A federal grand jury Tuesday rejected a request by the Department of Justice to indict former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson over her 2022 congressional testimony about President Donald Trump's conduct during the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, The Washington Post reported.
Prosecutors in the DOJ's Civil Rights Division sought to charge Hutchinson with a crime based on claims she made false statements, MS NOW said, citing two people with knowledge of the case.
Hutchinson told lawmakers a second-hand account about Trump angrily lunging at a security aide after being told he could not go to the Capitol that day.
Senior DOJ lawyer Neville Hedley, without naming Hutchinson in open court, on Tuesday told Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui that the grand jury in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., had rejected a requested indictment, The Post reported.
It is extremely rare for a grand jury to refuse to indict when prosecutors present evidence of alleged crimes.
But since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, federal prosecutors in Washington have several times failed to obtain a grand jury indictment they sought.
In recent weeks, prosecutors have filed separate criminal cases in U.S. District Court in D.C. against former FBI Director James Comey and two former FBI officials with charging documents other than grand jury indictments.
In both cases, the alleged conduct occurred years earlier. Typically in such cases, prosecutors would seek a grand jury indictment.
Hutchinson testified in June 2022 to the House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot by a mob of Trump supporters, whose attack delayed for hours the confirmation of Joe Biden's electoral victory in the 2020 election.
She said that after Trump spoke at a rally outside the White House that preceded the attack, then-White House official Tony Ornato asked her, "Did you effing hear what happened in [the president's vehicle,] The Beast?"
She testified that Ornato told her that when Trump got in the car, he was under the impression from his then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows that they going to the Capitol, as he had claimed in his speech to supporters at the rally.
When Robert Engel, the head of Trump's security detail, said the president could not go there because the area was not secure, Trump "had a very strong, a very angry response to that," Hutchinson testified that Ornato said.
"Tony described him as being irate," Hutchinson said, noting that Trump had said something like: "I'm the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now," according to Ornato.
When Engel refused again to drive him to the Capitol, Trump "reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, 'Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We're going back to the West Wing,'" Hutchinson testified.
Trump "then used his free hand to lunge toward Bobby Engel," Hutchinson said she was told by Ornato.
Correction: Neville Hedley is a senior DOJ lawyer. An earlier version misspelled his name.