By Andrew Goudsward and Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) – A federal grand jury has declined to indict former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson who had provided testimony to a congressional panel that probed the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by President Donald Trump’s supporters, a source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.
The Justice Department of the Trump administration has been investigating Hutchinson over whether she gave false testimony to the congressional panel. Hutchinson has maintained that her testimony was truthful.
A second source said the grand jury weighing evidence in the case had been meeting Tuesday but did not know if the indictment had been rejected.
A federal prosecutor told US Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui during a court hearing that a grand jury in Washington had rejected an indictment but the prosecutor did not reveal in court the proposed defendant or charges.
Political experts have raised concerns about efforts by the Trump administration to target his critics and political opponents.
After weeks of Trump’s false claims that he had won the 2020 elections, his supporters had stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the congressional certification of those elections.
Trump pardoned nearly everyone criminally charged with participating in the 2021 Capitol attack on his first day back in office for a second term in January 2025.
Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and his team secured an indictment in 2023, accusing Trump of plotting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.
Smith dropped that and another case after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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