If you have three people saying the same thing, and all contradicting one person, it’s kind of dubious to suggest that every single one of them changed their perspective via the same process, and the one guy is the only one saying the unvarnished truth.
Would that imply she was outright lying? Not necessarily. There was a lot going on in that tumultuous time and place, and people’s memories are fragile. And she had a big incentive to sort-of kind-of recall things in the most impactful way possible.
I would further speculate about the mysterious rush to get this hearing done ASAP on short time notice. Based on the substance of the hearing, it’s hard to see what the immediate rush was to get this done on such a short timeline. But I would speculate that Ms. Hutchinson’s recollections about these particular “bombshell” allegations, or at least her certainty about them, has wavered over time. Once she got to a point where she felt confident enough to publically say them under oath, the Committee felt it important to lock her testimony in before she wavered again.
Again, the above is all pure speculation. I would not bet my house - or anything else, FTM - on it. But it seems to fit the facts as well as a lot of other equally speculative theories out there.
Of course, these hearings aren’t subject to the standard rules of evidence. In fact, AIUI the committee needs to be careful not to sabotage any actual criminal proceedings that are (hopefully) paralleling the hearings (ISTR Ollie North getting off because of his congressional testimony).
Thought I’d add some clarification that makes this whole incident confusing (for me at least). Let’s start with word usage:
The Beast: this is normal folks would call the Presidential limousine (“limo”).
SUV: this is what normal folks would call the (Presidential) SUV.
HOWEVER, the secret service calls everything a “limo”. Whether it’s in the SUV or the beast. They don’t say SUV or Beast, they just call the vehicle a limo (they’re all technically limousines).
Trump was definitely in a presidential SUV, not the Beast. I’m not clear of Hutchinson’s, or whomever told her, knowledge, but hearing someone use “limo” might make someone think Beast.
Further, the secret service is apparently willing to testify “that the president did not lunge at the steering wheel”. That doesn’t change the fact that Trump wanted to go to the Capitol, just details of how it went down.
IANAL (just worked for one) but having read your link, this seems to skirt awfully close to violating 5th Amendment rights. Granted, the Jan 6 committee is not a criminal court, but…
Everyone in the thread knows the maybe-lunge in the limo is a minor footnote in the overall story and a distraction from the real revelations but at the same time everyone can’t stop talking about the maybe-lunge in the limo.
It’s becoming clear that Trump’s plan to hold onto power was hare-brained and extremely unlikely to succeed (and, of course, a criminal conspiracy) but it wasn’t completely half-assed. It was multi-pronged approach with succeeding layers, each one getting increasingly desperate.
Phase 1: legal challenges. Sidney Powell and Rudy G throw fear uncertainty and doubt into every election. They went 0-62, but it succeeded in at least laying a groundwork for the subsequent phases.
Phase 2: Arm-twist state election official and legislatures (Georgia, Arizona eg) to un-certify their votes, citing “election fraud” from Phase 1. Also a failure.
Phase 3: Lean on Mike Pence. To give him cover, provide “alternate slates of electors” so he has a reason to stop the certification of electoral votes. Also a failure.
Phase 4: last resort – mob violence. Not sure what Trump hoped would happen; perhaps if it got bad enough he would declare a national emergency and cancel the electoral vote count indefinitely.
Also a failure. And I agree while there was not a lot of strategy though-out, that was the goal - implement enough chaos to call into question the whole thing, then stall, stall, stall while his enablers found any ember to fan that could forestall the changing of the guard, forever. But, thank you, Mike Pence, they ran out of runway, and the guard was changed, legally, and this coup was blunted.
It makes perfect sense from Trump’s world view. In his tiny brain, if he “barely knew” someone, then they are by definition not important and therefore not credible. He’s played variations of this tune his whole life.
I’m not sure that it’s “three”, and I don’t believe they’ve officially (under oath) actually said anything at all. But in any case, taking that statement at face value, is it still “dubious” if one person is an apparently credible insider much of whose shocking testimony was corroborated by others, while the other three are Trump sycophants?
As I said earlier, I think the best interpretation of what really happened in that SUV (which no one really disputes) is that Trump got very irate, as is his habit, threw a toddler-style tantrum and got verbally abusive and then got physical. Precisely what he did in terms of grabbing the wheel or whatever seems to be a matter of exact recollection and interpretation. The real message is that Trump wanted to join the insurrection at the Capitol and had a toddler-like meltdown when told that he couldn’t.
Does Hutchinson strike you as an attention-seeking narcissist? Because if so, I don’t think you read people very well.
Also note that Phase 1 got Rudy’s law license suspended, Phase 2 will probably get Trump slapped with election fraud in Georgia, Phase 3 may involve fraud for those state officials who submitted the fake electors. Phase 4: TBD.
In the movie, Ornato and Engle have little meetings with everybody they suspect of being a leaker. The story to her, was trump grabbing the wheel, to another staffer, trump tries to jump out of the car. To another, he throws his phone out the window. They never dreamt she’d just go public with it.
I’m pretty sure she used the term “The Beast”, but it’s of note that she was paraphrasing another person, so it’s possible that other person did not know exactly which vehicle was being used, or called it “The Beast” when it wasn’t actually the beast.
The primary reason for my own concerns is that some people who might otherwise be swayed by the testimony at these hearings are being given a reason to dismiss everything as a lie. If Hutchinson wasn’t truthful about her conversation with the Secret Service agents, it doesn’t only damage the rest of her testimony, but the credibility of the entire commission.
Doesn’t matter if the only contradictory information in the testimony is minor or irrelevant. Many people will hear that and think to themselves, “I knew it, it’s all a sham, those dirty Liberals.”
Before Hutchinson’s testimony, I wanted the opportunity to talk to my conservative Christian mother who believes in the Big Lie (we’ve argued over the various claims, and while she doesn’t assert that all or any of the claims are true, she refuses to acknowledge any factual analysis), and discuss the testimonies given by the election officials, election workers, and DOJ officials, which made it clear that every single claim that she was repeating had been investigated and found to be unsupported by evidence if not proven false.
Now I fear that if I so much as bring any of it up with her, she will dismiss it all as lies thanks to the counter-claims to Hutchinson’s testimony, even though her claims were irrelevant to the election itself.