The ultimate straw for former Trump White Home aide Cassidy Hutchinson along with her first lawyer, paid by allies of former President Donald Trump, got here when he instructed her to cease cooperating with the January 6 Home choose committee even when she risked a contempt of Congress cost, transcripts of her interviews and sources acquainted with her testimony inform CNN.
Hutchinson made the feedback when she returned to the choose committee in September to debate the strain marketing campaign she felt from Trump allies.
“I’m f***ed,” Hutchinson testified she mentioned to her mom within the days main as much as her first interview with the committee in February. Hutchinson mentioned she felt she had no different possibility however to retain Trump-aligned lawyer Stefan Passantino as a result of she couldn’t afford to pay excessive prices of different legal professionals she contacted to signify her.
She continued: “‘I’m fully indebted to those individuals,’ and I used to be like, ‘And they’ll spoil my life, Mother, if I do something they don’t need me to do.’”
Hutchinson, a former aide to White Home chief of employees Mark Meadows, instructed the committee that Passantino repeatedly urged her to downplay her function within the White Home and to say she didn’t recall occasions. She mentioned that Passantino and different Trump associates dangled job affords across the time of her first two depositions with the committee, whereas her lawyer and others instructed her to stay loyal to Trump and he or she can be “taken care of.”
Hutchinson mentioned that her “breaking level” with Passantino got here in June when he suggested her to not communicate to the committee any extra, saying that risking “contempt is a small danger, however operating to the fitting is healthier for you.”
Based on a pal Hutchinson reached out to round that point, who spoke to CNN completely, whereas Hutchinson had lengthy been involved with Passantino’s recommendation, the recommendation that she danger the contempt cost create a way of urgency for the previous White Home aide. Hutchinson expressed to her pal that there was extra she needed to share, however Passantino was urging her to not. Hutchinson instructed her pal that former White Home staff have been principally being directed to not share sure issues by attorneys paid by Trump world. Hutchinson additionally expressed concern that committee investigators weren’t asking the fitting questions.
“It wasn’t simply that I had Stefan sitting subsequent to me; it was nearly like I felt like I had Trump trying over my shoulder,” Hutchinson testified about her preliminary depositions earlier than the committee. “As a result of I knew in some style it will get again to him if I mentioned something that he would discover disloyal. And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. , I’d seen this world spoil individuals’s lives or attempt to spoil individuals’s careers. I’d seen how vicious they are often.”
She did stress, nonetheless, that Passantino didn’t inform her explicitly to not lie.
Hutchinson delivered a few of the most damning testimony towards the previous president within the committee’s investigation into January 6, which is wrapping up this week with its closing report. Hutchinson’s shock public testimony revealed new particulars about Trump’s erratic conduct after the 2020 election and an episode during which Trump received right into a heated argument along with his Secret Service element after his January 6 speech on when his element wouldn’t take him to the Capitol.
CNN has reached out to Passantino for touch upon Hutchinson’s interview.
Passantino earlier this week maintained to CNN he was moral when he represented Hutchinson and mentioned he believed her preliminary rounds of testimony to the committee have been truthful and that she was being cooperative. “I believed Ms. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the Committee all through the a number of interview periods during which I represented her,” he mentioned in a press release.
The small print from the transcript of two days of interviews Hutchinson sat for in September accompanied by her new authorized staff – when she selected to return to the committee months after her June public testimony – reveal new insights about her expertise with the Trump-world lawyer and the steps Hutchinson secretly took to attempt to inform the committee the reality, even earlier than she ultimately switched legal professionals. Her testimony additionally provides extra context surrounding the committee’s earlier allegations of witness tampering.
Passantino represented Hutchinson for her first three depositions earlier this yr, after she was subpoenaed by the committee in late 2021. The committee has not but launched these transcripts so it’s unclear how usually Hutchinson mentioned she didn’t recall occasions in her preliminary interviews.
Hutchinson switched legal professionals in June earlier than her public testimony to Jody Hunt, who was chief of employees to former Legal professional Normal Jeff Classes and assistant lawyer common for the Justice Division’s Civil Division.
CNN reported Tuesday that the committee was referring to Passantino when it described an unnamed lawyer telling a committee witness to say that she couldn’t recall occasions that she knew in its abstract launched this week.
Hutchinson mentioned within the deposition that she had shared the small print about her expertise with the Justice Division as nicely.
Hutchinson mentioned that Passantino instructed her to not lie. “I need to make this clear to you: Stefan by no means instructed me to lie. He particularly instructed me, ‘I don’t need you to perjure your self, however ‘I don’t recall’ isn’t perjury. They don’t know need you may and may’t recall,’” she testified.
However throughout a pre-interview assembly, her lawyer additionally repeatedly instructed her she might say she didn’t recall occasions. “The much less you bear in mind, the higher,” Passantino instructed her, based on Hutchinson’s testimony.
He waived her away from discussing what she knew about Trump’s argument along with his Secret Service element within the presidential limousine on January 6, she instructed the committee. “I bear in mind he, like, sat again in his chair and he’s like, ‘No, no, no, no, no. We don’t need to go there. We don’t need to discuss that.’”
