide-turned-whistleblower. “None of the White House employees corroborated Hutchinson’s sensational story about President Trump lunging for the steering wheel of the Beast.”

Ever since Hutchinson’s blockbuster public testimony in 2022 – where she implicated Trump and other top officials in fomenting the violence – Republicans have attacked her credibility. The SUV incident, which she said only heard about but did not witness, has been heavily disputed since her public testimony. But it is just one of many staggering, and often uncontested, revelations from Hutchinson.

The SUV driver testified to the January 6 panel that, Trump “never grabbed the steering wheel” and that “I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all,” according to the GOP report.

The driver is not identified in the Republican report. This testimony was not revealed by the now-defunct bipartisan January 6 committee, which was comprised of Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans.

Hutchinson’s lawyer told GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, the chairman of the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee, in a letter that she “has and will continue to tell the truth.”

“Let me be clear: since Ms. Hutchinson changed counsel, she has and will continue to tell the truth,” wrote William H. Jordan, Hutchinson’s lawyer, to Loudermilk. “While other individuals — often men who occupied more senior roles — would not speak with the Select Committee, Ms. Hutchinson and many other witnesses courageously stepped forward. Yet she now finds herself being questioned by you and your Subcommittee regarding her testimony and on matters that may also be the subject of ongoing criminal proceedings against Mr. Trump.”

Former chairman of the January 6 select committee, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, slammed the GOP counter report as “dishonest” and “deceptive.”

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