It’s been a month since the House Republicans’ Jan. 6 committee, which was intended to serve as a conservative counterweight to the actual, bipartisan Jan. 6 select committee that wrapped up its historic work in 2022, asked the Justice Department to go after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

According to the partisan panel led by Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, Hutchinson lied to Congress about Donald Trump’s awareness of violence ahead of the insurrectionist riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Under normal circumstances, the DOJ would blow off a criminal referral like this, recognizing it as more of a political stunt than a serious recommendation. These are not, however, normal circumstances. The New York Times reported there is a burgeoning case against Hutchinson, and it has been assigned to, of all things, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. From the article:

The move was a highly unusual one by Justice Department leadership, directing a criminal case that appears to involve accusations of lying to Congress to a specialized unit that normally focuses on systemic civil rights abuses like police misconduct and racial discrimination.

And yet the decision was in keeping with the administration’s bid to find new ways to use the powers of the federal government to target Mr. Trump’s political opponents.

According to the Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, desperate to impress Trump, personally intervened in the case before her firing and initiated an inquiry into Hutchinson, ignoring DOJ officials who expressed skepticism about whether there was a viable criminal case to be made against her.

The matter was then given to Harmeet Dhillon, the controversial Trump loyalist who runs the Civil Rights Division, which wouldn’t appear to have any relevant jurisdiction over a case like this.

Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the investigation, but the fact that Hutchinson is a Team Trump target is itself evidence of a twisted political environment in which people can expect to face prosecutorial scrutiny for having wronged the incumbent president.

Indeed, it’s worth noting for context that Kash Patel, prior to the podcast personality becoming the FBI director, included Hutchinson on his notorious “government gangsters” enemies list.

Based on the publicly available information, there’s no reason to believe Hutchinson, who delivered stunning Jan. 6 testimony nearly four years ago, did anything wrong. But the president himself recently used his social media platform to talk about Hutchinson; he clearly controls the DOJ; and the Republican administration remains determined to punish Trump’s perceived political foes, which is apparently fine with the acting attorney general. Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

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