CASSIDY HUTCHINSON - AMERICAN HERO

The January 6 Committee may not have released their final report yet, but their release of the transcripts of committee depositions is “interesting reading,” as in the “Ancient Chinese curse” that isn’t ancient or Chinese but is indeed a curse: “May you live in interesting times.”

And the story everyone has picked up on is the story of Cassidy Hutchinson. As they should. It’s the kind of story that is a “character tell,” as we who write dramatic fiction say - a small incident that illuminates a larger truth about the person, about events, about the context of the story.

Cassidy Hutchinson’s story does all of that. And she comes out looking even better than she did back in June when she publicly testified in the hearing, because she’s the witness who stood up to The Mob Boss and his underworld underlings - despite knowing exactly what they were capable of.

Screenwriter William Goldman, in his excellent book “Adventures in the Screen Trade,” wrote about a scene in the movie “A Bridge Too Far” that he wrote, in which it was impossible as a movie to tell the true story of what one officer who witnessed the event called “The bravest act I ever saw.” It involves the capture of one of the bridges they need to get hold of in one piece. The Germans are on the other side of the river, in control of the charges with which they can blow the bridge. An assault across the river must be made, but it turns out there aren’t enough boats to take everyone across in one assault. So the first wave get in the boats and paddle across. The guys have a pretty good idea what’s likely to happen, but it hasn’t happened yet, so they can tell themselves that maybe... maybe the Germans will run away... maybe the Germans will surrender... maybe the smoke of battle will hide them from the Germans... maybe they’ll live. But in fact they get the shit shot out of them. Half of them are floating face down in the river by the time the surviving boats get back to pick up the second wave. Who watched what happened to the first wave. And here is where “the bravest act I ever saw” happens: the guys who saw the first bunch get massacred get in the boats and make the attack and take the bridge. (Goldman’s point about why it couldn’t be shot as it really happened, and why in the movie it’s the first wave that are the heroes, is because the commanding officer was Robert Redford, and you can’t have a star standing there yelling “You guys! Good luck!”)

Cassidy Hutchinson got in the boat. She knew what could happen and she got in the boat.

In her deposition, she recounts a conversation with her mother in which she said “They will ruin my life, Mom, if I do anything they don’t want me to do.” She knew what they could do because she’d seen it happen before.

From everything I have read about Cassidy Hutchinson, about how she did her job in the White House, there was good reason for the Mob Boss and his capos to think she was a good soldier. She didn’t make waves. She came from a family who were proud of their daughter working in the White House for Donald Trump, whom they had all voted for. She fit the profile for “loyalist.”

But there was obviously more to Cassidy Hutchinson than they saw when they looked at her or talked to her. There might even have been more to Cassidy Hutchinson than Cassidy Hutchinson knew; that’s quite often the case with a hero - they don’t know they have it in them till the moment is upon them.

Reading over her account, there sure are events that would “give one pause,” things said and done that would be seen and taken as being as threatening as they were.

Start with the beginning. She gets notice in November 2021 that she will get a subpoena to appear before the committee. That’s when anyone in Washington knows to get the very best defense attorney they can afford, even one they can’t afford. But she didn’t have the wherewithal to do that. “I didn’t want to feel like I was using an attorney in Trump-world where I’d potentially have to be responding to their interests as well.”

She got a list of attorneys from a friend who had worked at the White House, and began trying to find representation. She found one attorney willing to represent her pro bono, but when she found she would be served and went to see him, he demanded money because Meadows had stopped cooperating and been held in contempt. “This isn’t the situation I thought I would represent you in,” he told her.

She discovered that Trump World was worried about her, because of the knowledge they knew she had of the events in the final months of 2020 and the fact she was “untethered” to Trump at this point.

She asked her former boss Mark Meadows what to do, he didn’t have an answer, but one of his assistants, Alex Cannon, told her “they” would be taking care of her. Nothing happened; she reminded Cannon. And then, all of a sudden on February 7, 2022, she got a call from Stefan Passantino, the former White House lawyer responsible for enforcing ethics for the Trump administration. Right off, he tells her she doesn’t need to sign an engagement letter formalizing their relationship as attorney and client.

As she recounts, he says. “Don’t worry. We have you taken care of.” When she asks him who’s paying him to do this, he says “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. You’re never going to get a bill for this, so if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Yeah, when you’re someone in the Godfather’s neighborhood and Tom Hagen calls to tell you everything’s OK about the bank robbery you witnessed, you probably get a shiver up your spine.

