BONFIRES

Ex-White House Aide Says She Routinely Saw Mark Meadows Burning Documents

Cassidy Hutchinson testified that she saw the then-chief of staff burn documents in a fireplace about a dozen times, according to a transcript released Tuesday.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told Jan. 6 committee investigators that she saw then-chief of staff Mark Meadows burn documents in a fireplace several times after Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, according to a transcript released Tuesday. She said she witnessed the incidents between December 2020 and mid-January 2021, and that it happened “roughly a dozen times.” Hutchinson said the document-burning often happened in Meadows’ office after he’d had a meeting, at which point he’d toss documents into the fireplace and set them ablaze. Though she said she did not know what the documents were, she noted that the burnings had happened twice after Meadows met with Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican lawmaker from Pennsylvania who has been linked to Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss.