Which is why political show trials follow no rules of evidence, and real trials do
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Here’s a sample of the typical reporting, from Yahoo News:
Trump lunged for steering wheel on Jan. 6, demanded to be taken to ...
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified before the House Jan. 6 committee Tuesday that when his staff informed the then-president that they would be returning to the White House instead of driving to the Capitol, Trump grew irate, and lunged for the steering wheel to the presidential limousine, which ...
Credit where due, CNN reported that Hutchinson was repeating hearsay even if it didn’t use the term [bolding emphasis added]
(CNN) Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified during a congressional hearing Tuesday that she was told that former President Donald Trump became "irate" when informed by security that he would not be going to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, because the situation was not secure.
And she testified that she heard a secondhand account of how Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol that he lunged to the front of his vehicle and tried to turn the wheel.
Tony Ornato, then-White House deputy chief of staff, told Hutchinson that Robert Engel, who was the Secret Service agent in charge on January 6, 2021, repeatedly told Trump on their way back to the White House after Trump's Ellipse speech that it wasn't safe to go to the Capitol, she said.
According to Hutchinson, Ornato recounted Trump screaming, "I'm the f**king President. Take me up to the Capitol now." Trump then "reached up toward the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel," Hutchinson remembered learning. She added that, according to Ornato, the former President used his other hand to "lunge" at Engel.
And the reason the rules of evidence bar hearsay testimony became obvious this evening, after the media had run with the first, damning version, when this story was reported:
So who’s telling the truth? In a real trial, each side would have a chance to cross-examine witnesses and challenge evidence, whereas this mockery of a trial permits neither. The campaign staffer Ornato, not Hutchinson, would have been put on the stand to introduce this testimony, and he would have been subject to cross-examination. As a hearsay witness, Hutchinson could only testify as to what she heard, not what she actually observed — not to the actual truth of the matter — and that’s why her “evidence” would have been barred. Our country should be ashamed of itself.
UPDATE:
did he reach both hands through the partition and past the driver to grab the wheel, or just one? Asking for friend.
