Donald Trump’s chief of staff’s young aide Cassidy Hutchinson describes this White House scene: It’s December 2020. The president’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, has just given an interview denying that the election had been rigged. Trump is “extremely angry,” Hutchinson told the Congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection — so angry that he throws his lunch against the wall.

After hearing the crash of crockery, the young woman races to the president’s dining room. “There was ketchup dripping down the wall and a shattered porcelain plate on the floor,” she testified. So, she grabs a towel and starts wiping up the condiment that is staining the wall red.