Shan Wu, a Washington-based protection lawyer and frequent CNN authorized commentator, mentioned legal professionals can’t inform shoppers what they need to and shouldn’t bear in mind. “That would grow to be an obstruction concern,” he mentioned.
“It’s truly fairly simple. You possibly can’t instruct the shopper to lie,” Wu added. “You possibly can say, ‘don’t overshare. Don’t begin volunteering info.’”
Hutchinson’s description of Passantino’s reassurance the morning of her first interview in February reads like one thing out of a novel.
“All the things’s going to be OK. We’re caring for you,” Hutchinson described Passantino as saying. “Simply downplay your place. … It’s not honest that Mark [Meadows] put you on this place. We simply need to concentrate on defending the president. Everyone knows you’re loyal. Let’s simply get you out and in, and today shall be simple, I promise.”
When Hutchinson was, in reality, requested concerning the January 6 incident with Trump and his Secret Service element, she panicked, telling Passantino she thought she’d lied to the committee by saying she didn’t recollect it.
“And he mentioned, ‘They don’t know what you already know, Cassidy. They don’t know that you could recall a few of these. So that you saying, “I don’t recall” is a wholly acceptable response to this,’” she testified.
“They don’t know that there’s something,” Passantino added, based on her testimony.
Through the September deposition, Hutchinson revealed her non-public turmoil over being beholden to the previous President after turning to a Trump-backed lawyer as a result of she couldn’t pay for six-figure authorized payments.
In what she known as “one factor I remorse in all of this,” Hutchinson described begging her father, who she mentioned she doesn’t have a relationship with, to lend her the cash.
“I mentioned I’d pay him again, like, ‘title your rate of interest,’” she mentioned. “And he simply didn’t get it. And I didn’t anticipate him to. However I simply left there feeling defeated.”
Following her first interview, Hutchinson was put in contact with former Trump aides Jason Miller and Justin Clark about potential job alternatives, she testified. She was known as again for a second deposition, and acquired a name from Meadows’ prime aide, Ben Williamson, the evening earlier than. The transcript reveals for the primary time that it was Williamson whom Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, was quoting on the finish of Hutchinson’s public testimony in June, as one of many people who was pressuring her.
“He mentioned one thing to the impact of, ‘Effectively, Mark needs me to let you already know that he is aware of you’re loyal and he is aware of you’ll do the fitting factor tomorrow and that you simply’re going to guard him and the boss,’” Williamson instructed her, based on Hutchinson’s testimony.

Ex-aide was instructed Trump grew to become irate when stopped from going to Capitol
Within the weeks after her second interview, snippets of testimony from Hutchinson and different witnesses have been included within the committee’s public courtroom filings, resulting in blowback from Trump for others.
Hutchinson mentioned that Passantino instructed her Trump wasn’t mad about what she’d mentioned. “‘But it surely’s only a good reminder that the boss does learn transcripts. And we need to be sure that like no matter he’s studying isn’t going to place you in a foul state of affairs,’” she mentioned he instructed her.
Hutchinson testified that the sensation she was hiding info from the committee saved gnawing at her and that she turned to former White Home aide Alyssa Farah Griffin for recommendation. Hutchinson testified that she requested Griffin, now a CNN political analyst, to behave as a backchannel to the committee so they may name her again in and know what inquiries to ask – with out telling her lawyer.
“Cassidy Hutchinson is a patriot who bravely upheld the oath she swore when she took a job within the White Home. I’m grateful for her willingness to share the unvarnished reality with the American public,” Griffin instructed CNN on Thursday.
Hutchinson was quickly known as again for a 3rd interview, which she went to with Passantino. Throughout breaks, he was shocked they appeared to know what to ask her. “And he’d say, ‘However nobody’s speaking about any of these things, Cassidy. Like so far as I do know, no one’s talked about any of this,’” she testified.
After the session, Passantino shared info from the interview with different Trump-aligned legal professionals over Hutchinson’s objections, together with Meadows’ attorneys George Terwilliger and John Moran, she testified. He additionally spoke with former Trump White Home lawyer Eric Herschmann concerning the interview, Hutchinson mentioned.
“This was like the primary clear indicator for me of he doesn’t care about what I need, he doesn’t care about what I feel is finest for me, he’s doing what he thinks is finest for Trump and the individuals in Trump’s orbit,” she mentioned.
The committee had steered it’d search Hutchinson to return to testify as soon as extra in a labeled setting, and Hutchinson requested Passantino whether or not she had heard from the committee about extra interviews.
Hutchinson mentioned he suggested her to not conform to any extra interviews, saying, “Contempt is a small danger, however operating to the fitting is healthier for you” – which she understood to imply “Fox Information, Trump world Republicans.”
“We actually assume that is what’s finest for you, Cass. Like, this wants to finish in some unspecified time in the future, and I feel it simply wants to finish now,” Passantino instructed her, based on her testimony.
That dialog prompted her to change attorneys, Hutchinson mentioned.
“It was clear for a very long time that he was not representing my pursuits in how he knew I needed to facilitate my relationship with the committee,” she testified. “However I used to be not going to let this second fully destroy my status, my character, and my integrity for a trigger that I used to be starkly against. And that’s just about the tip of me and Stefan.”
Supply: CNN