Loudermilk and Jordan referred Jan. 6 witness Cassidy Hutchinson to DOJ for potential prosecution over her testimony against Trump

On March 6, 2026, CNN reported that Rep. Barry Loudermilk had filed a criminal referral of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson with the Justice Department, co-signed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, accusing Hutchinson of lying to Congress during her June 2022 testimony before the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Loudermilk alleged Hutchinson falsely testified that Trump was aware of the potential for violence on January 6 and pressed ahead with efforts to rally his supporters anyway; her testimony separately included an account, which she said she had heard secondhand, that Trump lunged for the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle after being told he could not join the crowd marching on the Capitol.

Loudermilk chairs a House Judiciary subcommittee that has spent years working to recast the findings of the bipartisan January 6 select committee, which concluded Trump was "directly responsible" for the riot; Jordan chairs the full committee under which that effort operates. The referral followed years of Republican scrutiny of Hutchinson's testimony, parts of which other witnesses have disputed, though Justice Department prosecutors under the Biden administration who examined her claims brought no charges. It came as the Trump administration pursued other criminal referrals and cases against figures it has cast as adversaries from the January 6 investigation, including a separate referral of former DOJ prosecutor Thomas Windom.

Congressional criminal referrals do not require a factual predicate beyond the referring members' own allegations and do not obligate the Justice Department to act. DOJ's press office did not respond to CNN's inquiries about the referral, and lawyers for Hutchinson did not respond to requests for comment.