Cassidy Hutchinson says Trump lawyer tried to affect Jan. 6 testimony: ‘Less you remember, the better’
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.
“I’m your lawyer. I know what’s best for you. The less you remember, the better. Don’t read anything to try to jog your memory. Don’t try to put together timelines, ” Hutchinson said Passantino told her.
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.
Hutchinson said that after she learned in November 2021 that she would be subpoenaed, former associates in the White House worked with her to find representation.
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.
Before her first interview with the committee that month, she said Passantino coached her to “keep your answers short, sweet, and simple – seven words or less.”
When Hutchinson told him what she heard about Trump’s actions in The Beast on Jan. 6, she said Passantino told her to avoid that topic.
“No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want to talk about that,” she said he told her.
Hutchinson, a former assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, admitted to the panel that she had lied in February about Trump’s outburst when she said she “never heard anything about that.”
In the September interview, Hutchinson revealed that she had confided in Passantino during a break in her February appearance that she had misled investigators.
“Stefan, I’, f—ed. I just lied,” she said she told the lawyer. “I lied. I lied. I lied.”
But she said Passantino did not urge her to correct the record.
“They don’t know what you know, Cassidy. They don’t know that you can recall some of these things. So you saying ‘I don’t recall’ is an entirely acceptable response to this,” she said Passantino told her.
Around the same time, Hutchinson claimed, others in Trump’s circle reached out to her and expressed interest in her job status and financial situation.
In May, two lawyers linked to Trump offered to front her money and help her find work, including on a campaign out West.
Hutchinson also said that a friend who also worked in Meadows office reached out to her the night before her second interview.
“Well, Mark wants me to let you know that he knows you’re loyal and he knows you’ll do the right thing tomorrow and that you’re going to protect him and the boss. You know, he knows that we’re all on the same team and we’re all a family,” the friend told her, she said.
Passantino denied the accusations, saying he had acted “honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests.”
With Post wires
