Former White House aide testifies at hearing on U.S. Capitol riot

WASHINGTON, June 28 (Xinhua) -- A former White House aide testified at a public hearing on Tuesday held by the U.S. House select committee investigating the Capital riot last year.

Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, appeared at the hearing to provide testimony on the infamous event on Jan. 6, 2021.

Hutchinson told the committee that then U.S. President Donald Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of his Secret Service vehicle that day when he was told he could not go to the Capitol with his supporters.

Trump blasted Hutchinson amid her testimony to the Jan. 6 committee, claiming that he "hardly" knows who she is.

"I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her," Trump wrote in a post on his website Truth Social.

It was one of a series of hearings that had been televised this month to show the public what investigators have uncovered about the Capitol riot.

Trump's allies and supporters have charged the inquiry as a political "witch hunt" designed to tar the former U.S. president and the Republican Party.

On Jan. 6, 2021, thousands of individuals -- mostly Trump's supporters -- stormed the Capitol in Washington, D.C., and disrupted a joint session of Congress in the process of affirming the 2020 presidential election results.

Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted in the Capitol attack, including about 80 U.S. Capitol Police and 60 from the Metropolitan Police Department.

Authorities have linked at least five deaths to the mayhem. Four officers who responded to the attack reportedly committed suicide within the next several months.

The worst attack on Congress in more than 200 years, the siege led to Trump's second impeachment by the House shortly before his term officially ended.