Cassidy Hutchinson, Trump White House aide, now in spotlight

WASHINGTON (AP) —The latest testimony about the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has Donald Trump rebuffing his own security’s warnings about armed protesters in the crowd gathering for a rally near the White House.

A former White House aide also tells the House committee investigating the attack that Trump desperately attempted to join his supporters as they marched to the Capitol.

In her testimony Tuesday, Cassidy Hutchinson described an angry, defiant president who grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to allow him go to the Capitol.

Trump has dismissed her as “a total phony.”

Two years after completing a White House summer internship, Cassidy Hutchinson was in the room where the president’s top aides debated how they could overturn his election loss.

The former aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows testified Tuesday at a surprise hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Hutchinson disclosed new details about what Meadows and former President Donald Trump knew about possible violence at the Jan. 6 rally.

She testified that she heard Trump demand that attendees not be screened, saying, “I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.”