According to newly released transcripts of her House Jan. 6 committee depositions, former Trump White House assistant Cassidy Hutchinson reportedly stated that Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, destroyed papers in his fireplace nearly a dozen times in the last weeks of the administration.
Hutchinson, who became a star witness during the committee’s public hearings, said to the committee on May 17 that she observed Meadows burn documents after they switched off his office fireplace in December 2020.
According to Hutchinson, at least two of the incidents occurred after Meadows spoke with Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) about election difficulties.
“However, I don’t know if they were the first or original copies of anything. It’s entirely possible that he had put things in his fireplace that he also would have put into a burn bag that there were duplicates of or that there was an electronic copy of.” Hutchinson said.
“I want to say once a week or twice — it’s — I can recall specific times that I did. Maybe a dozen, maybe just over a dozen, but this is over a period December through mid-January too, which is when we started lighting the fireplace.” She continued.
According to the House committee, Perry was “personally involved” in efforts to appoint Jeffry Clark as attorney general in order to build a Justice Department aligned with former President Trump’s false accusations of widespread vote fraud.
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