She described how Mr. Meadows seemed almost frozen by the violence that was unfolding at the Capitol and how he told the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, that Mr. Trump was uninterested in trying to calm his supports. “He doesn’t want to do anything, Pat,” Ms. Hutchinson recounted Mr. Meadows as saying.
For decades, from Mr. Trump’s earliest days in business in New York to the final moments of his presidency, various aides have tried to minimize his behavior. But other than Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, few have gone under oath to describe his temper and erratic personality to the extent that Ms. Hutchinson did.
Mr. Trump swiftly condemned Ms. Hutchinson on Tuesday on Truth Social, his social media network, as “a total phony” and “a leaker,” and asserted that he hardly knew her. But the committee, anticipating what has become Mr. Trump’s standard reaction of disavowing any familiarity with his critics, established through photographs of Ms. Hutchinson with top White House aides shown at the hearing that she was, as Representative Liz Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the committee, put it, “in a position to know a great deal about the happenings in the Trump White House.”
“She worked in the West Wing, several steps down from the Oval Office,” Ms. Cheney said. “Ms. Hutchinson spoke daily with members of Congress, with high-ranking officials in the administration, with senior White House staff, including Mr. Meadows, White House Counsel’s Office lawyers, and with Mr. Tony Ornato, who served as the White House deputy chief of staff.”
Ms. Hutchinson, who grew up in New Jersey and graduated in 2019 from Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va., began her career in Washington as an intern on Capitol Hill for Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the second-ranking House Republican.
Ms. Hutchinson was at the White House, in the office of legislative affairs, when Mr. Meadows became chief of staff in March 2020. Mr. Meadows already knew Ms. Hutchinson because she had often escorted him on and off White House grounds when he visited as a member of the House and a leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus.
