Most of Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony this week in front of the Jan. 6 Committee would not be allowed in court, according to Pennsylvania Republican trial attorney Wally Zimolong.
Hutchinson, 25, is the former aide to President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows. She testified that Trump protested in a car when a Secret Service agent told him they would not take him from the site of his speech to the Capitol where people were gathering. Trump lunged for the car’s steering wheel and then toward the agent, she told the committee.
But Hutchinson was not in the car. She relayed a story she heard about the car ride.
“None of that would ever be admitted in court. It’s classic hearsay,” Zimolong told The Epoch Times. “An attorney would get up and say ‘Objection, hearsay,’ and every single judge in America would say ‘Yeah, you’re right. You can’t testify to what someone told you, or what someone said.’ It’s the first thing you learn in evidence class in law school.”
This illustrates the larger problem with the Jan. 6 hearing, Zimolong said: There is no cross examination so only one controlled side of the story is being told.
“This person is being exalted as a star witness, but if she walked into a civil or criminal courtroom and tried to offer that testimony, most of it wouldn’t even be allowed. She would be shut down immediately by a judge, so I don’t think she’s a star witness at all. From a lawyer’s perspective, this committee is a total sham.”
Anyone who cares about justice should be concerned.
“If you think that the events of Jan. 6 were unAmerican and unbecoming of our American system of government, I don’t know how you can’t think this Jan. 6 Committee and the way this is playing out is not equally unbecoming,” Zimolong said. “They’ve completely dispensed with the rule of law and due process. This investigation has expanded and in a way that is political persecution, something I never thought that I would see in this country.
By Beth Brelje