Grand Jury Declines to Indict Cassidy Hutchinson Over Her Jan. 6 Testimony

What happened. On Tuesday, Oct. 27, a federal grand jury in Washington refused to return an indictment the Justice Department asked it to approve. In a courtroom hearing on an unrelated matter, Neville Hedley, a litigator in DOJ's Civil Rights Division, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui that the grand jury had not concurred in the proposed indictment. CBS News and The Washington Post reported his remarks from the courtroom. Hedley did not say who the target was.

Who it was. Four news organizations identified the target as Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, citing people with knowledge of the case. The Washington Post and the Associated Press each cited two people familiar with the matter. CBS News cited four sources briefed on the proceedings, and NBC News cited a senior U.S. official. The Justice Department has not confirmed the target publicly. Hutchinson has never been charged. Grand jury matters are secret, and we found no public docket entry for the no-bill.

What prosecutors wanted. Prosecutors sought charges over Hutchinson's 2022 testimony to the House select committee on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. It is not public which statements they targeted or which law they cited. The main federal false-statements law, 18 U.S.C. § 1001, covers statements to congressional committees. People familiar with the matter told The Washington Post this month that prosecutors had begun presenting evidence to a grand jury in early October. CBS and NBC reported that the case was run by the Civil Rights Division, which is led by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. Hutchinson has said she told the committee the truth.

The testimony at issue. At a surprise televised hearing on June 28, 2022, Hutchinson described what Trump was told about armed people in the crowd at his rally on the Ellipse. She testified that he said something to the effect of "take the F'ing mags away. They're not here to hurt me. Let them in" (official transcript). The most disputed part was secondhand. Hutchinson testified that Tony Ornato, then the White House deputy chief of staff, told her what happened in the presidential SUV after the speech. In the account she gave, Trump learned he was not going to the Capitol and "reached up toward the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel," and Bobby Engel, the head of his security detail, "grabbed his arm." Trump "then used his free hand to lunge toward Bobby Engel," she said, and Ornato "motioned toward his clavicles" while telling the story. She testified that Engel was in the room as Ornato spoke and "did not correct or disagree with any part of the story."

The dispute. The Secret Service witnesses did not back that account. The select committee's own final report (Chapter 7) says Engel "did not characterize the exchange in the vehicle the way Hutchinson described the account she heard from Ornato" and did not recall Trump gesturing toward him. It says the driver "did not recall seeing what President Trump was doing." The committee wrote that "it is difficult to fully reconcile the accounts" but that "the principal factual point here is clear and undisputed: President Trump specifically and repeatedly requested to be taken to the Capitol." In March 2024, a House Republican oversight report quoted the driver's interview with the committee: "He never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn't see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all." The report also quoted Ornato in November 2022: "I don't recall that story happening" (ABC News summary of the report). The committee's report says the driver described Trump as "animated and irritated" about not going to the Capitol.

Trump's calls for a prosecution. Two days after the hearing, Trump wrote on Truth Social: "Social Climber Hutchinson lied about my attack on our great Secret Service … These lies, among others, were made UNDER OATH. What is the Justice Department going to do about this? Do we have a two tiered system of Justice?" In March 2026, CNN reported that Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., had sent DOJ a criminal referral of Hutchinson, co-signed by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. We could not find the referral letter itself. A referral is a recommendation, and DOJ is not bound by it.

What a no-bill means. A federal grand jury has 16 to 23 members, and at least 12 must agree to indict (Fed. R. Crim. P. 6). Grand juries rarely refuse. A refusal is not an acquittal, and prosecutors may present the case again to the same grand jury or a new one. The general federal limit for charging false statements is five years, which for testimony given in 2022 would run into 2027.

The court's new notice rule. Grand-jury refusals in Washington used to leave little trace when no charge was already pending. On March 4, 2026, Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg ordered that whenever a grand jury "fails to concur in an indictment" in a grand-jury-original investigation, "the foreperson shall promptly and in writing report the lack of concurrence to the duty magistrate judge under seal" (standing order). He wrote that the order was "in furtherance of the interests of consistency and transparency." The notices stay sealed unless the court orders otherwise. The court later published a proposed permanent rule, LCrR 6.2. It would require the same notice "but not the identity of the person the government sought to indict." That is why the court record shows a no-bill but not a name.

A pattern in how DOJ charges. In two other recent cases in the same courthouse against people Trump has criticized, prosecutors filed charges without first getting a grand jury indictment. On Oct. 23, two former FBI officials were charged by criminal complaint with lying to Congress about the Hunter Biden investigations (our report). On Oct. 5, prosecutors filed a sealed criminal information against former FBI Director James Comey charging two Espionage Act counts (information). U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden unsealed that case on Oct. 26 (order). A DOJ spokesperson told CBS News that the information was filed to preserve the statute of limitations. A complaint or information lets a case begin without a grand jury vote. To go to trial on a felony, though, prosecutors generally need an indictment unless the defendant waives one. All of these people are presumed innocent.