CASSIDY HUTICHINSON IS THE JOHN DEAN OF JANUARY 6

With the release last night of the latest batch of transcripts of the interviews with witnesses to Donald Trump’s acts of treason, Cassidy Hutchinson moves far past Alexander Butterfield in this monstrous tale. She is now the John Dean of January 6.

After she decided that further representation by Stefan Passantino wasn‘t good for her future health and obtained the services of Jody Hunt, she requested a fourth intrerview, to to clarify, to provide context for and “in some respects, to correct” from her previous testimony, and came in on June 20, 2022 to do so.

Holy crap!

With her testimony, Cassidy Hutchinson puts nearly everyone in the White House in Jack Smith’s sights for indictment and prosecution for treason.

Most importantly, her account of Trump’s desire to issue “blanket pardons” to White House staffers and other senior Republicans who had involvement with the January 6 insurrection provides proof of “consciousness of guilt.” This is the one thing that had been previously lacking to any attempt to bring these people to justice for their crimes against the United States of America. From Trump on down, they all knew they were guilty, and they all wanted a way out.

Mark Meadows stands revealed as much a traitor as Heldeman was at Watergate.

Hitchinson told the committee that she saw Meadows burn documents in his office fireplace around a dozen times – about once or twice a week – between December 2020 and mid-January 2021. On several occasions, Hutchinson said, she was in Meadows’ office when he threw documents into the fireplace after a meeting. At least twice, the burning came after meetings with GOP Rep. Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, who has been linked to the efforts to use the Justice Department to overturn the 2020 election Perry is the one who introduced Trump to Jeffrey Clark and recommended he be appointed acting Attorney General to carry out the action informing state legislatures in the “swing states” that the Department of Justice had “determined there was fraud” in the 202 election and recommending the legislatures appoint their own electors, giving the election to Trump.

Hutchinson also testified that there “were certain things that had potentially been left off” the Oval Office diary - which is like a ship’s log in that it is supposed to record any and all events and actions taken in the Oval Office.

Hutchinson recalled Meadows meeting at the end of November or early December 2020 with outer Oval Office staffers in which he told them: “Let’s keep some meetings close hold. We will talk about what that means, but for now we will keep things real tight and private so things don’t start to leak out.”

She testified that she couldn’t recall whether there was specific information Meadows wanted to keep “close hold.” She said she was not aware of any explicit directions that Meadows gave to keep January 6 information “close hold.”

Importantly, she testified that on the morning of January 6, before the rally, she and Tony Ornato went in to Meadows’ office to tell him about the problem of armed individuals in the crowd at the rally. Specifically, she said that she did not get the sense that Meadows took the information as a warning of anything that needed to be done about the situation. Liz Cheney asks if he seemed surprised by this, and Hutchinson answers, “I wouldn’t say he seemed surprised.”

Mist importantly, she “corrected the record” with her knowledge of the events at the Ellipse when Trump spoke to his crowd of supporters and later when he thought he was being taken to the capitol.

Hutchinson gave a full account of her direct experience of Trump’s rally at the Ellipse, her memory of hearing him tell the Secret Service to “turn off the mags” and his statement that his armed supporters “aren’t here to harm me.”

This is further proof of the consciousness of guilt and that he knew the assault on the capitol was coming.

She expanded her account of the conversation with Tony Ornato about Trump’s desire to be taken to the capitol and his attempted assault on Bobby Engel, the Secret Service agent driving the SUV, when he was told he was being taken back to the White House. “I’m the fucking president! You’re going to listen to what I’m telling you to do. We’re going to the capitol!”

She provided information that when Trump arrived back at the White House he was extremely angry about not going to the capitol.

Particularly damning is her recollection of Meadows’ detachment from events that afternoon. When Cipollone tells him they have to do something to protect Pence, Meadows replies that Trump “doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong,” referring to the rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” She includes his statement “He agrees with them”

She also testified that she heard Trump - who she described as having a “very distinctive voice” saying “hang” several times at this point.

Her account of the multiple attempts to get Trump to say something to call off the rioters further damns Meadows, who she recalls “took a neutral position” on what Trump should say, at a time when Pat Cipollone and Ivanka Trump were trying to get the president to specifically condemn the riot and tell the rioters to stop. Trump resisted this advice for over an hour.

Hutchinson also gave further detail of statements by Trump in late November and through December in which he indicated he did know he had lost the election. That is important, because a defense to being charged with insurrection could be Trump stating he had a sincere belief that he had won and that he was fighting to get recognition of that fact which would play against the consciousness of guilt necessary to be found guilty of insurrection.

Overall, the four Hutchinson transcripts the Committee has now released make her the most important witness against Trump, able to testify to the beliefs and actions of staff around Trump including Meadows and White House counsel Cipollone, able to testify to Trump’s statements in which he admits knowledge of having lost the election, and statements by Trump that reveal he knew what was coming at the capitol on January 6 and that he wanted it to happen.

I for one hope she is under 24-hour armed guard and in some sort of witness protection program, because she has to be the prime target of Trump’s fellow conspirators and traitors.

Thank god Liz Cheney was able by her presence and her treatment of Hutchinson in the earlier interviews to stimulate Hutchinson’s reconsideration of what she was doing and her decision to change and amplify her testimony, as described in the New York Times magazine account of the internal workings of the committee.

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