A federal grand jury in Washington has refused to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide whose 2022 testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee painted a damning picture of President Donald Trump's conduct on the day of the Capitol attack.

Jurors returned what is known as a no bill on Tuesday, people familiar with the case told reporters. The rejection was announced in court before a federal magistrate judge without the defendant's name being read aloud, which is how such outcomes are usually handled.

It is the latest in a run of grand juries turning down Justice Department cases aimed at people the president views as his political enemies. Prosecutors can still go back and ask a different grand jury to bring charges.

What she told the committee

Hutchinson was a special assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff at the time. At a hearing announced with only a day's notice in June 2022, she described a furious president who wanted armed supporters let past security at his rally that morning and who refused to step in as the mob chanted threats against Vice President Mike Pence.

The best known part of her account was a secondhand story that Trump reached for the steering wheel of his SUV when the Secret Service would not drive him to the Capitol. She said at the time that she was repeating what a security official had told her. The Secret Service agent who drove the vehicle later told investigators that Trump never grabbed the wheel, though his account backed up other parts of her testimony including Trump's wish to go to the Capitol.

Republican lawmakers had accused Hutchinson of lying under oath. The details of what prosecutors wanted to charge her with were not made public. The case was handled by the department's Civil Rights Division, which is led by Harmeet Dhillon.

A growing pattern

Trump has attacked Hutchinson for years and once called her a total phony. Grand juries in Washington and elsewhere have now declined several politically charged cases brought during his second term, an outcome that is otherwise extremely rare.

The court's chief judge recently ordered prosecutors to alert the duty magistrate whenever a grand jury rejects an indictment, so the public record reflects those decisions. Neither Hutchinson nor the Justice Department had commented on the decision by Wednesday morning.