If you remember, Madison Cornbread -- who most media erroneously refer to as "Casey Hutchinson," which is surely a made-up name for a Millennial -- told a story which she claimed to have heard second-hand -- or third-hand, actually -- about Trump demanding his driver take him to the Capitol during the January 6th scrums. When the driver refused, Trump reached over from the back seats to violently wrench the wheel from his hands.
She said she heard "something to the effect of..." Trump grabbed the wheel and tried to drive the presidential SUV from the rear seats.
Now, obviously, an eyewitness who was actually present for this alleged incident would be a more compelling witness than this dingbat sorority whore who "heard something to the effect of [some nonsense that Chad heard from Brad who heard it from Muffy]."
All of Western law prizes eyewitness testimony over hearsay testimony -- hearsay testimony is not even allowed in court!
And all Western law has some variation of the "rule of best evidence" -- written statements trump oral ones, eyewitness statements trump hearsay, etc.
But grotesque toadhag Liz Cheney decided bar the eyewitness while courting the hearsay witness.
She rewrote blackletter law to Get Trump.
Stop me if you've heard this one before.
Just the News is reporting that the January 6th Committee rebuffed repeated efforts from a Secret Service agent to refute the false story related by Cassidy Hutchinson alleging a violent episode with Trump in the presidential limousine during the Capitol riots. The J6 Committee staff repeatedly delayed the testimony of the agent to disprove the widely reported allegation.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the chairman of the House subcommittee that is investigating the Jan. 6 riot, has obtained a transcript of the driver's interview that was conducted months after he first offered to testify. However, it turns out that committee staff were asked repeatedly by counsel for the agent to let him present evidence debunking the claim. Despite being reported by virtually every news outlet, the Committee slow walked his appearance as the story went viral.
The transcript of the driver's testimony contains express objections by the lawyer that his client had offered to testify in July, August and September of 2022, but was "rebuffed" by the committee.
The account reaffirms a major criticism of the committee. After Democrats refused to allow the GOP to pick its members (as a long-accepted practice in the House), the Democrats selected two anti-Trump Republicans who did little to push for a full and fair display of witnesses and facts. The Committee was chaired by Rep. Benny Thompson, a Democrat, with Rep. Liz Cheney, as Vice Chairwoman.
Cheney and the committee members clearly knew that Hutchinson's account was debunked by the very driver who allegedly struggled with Trump. Yet, they allowed the media to report the incident for months while rebuffing the requests of the driver. Loudermilk is quoted as saying "We're talking about the driver of the limousine, and the head of the entire protective detail. They were brought in by the select committee to testify, but they weren't brought in until November."
The false account was given by Hutchinson in June of that year.
The Secret Service driver testified Trump never tried to reach for or grab the wheel of the SUV.
Notably, the transcript shows Cheney trying to explain the delay as due to the need for the Secret Service to produce all documents in the January 6 investigation.
Yet, she had no problem with making the false story public through Hutchinson before such supporting material was supplied. She also did not suggest any countervailing testimony or witnesses on the issue as the media ran with the account. Instead, Cheney publicly teased the claim that they had much more evidence of crimes against Trump, which never materialized. Cheney ended one hearing by calling for more officials to come forward and noting that Trump family members and former officials have now come forward with their own public "confessions."
You might well wonder, if Madison Cornbread claims she heard "something to the effect of" Trump attempting to flip the SUV with a power-turn, why didn't they just ask the people who Madison Cornbread claims told her this?
The answer is simple: Because they deny it.
They had to call the hearsay witness because the hearsay she was claiming was denied by the very people she claim told her this.
But we protected Our Precious Normzzz, right?