Representative Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.) said Friday he doesn’t “trust a thing” House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy says after McCarthy claimed he did not remember talking to former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson on January 6, 2021.
McCarthy told reporters on Friday that he did not recall talking to Hutchinson about former president Donald Trump coming to the Capitol during the election certification process.
“If I talked to her, I don’t remember it. If it was coming up here, I don’t think I wanted a lot of people coming up to the Capitol. But I don’t remember the conversation,” McCarthy said, adding that he remembered talking to Trump, Jared Kushner and White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino on January 6.
Kinzinger, who is on the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, told CNN: “I mean, look, I don’t trust a thing Kevin McCarthy says, I’ll be honest with you.”
“Sometime about a year or two ago, he made the decision that his only goal was to become Speaker of the House. And he’ll do whatever he has to do, and he thinks that siding with the insurrectionists is the way to get there,” Kinzinger said.
Hutchinson testified last month that McCarthy called her after Trump said he was marching to the Capitol.
“He sounded rushed and also frustrated and angry at me,” she testified of McCarthy, who allegedly told her, “Don’t come up here.”
Kinzinger defended Hutchinson’s testimony before the committee as “extremely credible.”
“The idea she would just come up with that story and make it up is ludicrous,” he said.
Hutchinson also testified that Trump urged Secret Service to allow his armed supporters to attend the speech he delivered on January 6 ahead of the Capitol riot.
“I don’t f***ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f***ing mags away,” Trump said, according to Hutchinson, apparently referring to metal detectors — or magnometers — that were deterring armed Trump supporters from entering the cordoned-off area where he was speaking.
Hutchinson, who was an aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that Trump said at the time, “Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the f***ing mags away.”
White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato apparently warned Meadows on January 6 that the crowd seemed ready for violence, with some supporters arriving armed with knives, guns, bear spray, body armor, spears and flagpoles. Hutchinson testified that Meadows did not look up from his phone to address Ornato, asking only if he had informed Trump. Ornato replied that he had.