Hutchinson recalls that at their first meeting Passantino makes it clear there will be no real compliance with the committee’s subpoena and, and is “shocked and bemused” whenever she suggested that the subpoena had the force of law. When she asked if she could review a calendar of her time with Meadows to refresh her memory, Passantino replied: “No, no, no. Look, we want to get you in, get you out. We’re going to downplay your role. You were a secretary. You had an administrative role. You really have nothing to do with this. But the less you remember, the better.

After that, she recounts that “Looking back on all this, I wish that I hadn’t told myself not to overthink all this. I was like ‘this is bad.’ I did not want him to do this. I was also scared to tell him that, because I was worried that if I told him then they would become suspicious of me. I don’t like to categorize the Trump world in this way, but once you are looped in, especially financially with [Trumpworld], there sort of is no turning back.”

No wonder she told her mother “I am completely indebted to these people and they will ruin my life, Mom, if I do anything they don’t want me to do.”

She knew what could happen. “That was the thought that was always in the back of my mind. And I was scared.”

Trump World were so certain of themselves, Passantino appears to have committed the crime of suborning perjury, an offense that - as Harry Litman put it - carries the sentence of “instant disbarment.”

Hutchinson recounts trying to explain her recollection of how she learned of the “Beast incident” from Tony Ornato, and Passantino telling her after she told him of the event that “for memories like that,” it was better to “just leave them in the dustbin called hearsay.” And, if she was unsure of any details, why not just tell the Committee that she didn’t recall what took place. “‘I don’t recall’ is the best answer to any of that.” He went on to say that “The less the committee knows of you, the better. You’re going to be taken care of. It’s going to be off your hands.”

She agreed not to mention the story Ornato told her about the “Beast Incident.” In the end, over two appearances before the committee, she told nothing about that, or her knowledge of the planning before the January 6 rally and Trump’s expected “movement to the capitol” afterwards.

While Passantino might be able to argue he was giving her the same advice any other lawyer would give a client as part of preparation to be a witness, and thus he was not “suborning perjury,” it gets a little hard to keep up the pretense when confronted with her account of what happened the day she was first to appear before the committee to give her deposition.

As she recalled, It was on the morning of her first appearance before the panel that he made The Offer: “I want to talk to you about potential job opportunities. Let’s do it at the end of today, though. Today’s going to be a good day. I want to end it on a good note for you.”

“End it on a good note,” after hours of testimony before the committee.

Sitting next to Passantino at the deposition, Hutchinson recalled she felt like “Donald Trump was looking over my shoulder. I know how Trump world operates. Stefan had already kind of planted the seeds of, we know you’re loyal, like, we know you’re going to do the right thing, we know you’re on Team Trump, we want to take care of you.”

She took a second meeting with the committee, with Passantino beside her. She kept thinking to herself “This is bad, this is bad. I need to get out of this situation, but now I can’t. I’m indebted. I am done.”

At the first interview, she was asked about the Beast Incident. She kept saying “I don’t remember,” “I never heard that,” “I don’t recall.” And all the while “I knew I was lying because I did know.” When a break came, she said as much to Passantino, who assured her she was “doing just fine. We’re proud of you.” And she was torn because she didn’t want to tell what she knew, due to the fact she still felt loyalty to Trump. After the session was over, he told her he would call his law partners and “we’ll get you a really good job in Trump world, you won’t have to worry about that.”

“I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers. I’d seen how vicious they can be. And part of that’s politics, but a lot of it, too - you know, I obviously haven’t been around D.C. all that long, but I think some of it is unique to Trump World, the level they’ll go to tear somebody else down. And I was scared of that.”

After the second interview, she was told the job offer was a cushy position at GETTR, the social media Twitter-wannabe run by Trump’s comms chief Jason Miller.

And then on May 17, 2022, she decided to act. She “back channeled” with the Committee, that she would like to come in a third time and correct some previous testimony. “I wanted to do my best to make sure Trump-world had no indication that I back-channeled to the committee for a third interview.” She told Passantino she had no idea why she was being recalled and he told her “If you don’t say more than seven words, they won’t have any questions for you.”

On May 20, she spoke with Cannon.

That was when she got different lawyers.

In September, Hutchinson sat through an interview with Liz Cheney in which she told the story of her moral struggle. She didn’t think well of herself, that she hadn’t been able to Do The Right Thing the first time.

In the end, Cheney said to her:

“I think you’ve just been a real model for the committee and the country in terms of your willingness to make sure that people understand what happened. So we’re very grateful for that.”

Indeed, we are. Grateful for that.

Cassidy Hutchinson is currently a cooperating witness with the Special Counsel.

As an old Navy Chief once explained it to me, “When you’re so scared you’ve pissed your pants and shit your drawers, and your brain doesn’t work, and you still do your job - that’s being a hero.”

Cassidy Hutchinson is an American Hero.

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