The Justice Department on Tuesday failed to safe a grand jury indictment against a former White House staffer who offered dramatic but disputed testimony against President Donald Trump before a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol rebel, according to two folks acquainted with the matter.

A grand jury in Washington rejected prosecutors’ request to return an indictment against Cassidy Hutchinson, said the folks, who spoke to The Associated Press on the situation of anonymity because they were not licensed to publicly focus on the case. It’s the newest setback in the Justice Department’s efforts to persuade grand jurors in the nation’s capital to carry politically delicate circumstances.

Details of prosecutors’ allegations against Hutchinson were not instantly clear, but Republican lawmakers had accused her of mendacity under oath in her explosive testimony in 2022 about Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to halt the congressional certification of his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

A federal grand jury in Washington rejected a Justice Department request to indict former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, according to The Associated Press sources. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

The effort to indict Hutchinson was hardly remoted. It is half of a surge in politically delicate actions by the Justice Department in the run-up to next week’s midterm elections focusing on perceived adversaries of the president, including a new try to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and a search by federal brokers of the residence of outspoken Trump critic and Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

It’s extremely uncommon for grand juries to decline to return indictments, but the Justice Department under Trump has been rebuked by residents in the nation’s capital in a quantity of high-profile circumstances. A grand jury in Washington earlier this 12 months declined to indict Democratic lawmakers in connection with a video they recorded urging U.S. service members to observe established army protocols and reject orders they believe to be illegal.

Hutchinson declined to remark through her lawyer on Tuesday.

Hutchinson said Trump was indignant and defiant on Jan. 6

Hutchinson’s testimony, at a shock listening to announced just 24 hours earlier, was seen at the time as notably compelling given her proximity to energy as particular assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of employees.

She described an indignant, defiant president who was making an attempt to let armed protesters keep away from safety screenings at a rally that morning to protest his 2020 election defeat and who later grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him go to the Capitol. And when the occasions at the Capitol spiraled toward violence, with the crowd chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” she testified that Trump declined to intervene.

Trump at the time denied on his social media platform, Truth Social, much of what Hutchinson said. He called her a “total phony” and “bad news.”

Hutchinson was accused by GOP lawmakers of mendacity under oath during her explosive testimony of President Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6. AP Photo/Annie Rice

Hutchinson’s description of the altercation inside the presidential SUV was regarded as notably explosive, even as she acknowledged during her testimony that she was relaying what she had heard from a White House safety official and did not have firsthand data of the episode because she was not there.

Her account was rapidly disputed.

In March 2024, House Republicans launched a beforehand undisclosed transcript of the Select Committee’s interview with a Secret Service officer who drove the presidential SUV. That transcript of the presidential limo driver contradicted some of Hutchinson’s testimony but corroborated other features of her account, including Trump’s try to be a part of the mob scene at the Capitol.

The driver described the president as insistent on going to the Capitol but said he did not see the altercation that Hutchinson described. The driver said Trump “never grabbed the steering wheel” and also said: “I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.”

The Justice Department’s efforts to indict Hutchinson come proper before next week’s midterm elections, as ex-FBI Director James Comey, and Rep. Ilhan Omar have also been focused by the Trump administration. The Washington Post via Getty Images

Hutchinson has alleged that members of Trump’s inside circle dangled job alternatives and monetary help while she was cooperating with the committee. She also testified in a closed-door interview launched by the committee that a former lawyer of hers — a former ethics counsel in the Trump White House — instructed her “the less you remember, the better.”

“It feels ridiculous, because in my heart I knew where my loyalties lied, and my loyalties lied with the truth,” she instructed the committee. “And I never wanted to diverge from that.” The former legal professional has disputed that account.

The U.S. House of Representatives impeached Trump in 2021 on allegations that he incited the mob that attacked the Capitol, but he was later acquitted by the Senate. The Justice Department under Biden charged Trump with felony offenses, accusing him of illegally working to overturn his 2020 election loss in the run-up to the Capitol attack, but then-special counsel Jack Smith deserted the case after Trump’s 2024 presidential victory. Longstanding Justice Department coverage says sitting presidents can not face prison prosecution.

Hutchinson, a native of Pennington, New Jersey, beforehand labored in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and interned for Republicans, including Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.