Former Trump White House aide told Jan. 6 panel Mark Meadows burned documents a

Washington
CNN
 — 

The January 6 committee released another batch of transcripts Tuesday, including two more of its interviews with blockbuster witness Cassidy Hutchinson and testimony from several other Trump White House officials.

The transcripts shed new light on how then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows regularly burned documents during the transition period, according to Hutchinson. She also described how Meadows occasionally told staffers to keep some Oval Office meetings “close hold” and potentially omitted from official records.

There were also additional details about Hutchinson’s dueling loyalties that led her to ultimately switch lawyers and provide damning testimony about what she saw and heard at the White House after the 2020 election.

The latest cache of transcripts also revealed some of the rumors, gossip and wild conspiracies that were floating around the White House – including conversations about QAnon conspiracies – while then-President Donald Trump refused to concede and tried to overturn the election results.

Meadows told White House staffers to keep some Oval Office meetings “close hold” during the transition period, potentially leaving meetings off the books, according to Hutchinson, who was a top Meadows aide.

Hutchinson also testified that there “were certain things that had potentially been left off” the Oval Office diary.

Hutchinson said she recalled Meadows having a meeting at the end of November or early December 2020 in which he told outer Oval Office staffers: “Let’s keep some meetings close hold. We will talk about what that means, but for now we will keep things real tight and private so things don’t start to leak out.”

She testified that she couldn’t recall whether there was specific information Meadows wanted to keep “close hold.” She said she was not aware of any explicit directions that Meadows gave to keep January 6 information “close hold.”

Additionally, she told the committee that she saw Meadows burn documents in his office fireplace around a dozen times – about once or twice a week – between December 2020 and mid-January 2021.

On several occasions, Hutchinson said, she was in Meadows’ office when he threw documents into the fireplace after a meeting. At least twice, the burning came after meetings with GOP Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, who has been linked to the efforts to use the Justice Department to overturn the 2020 election. The New York Times and Politico have previously reported on Meadows’ alleged document-burning practices.

Hutchinson said she did not know what the documents were, whether they were original copies, or whether they were required by law to be preserved.

One of the transcripts released Tuesday was Hutchinson’s final deposition with her initial, Trump-funded lawyer, Stefan Passantino, which was conducted on May 17. She soon hired a new attorney, Jody Hunt, and sat for another deposition on…