A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has refused to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide whose testimony about President Donald Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, made her one of the most recognizable witnesses of the House investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The Washington Post first reported Tuesday that the grand jury rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to charge her, citing two people familiar with the matter. The Associated Press, CBS News and MS NOW have since confirmed the report through their own sources.
What happened in court
According to the Post, a senior Justice Department lawyer, Neville Hedley, told Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui in open court on Tuesday afternoon that a grand jury had rejected a requested indictment, without naming Hutchinson as the target. MS NOW reported that prosecutors in the department’s Civil Rights Division had sought to charge her with a crime based on claims that she made false statements.
It is extremely rare for a grand jury to refuse to return an indictment when prosecutors ask for one. But federal prosecutors in Washington have failed several times to win grand jury indictments they sought since Trump returned to office in January 2025.
CBS News reported that it could not determine exactly which parts of Hutchinson’s testimony prosecutors were scrutinizing, and that, according to media reports, House Republican allies of the president made the referral to the Justice Department. The Justice Department had not responded to CBS’s request for comment.
Doubts inside the department
CNN reported that some Justice Department officials believed there was not enough evidence for a viable criminal case and worried the investigation could be seen as an effort to target another of Trump’s perceived enemies. Lawmakers from both parties had urged the department to drop the case, and Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy called it an act of “lawfare” directed by the president.
Why Hutchinson angered Trump’s allies
Hutchinson was a top aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. In 2022 she testified before the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack. She said Trump and Meadows were warned that some supporters were carrying weapons, and that Trump wanted officials to remove the magnetometers at his Ellipse rally anyway.
She also relayed an account she said she heard from then-White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato: that Trump became irate when his lead Secret Service agent refused to drive him to the Capitol after the speech, and reached toward the steering wheel. Ornato and others have denied that account, and Trump’s driver later said in sworn testimony that the president never tried to grab the wheel.
A pattern of setbacks
The decision is the latest setback in the Justice Department’s efforts to bring charges against people Trump views as adversaries. In recent weeks, prosecutors have filed criminal cases in Washington against former FBI Director James Comey and two former FBI officials using charging documents that did not go through a grand jury. On the same day as the Hutchinson news, Judge Faruqui struck a new, unsigned complaint the department had filed against the two former FBI officials, saying prosecutors could not add charges without judicial review.
For now, the grand jury’s refusal means Hutchinson faces no charges over her Jan. 6 testimony.