Donald Trump's 'terrified and frazzled' Newsmax interview prompts new witness tampering allegations

Former President Donald Trump joined Newsmax for an interview that aired on Thursday morning in which he spewed out a laundry list of bizarre accusations against ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, whose sworn testimony before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol on Tuesday was absolutely devastating for Trump.

A visibly agitated Trump complained about Hutchinson's recounting of his behavior during the insurrection.

"Some whack job can say this stuff and get away with it, and other things, that I wanted guns at my rally. Okay, now I'm speaking, why would I want guns? I don't want people having, standing with guns in my rally," he said on Wake Up America.

Hutchinson recalled that Trump believed that his armed supporters were "not there to hurt me."

Trump maintained that "this woman, she wanted to work for me after January 6th. She was a big Trump fan. She wanted to work for me in Florida and we chose not to bring her down because I got very bad things."

Next, Trump repeated what he said on Tuesday – that "I hardly knew her," even though his and Hutchinson's West Wing offices were only a few yards apart. "And I said, 'well if she's no good, I got somebody called up, numerous people, that she's not good.''"

Trump then refused to say "why she's not good, plenty of reasons... she was not respected by the people in the White House. So they thought she shouldn't go down. I was going down to Florida with a group of people, great group of people, patriots, and her name was thrown out there and they said, 'stay away from her.' They said bad things about her."

Hutchinson's strange story about Trump trying to hijack his motorcade, which was told to her by Trump's then-deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato, made him particularly upset.

"And then I see her, and again, I hardly know who she is. And then I see this woman getting up and she's making up stories, like one after another, but the craziest of all was that I tried to commandeer – they used that word – I tried to commandeer a car with Secret Service agents telling them to take us down to the Capitol," Trump said. "It was totally false, and that a person can get away with it... and then I watch the Times and The Washington Post, and I get reviews on MSDNC, and CNN, they hardly even talk about the fact that she's been totally discredited."

That is untrue, given that so far, nobody has refuted Hutchinson's damning statements under oath.

Watch below via Vox's Aaron Rupar:

Trump's reaction rekindled widespread suspicions that he is attempting to engage in witness tampering in order to obfuscate the truth.

Those conjectures are not without warrant.

On Thursday afternoon, CNN National Security Reporter Zachary Cohen reported that "multiple sources" revealed to him, anchor Kasie Hunt, and Congressional Correspondent Ryan Nobles that Hutchinson told the bipartisan House panel "that she was contacted by someone who was attempting to influence her testimony."