Former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson says Rudy Giuliani groped her on Jan. 6, 2021

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who became a key witness in congressional Jan. 6 hearings, alleges that former President Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, groped her on the day of the assault on the Capitol.

The incident allegedly took place backstage at former President Donald Trump's speech on the day of the insurrection. In an excerpt from Hutchinson's new memoir, "Enough," obtained by The Guardian, Hutchinson says the former mayor put his hand under her skirt.

"Rudy wraps one arm around my body, closing the space that was separating us... I lower my eyes and watch his free hand reach for the hem of my blazer," she wrote of Giuliani. 

"'By the way,' he says, fingering the fabric, 'I'm loving this leather jacket on you.' His hand slips under my blazer, then my skirt... I fight against the tension in my muscles and recoil from Rudy's grip," she wrote in the book published by Simon and Schuster, which is a division of CBS News' parent company Paramount Global. It is set to be released Tuesday.

Giuliani denied the allegations during an interview with Newsmax's Eric Boiling. "First of all, I am not going to grope somebody at all. False, totally absurd," he said.

Giuliani spokesperson Ted Goodman told CBS News, "These allegations are false."

Last year, Hutchinson testified to Congress about her disgust with the Jan. 6 attack. "We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie," she said at the time.

Giuliani has fueled the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen by making false claims of election fraud. He has since been indicted in Georgia for his alleged role in conspiring to illegally reverse the 2020 election's results and pleaded not guilty to 13 charges against him there.

As for Hutchinson's claims, they are not the first of their kind against the former New York City mayor. In May, a woman claiming to have been a former employee of Giuliani's filed a $10 million lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault, harassment and wage theft. Giuliani has denied those allegations.

Adriana Diaz

Adriana Diaz is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago and is the anchor of Saturday's edition of the "CBS Weekend News."

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