Two transcripts of Jan. 6 testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a White House aide who played a major role in the committee’s public hearings, detail how her first lawyer allegedly advised her to withhold details from investigators.
Hutchinson worked for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and provided details about then-President Donald Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. The transcripts are part of an evidence trove the committee is making public as it prepares to release its final report later Thursday.
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The testimony reveals her legal counsel was advising her pro bono after she declined to use a Trump-recommended attorney.
“We’re going to downplay your role. You were a secretary. … The less you remember, the better,” Hutchinson recalled her first lawyer, Stefan Passantino, telling her.
She added that Passantino told her to keep details scarce in her testimony, especially regarding the “limo incident,” in which she testified that security officer Anthony Ornato told her Trump tried to grab the car wheel from him to make him drive to the Capitol rather than the White House when he finished speaking at the “Stop the Steal” rally.
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“No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. … Keep your answers short, sweet, and simple, seven words or less. The less the committee thinks you know, the better,” she said Passantino told her.
Hutchinson provided hours of testimony to the committee, including at one of the public hearings over the summer. Her role in the West Wing exposed her to conversations between top Trump officials in the months between the 2020 election and the riot.
