A grand jury in Washington rejected prosecutors' request to return an indictment charging Hutchinson, said the people, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly. The decision is the latest setback in the justice department's efforts to charge perceived adversaries of the Republican president, the people said.
Details of prosecutors' allegations against Hutchinson were not immediately clear. Republican lawmakers had accused her of lying under oath in her explosive testimony in 2022 about Trump's behavior on January 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to halt the congressional certification of his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Hutchinson, who served as special assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, described an angry, defiant president who tried to let armed protesters avoid security screenings at a rally that morning and later grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him go to the Capitol. When the crowd at the Capitol chanted "Hang Mike Pence," she testified, Trump declined to intervene.
Trump denied much of what Hutchinson said on his social media platform, Truth Social, calling her a "total phony" and "bad news." Hutchinson has alleged that members of Trump's inner circle dangled job opportunities and financial assistance while she was cooperating with the committee. She also testified that her own lawyer, a former ethics counsel in the Trump White House, told her: "The less you remember, the better."
The House of Representatives impeached Trump in 2021 on allegations that he incited the mob that attacked the Capitol, but he was later acquitted by the Senate. The justice department under Biden charged Trump with felony offenses, accusing him of illegally working to overturn his 2020 election loss in the run-up to the Capitol attack, but then special counsel Jack Smith abandoned the case after Trump's 2024 presidential victory. Longstanding justice department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution.
Hutchinson, a native of Pennington, New Jersey, previously worked in the White House office of legislative affairs and interned for Republicans, including Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.