“Donald Trump admitted he lost the election before the Capitol riot”

Former President Donald Trump has apparently admitted to a Republican leader that he lost the 2020 election before the Jan. 6 riot in the Capitol, it has been revealed.

Trump’s private admission to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy emerged in an interview given by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House adviser to the panel investigating the riot.

The House Selection Committee released Hutchinson’s interview on Thursday, the same day they were expected to release their full report on the inquiry into the Capitol riots.

Hutchinson, in her September 14 interview, reported making several calls with McCarthy in the run-up to the Capitol attack. McCarthy told her he was concerned that then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had not adequately prepared Trump to accept the election results.

“What is Mark thinking?” Hutchinson said McCarthy told her in a call between Jan. 2 and Jan. 5, 2021. “He’s giving the President bad advice.”

Trump repeatedly admitted defeat behind closed doors but quickly changed his mind and said there might be a way for him to stay in the Oval Office, Hutchinson said, McCarthy told her.

McCarthy said, according to Hutchinson, “I can only imagine that coming from Mark.

Hutchinson also told the Jan. 6 committee that a lawyer allied with Trump tried to influence her testimony.

“We just want to focus on protecting the president,” Hutchinson said, telling her former Trump White House attorney Stefan Passantino. “We all know you’re loyal. Let’s just get you in and out, and this day will be easy, I promise.’

Passantino represented Hutchinson in her early communications with the House panel. Hutchinson was one of the standout witnesses on the committee that investigated the riot for 18 months.

The committee held its final meeting on Monday, where it voted unanimously to release its final report and filed four criminal charges against Trump with the Justice Department.

Trump wrote after the criminal references on his platform “Truth Social”: “These people do not understand that the people who love freedom rally around me when they are after me. It strengthens me. What does not kill me, makes me stronger.”

As of Thursday evening, the committee had not released its full 800-page report.

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