During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked Lofgren to react to a story published last week in the New York Times that said federal prosecutors working on the investigation of the Justice Department on Jan. 6 felt blindsided after watching Hutchinson’s testimony and were as surprised by her remarks as those who watched. Several officials who spoke to the newspaper said that before her testimony, prosecutors had not been given transcripts or videos of her previous interviews with the committee. Hutchinson spoke with the team’s investigators behind closed doors four times before testifying at Tuesday’s public hearing. “You know, I was surprised that the prosecutors were surprised. What are they doing over there? They have a much better chance of enforcing their subpoenas than our legislative committee does,” Lofgren told Todd. Asked if she thought it was a fair characterization that the House panel had blindsided the Justice Department, she said she didn’t think so. “We are not an arm of the Ministry of Justice. We are a legislative committee. They have subpoena power. They could subpoena Ms. Hutchinson. I’m surprised they hadn’t. We interviewed her four times. I think this is public knowledge at this point. And the fourth interview was very exciting,” he added. Women lean in abortion rights fight Harris: Roe rules similar to ‘history … of government trying to claim ownership of human bodies’ Lofgren’s comments come after Hutchinson gave explosive testimony during a last-minute committee hearing on Tuesday. Among the most important pieces of her testimony, she said that both Meadows and Rudy Giuliani asked for a pardon from former President Trump, that Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of the car he was in on Jan. 6 in an attempt to get to the Capitol after being told she couldn’t be transferred there and that Meadows told her on Jan. 2 that things could “get really, really bad” the day the riot finally happened. Tensions have arisen between the House select committee and the Department of Justice, the latter of which complained that its investigation was hampered by the committee’s refusal to provide transcripts of witness interviews.
