Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Cassidy Hutchinson transcript shows her Trumpworld lawyer Passantino urging her to not say everything she knew of Trump limo incident: “They want there to be something. They don’t know that there is something. We’re not going to give them anything.”
Passantino, in March, told Hutchinson that he could help her find a job — and eventually passed on contacts for Trump lawyer Justin Clark and Trump adviser/Gettr CEO Jason Miller. “They know you’re loyal. They want to take care of you… they have good opportunities for you.”
Hutchinson testified that Passantino wanted to talk about job opportunities before both her first and second interviews. On March 1, he told her: “We want you to stay in Trumpworld with jobs. We’re gonna find something really good for you.”
Hutchinson made the comments when she returned to the select committee in September to discuss the pressure campaign she felt from Trump allies.
“I’m f***ed,” Hutchinson testified she said to her mother in the days leading up to her first interview with the committee in February. Hutchinson said she felt she had no other option but to retain Trump-aligned lawyer Stefan Passantino because she couldn’t afford to pay high costs of other lawyers she contacted to represent her.
She continued: “‘I am completely indebted to these people,’ and I was like, ‘And they will ruin my life, Mom, if I do anything they don’t want me to do.’”
Hutchinson, a former aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, told the committee that Passantino repeatedly urged her to downplay her role in the White House and to say she did not recall events. She said that Passantino and other Trump associates dangled job offers around the time of her first two depositions with the committee, while her lawyer and others told her to remain loyal to Trump and she would be “taken care of.”
Hutchinson said that her “breaking point” with Passantino came in June when he advised her not to speak to the committee any more, saying that risking “contempt is a small risk, but running to the right is better for you.”
According to a friend Hutchinson reached out to around that time, who spoke to CNN exclusively, while Hutchinson had long been concerned with Passantino’s advice, the advice that she risk the contempt charge create a sense of urgency for the former White House aide. Hutchinson expressed to her friend that there was more she wanted to share, but Passantino was urging her not to. Hutchinson told her friend that former White House employees were basically being directed to not share certain things by attorneys paid by Trump world. Hutchinson also expressed concern that committee investigators were not asking the right questions.
“It wasn’t just that I had Stefan sitting next to me; it was almost like I felt like I had Trump looking over my shoulder,” Hutchinson testified about her initial depositions before the committee. “Because I knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything that he would find disloyal. And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers. I’d seen how vicious they can be.”
She did stress, however, that Passantino did not tell her explicitly not to lie.
Hutchinson delivered some of the most damning testimony against the former president in the committee’s investigation into January 6, which is wrapping up this week with its final report. Hutchinson’s surprise public testimony revealed new details about Trump’s erratic behavior after the 2020 election and an episode in which Trump got into a heated argument with his Secret Service detail after his January 6 speech on when his detail would not take him to the Capitol.
CNN has reached out to Passantino for comment on Hutchinson’s interview.
Passantino earlier this week maintained to CNN he was ethical when he represented Hutchinson and said he believed her initial rounds of testimony to the committee were truthful and that she was being cooperative. “I believed Ms. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the Committee throughout the several interview sessions in which I represented her,” he said in a statement.
“It wasn’t just that I had Stefan sitting next to me; it was almost like I felt like I had Trump looking over my shoulder,” Hutchinson testified about her initial depositions before the committee. “Because I knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything that he would find disloyal. And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers. I’d seen how vicious they can be.”
She did stress, however, that Passantino did not tell her explicitly not to lie.
Hutchinson delivered some of the most damning testimony against the former president in the committee’s investigation into January 6, which is wrapping up this week with its final report. Hutchinson’s surprise public testimony revealed new details about Trump’s erratic behavior after the 2020 election and an episode in which Trump got into a heated argument with his Secret Service detail after his January 6 speech on when his detail would not take him to the Capitol.
CNN has reached out to Passantino for comment on Hutchinson’s interview.
Passantino earlier this week maintained to CNN he was ethical when he represented Hutchinson and said he believed her initial rounds of testimony to the committee were truthful and that she was being cooperative. “I believed Ms. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the Committee throughout the several interview sessions in which I represented her,” he said in a statement.
Former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson told the House select committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot that allies of former President Donald Trump pressured her to hold back in her initial interview, with one lawyer telling her: “the less you remember, the better.”
Hutchinson, in closed-door testimony from mid-September that was released by the panel Thursday, described how Stefan Passantino, a former ethics lawyer in the Trump White House, advised her not to be too forthcoming with information that could be damaging to the former president, now 76. Newly released testimony from the January 6 Committee shows that Trump and his team illegally promised to “take care” of Mark Meadow aide Cassidy Hutchinson with a “job” at “Trumpworld” if she remained “loyal” during her testimony. RT IF YOU WANT THIS INVESTIGATED!
Hutchinson emerged as a key witness when she testified before the panel in June. During her appearance, she said that White House deputy chief of staff for operations Tony Ornato told her that Trump tried to grab the wheel of the presidential SUV from his Secret Service driver in a failed effort to join his supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The incident in The Beast happened right after Trump addressed his supporters at the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse and the mob headed to the Capitol to disrupt the certification of the 2020 electoral vote by Congress.
The committee called her back for a private interview in September, at which she described in detail how Passantino became her lawyer. She said she had deep reservations about being represented by someone in “Trump world” because she feared it would make her “indebted to these people.”
In February, she said Passantino contacted her to say he would be her lawyer and she would not have to pay, but was vague about who would pick up the tab.
“If you want to know at the end, we’ll let you know, but we’re not telling people where funding is coming from right now,” Hutchinson recalled him saying. “Don’t worry, we’re taking care of you. Like, you’re never going to get a bill for this, so if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She later learned that Trump allies were footing the bill.
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