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Meet Sarah Matthews, the former Trump deputy press secretary who was 'deeply disturbed' by the Capitol riot and testified during Thursday's January 6 hearing

Meet Sarah Matthews, the former Trump deputy press secretary who was 'deeply disturbed' by the Capitol riot and testified during Thursday's January 6 hearing
  • Sarah Matthews joined the White House as deputy press secretary on June 8, 2020.

  • She resigned on the day of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, calling it "coup attempt."

  • Matthews and national security adviser Matthew Pottinger testified at Thursday's January 6 hearing.

Sarah Matthews, former deputy press secretary for the Trump White House, testified before the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack on Thursday night.

Matthews was the deputy press secretary in the final months of Donald Trump's presidency. She was one of several aides to resign on the day of the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

At the time, she said in a public statement that she was "deeply disturbed" by the attack and called for a "peaceful transfer of power."

"I was honored to serve in the Trump administration and proud of the policies we enacted. As someone who worked in the halls of Congress I was deeply disturbed by what I saw today," she said. "I'll be stepping down from my role, effective immediately. Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power."

On the one-year anniversary of the attack, Matthews wrote in a Twitter thread that the event was "one of the darkest days in American history."

"Make no mistake, the events on the 6th were a coup attempt, a term we'd use had they happened in any other country, and former President Trump failed to meet the moment," she wrote.

Matthews also recently came to the defense of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson after she spoke before the January 6 committee. When Trump, his supporters, and right-wing news outlets cast doubts around Hutchinson's bombshell testimony, Matthews said that people were trying to downplay the significance of the former aide's statements.

"Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson's role or her access in the West Wing either doesn't understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they're scared of how damning this testimony is," Matthews wrote on Twitter.

Matthews also appeared voluntarily before the House Select Committee in February. Video of her testimony was presented at the June 16 hearing, in which she said Trump's tweet about Mike Pence not having "the courage" to overturn the election was like "pouring gasoline on the fire."

She elaborated on that sentiment during her testimony on Thursday night.

"I thought the tweet about the vice president was the last thing that was needed in that moment," Matthews told lawmakers.

"It was essentially him giving the green light to these people — telling them that what they were doing at the steps of the Capitol, and entering the Capitol, was okay, that they were justified in their anger," she added. "And he shouldn't have been doing that. He should have been telling these people to go home and to leave and to condemn the violence that we are seeing."

Sarah Matthews in deposition
Sarah Matthews, former White House deputy press secretary, during a video deposition shown during January 6 hearing on June 16, 2022.House Select Committee/AP

Before her time in the White House, Matthews worked for Trump's re-election campaign where she met Kayleigh McEnany, the former White House press secretary, according to an interview with her alma mater Kent State University.

"In June (2020) she poached me from the campaign and brought me on board at the White House as deputy press secretary," Matthews told Kent State University. "In this role, I serve as a spokesperson for President Trump and spend a lot of my day working with the White House press corps. I also develop messaging strategy, prep Kayleigh for briefings, and staff the president for interviews."

Matthews appeared as a live witness during the seventh public January 6 hearing alongside Matthew Pottinger, who formerly served as national security advisor to Trump and also resigned in the wake of the Capitol attack.

She is currently the communications director for the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

During the hearing on Thursday night, the @HouseGOP account retweeted one of her tweets about Trump and wrote: "Just another liar and pawn in Pelosi's witch-hunt" before deleting it.

A House GOP spokesperson said in a statement: "The tweet was sent out at the staff level and was not authorized or the position of the conference and therefore was deleted."

Matthews did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Read the original article on Business Insider