BPR "Jeh Johnson, a lawyer who was the Homeland Security secretary in the Obama administration, has expressed doubts about the way the partisan January 6 committee presented the “vivid” testimony of ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
"To much corporate media fanfare, Hutchinson luridly claimed that President Trump had attempted to grab the steering wheel from the driver as Secret Service escorted him from the January 6, 2021, rally back to the White House, and that he lunged at an agent.
"During the standard anti-Trump roundtable on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Johnson — who is otherwise a big fan of the investigation into what he described as an event that met the definition of “insurrection” — implied that the committee itself may have metaphorically lunged.
"“I’m concerned as the former federal prosecutor in me — that gets you a lot of cred these days on television — I’m concerned that the committee may have overreached on the incident in the vehicle,” he said in the video clip embedded above.
"“It was colorful; it was vivid, it was collateral to the central charge, and it was second-hand hearsay,” he added, in that Hutchinson did not personally witness the things she told the committee.
"History has shown that many of these “bombshells” that make Trump look bad often fall apart within the next news cycle or two, although the reputational damage is often already done.
"Hearsay evidence is usually excluded from any court trial, which in this instance, is probably a major disappointment for Rep. Liz Cheney and others participating in this politicized vendetta who are anxious to set the stage for criminal charges against the former POTUS.". . .