Former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson said that when she attended Trump's Jan. 6 rally at the White House ellipse along with the presidential motorcade, she overheard the president say that he knew many of his supporters were armed but that he wanted them to be allowed in anyway.
Hutchinson quoted Trump as directing his staff, in profane terms, to take away the magnetometers that he thought would slow down supporters who’d gathered in Washington. In videotaped testimony played before the committee, she recalled the former president saying words to the effect of: ”“I don’t f-in' care that they have weapons."
"They're not here to hurt me. Take the f-in' mags away. Let my people in,'" Hutchinson said.
She said Trump pushed back against his advance team's assertions that Secret Service could not stand down or remove the weapons screeners.
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"He said something to the effect of, 'Eff the Secret Service. I'm the president,'" Hutchinson testified.
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