On the first break from the January 6 Select Committee hearing Tuesday, Fox News's legal analyst Andrew McCarthy said that Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony was "devastating."
McCarthy went so far as to suggest the testimony points to possible felony charges for intimidating government officials.
Andy McCarthy, like Jonathan Turley, has been trying to find ways to undermine the explosive under-oath testimony the Select Committee has uncovered so far -- by making it appear Speaker Pelosi has refused to put any other Republicans on the committee outside of Representatives Kinzinger and Cheney.
That's a lie.
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is responsible, and even Trump has attacked the Republican House leader for doing so.
Hutchinson's testimony seems to have broken through a right-wing media veil.
"I must say watching this, a couple things. First of all, it's devastating testimony, and having been one of us who stress the number of times that the committee doesn't have cross-examination and as a result, you have to discount virtually everything you hear because in a normal proceeding you wouldn't have that," he said.
He continued, "I also have to, on the other side of the coin, note that if this was a Grand Jury proceeding you would not get cross-examination. The grand jury would be presented the evidence in the really the best light favorable to the prosecution, and this would be the kind of evidence that would have a great impact on a grand jury that was considering whether to bring charges or not."
"I would say two other things. on the issue of incitement, I've stressed, a number of times , it's a complex legal issue and it's relevant that Trump said"peacefully march," which is something they continue to leave out. However -- that's not the only charge that's relevant here," McCarthy said.
McCarthy continued, "It's a felony to intimidate government officials, including members of Congress, and what this testimony shows -- as Bret was just pointing out -- the president we now know knew powerfully that there was a heavily armed crowd that he was basically encouraging doing down to the Capitol."
From the new testimony, Trump not only knew members of his MAGA crowd were carrying weapons to his speech, he demanded to remove the metal detectors so they could bring them to the US Capitol. So claiming Trump used the word "peacefully" is meaningless and a moot point.
Today, in the National Review, McCarthy wrote a scathing piece to back up his Fox News claims: Cassidy Hutchinson’s Testimony against Trump Is Devastating.
"Things will not be the same after this."
Well, Trump’s words may not have been incitement as a matter of law, but that doesn’t mean they are not evidence of other potential crimes — especially once you are informed about how fully aware the president was about the mob being lethally armed. It is a crime, to take just one example, to aid and abet the forcible intimidation of government officials, including the vice president and members of Congress.
