Transcripts of Cassidy Hutchinson‘s closed-door testimony to the January 6 committee have been released. Hutchinson’s testimony suggested the Trump administration tried to strong-arm her into lying on the stand.
“The less you remember, the better,” Hutchinson recalled being told by a Trump-paid lawyer, Stefan Passantino. “Don’t read anything to try to jog your memory. Don’t try to put together timelines.”
“We just want to focus on protecting the president.”
Hutchinson spoke of the emotional toll that was placed on her for agreeing to talk to the committee.
“I’m about to be f—ing nuked,” she said. “I was scared… I almost felt like at points Donald Trump was looking over my shoulder.”
In a statement to the Washington Post, Passantino had a different recollection of his meetings with Hutchinson.
“As with all my clients during my 30 years of practice, I represented Ms. Hutchinson honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me,” he said.
Hutchinson was a star witness of the January 6 committee. As a longtime Republican operative, working for Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Ted Cruz (R–Texas) and Steve Scalise (R– Louisiana), she was seen as a character with skin in the Republican game. Her testimony was a bombshell that gave credence to the committee’s findings.
In her public hearing, Hutchinson famously testified that former President Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel of a Presidential SUV and threw his lunch at a wall in the White House.
