Cassidy Hutchinson

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YIKES

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oddly left out of biden pardons?

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10 27 26

cassidy hutchinson doe 3 fail

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AN 10 26

Punchbowl News reports that former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson is next on President Donald Trump's revenge list.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division presented evidence to a federal grand jury this week alleging that she "lied to Congress," sources told the outlet.

Hutchinson spent several days testifying to the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 after the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump has long maintained that what she said was a lie, so a key piece of the case will be whether the DOJ can prove something she said was false, particularly in the Washington D.C., federal court, which has not been a successful place for District Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

Among her more jarring allegations were that a Secret Service agent told her that the president lunged at him as he drove back to the White House following the speech on the Ellipse. According to Hutchinson, Trump wanted to go to the Capitol to see his supporters as they marched. He'd promised them moments before that he would be with them, but the Secret Service hadn't planned for that.

She also alleged that Trump didn't care about the magnetometer catching his supporters carrying guns, making it clear that he knew they weren't there to hurt him.

So far, Trump has used his Justice Department to target former FBI director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, prosecutors who investigated him, law firms connected to opponents and news organizations whose coverage he dislikes.

Reuters even documented at least 470 targets of administration retribution by November 2025, including 112 revoked security clearances.

But even failed indictments didn't stop Trump. After Comey posted an image on Instagram showing seashells spelling out "86-47," he was targeted by the FBI and DOJ, claiming he was making a credible threat against the life of the president with the post.

The campaign has also extended beyond criminal investigations and firings of government staff. Trump ordered restrictions on law firms’ security clearances, federal contracts and even access to government buildings, including the federal courts.

Trump swears he's not pursuing any revenge. As recently as Wednesday, Trump alleged that he could have "gone after" Hillary Clinton, and former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama — but hasn't.

Critics argue the pattern turns government power into a tool for personal punishment. He's forcing the targets to spend buckets in legal costs and face

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BONDI FIRED -- > AN 4 26

Now that former AG Pam Bondi has been guillotined for not delivering up President Donald Trump’s enemies on a platter, MS NOW producer Steve Benen says the remaining department heads are desperately casting around for targets to appease the president.

Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide to ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is a major Trump critic and admitted that she saw him as a dangerous threat to U.S. democracy. But before she became a key witness for the January 6 Select Committee, Hutchinson was actually a Trump supporter.

Hutchinson's book "Enough" earned considerable media coverage, and she testified before the Jan. 6 committee that Trump was aware of the violent mob of his supporters storming the building but did not care.

“I overheard the president say something to the effect of, 'I don't effing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me,” Hutchinson told the committee.

But now, with Republicans in control of the House, a partisan House panel led by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) claims Hutchinson lied to Congress about Trump’s awareness of violence ahead of the 2021 insurrectionist riot.

Plus, this no longer Bondi’s DOJ, which was already heavily politicized. Now it is a heavily politicized DOJ under a cloud of panic.

“Under normal circumstances, the DOJ would blow off a criminal referral like this, recognizing it as more of a political stunt than a serious recommendation. However, note this detail that featured in a report The New York Times published Thursday on the DOJ’s efforts to please the president by pursuing his political foes: “ … They have … pushed prosecutors to investigate a former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, whom the president has accused of lying about his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two officials briefed on the effort,” cited Benen.

“While MS NOW hasn’t independently verified this reporting, it dovetails with everything we’ve seen and learned about the White House’s control of federal law enforcement,” said Benen. “It also serves as a timely reminder that Hutchinson remains a Team Trump target — to the point that the most powerful officials at Main Justice have reportedly pushed prosecutors in private to pursue her.”

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an 3 26

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson is being targeted by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), CNN reported Friday.

Loudermilk is known for being the lawmaker who gave tours to Jan. 6 attackers casing the U.S. Capitol ahead of the attack. After years of allegations against him, he was appointed chair of the Republican Party's investigation into the Jan. 6 committee.

Hutchinson was the aide who said that U.S. Secret Service agents faced off against President Donald Trump, lunging at the steering wheelof the security vehicle, trying to get them to take him to the Capitol to march with his MAGA supporters. Normally, the president rides in a limousine, but on that day, he delivered a speech from the White House Ellipse and rode in an SUV.

Hutchinson also witnessed former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows burning documents in his office fireplace. At one point, he was burning so many documents that Meadows' wife noticed a smell in his clothing and said it was costing them a hefty dry cleaning bill.

Loudermilk is demanding that the Justice Department bring charges against Hutchinson for lying to Congress about these incidents. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) signed off on the demand.

It will be a catch-22 for Loudermilk, however, because a trial claiming Hutchinson lied under oath would mean that Hutchinson would have access to information and witnesses who would be forced to answer questions under oath. She could call the Secret Service agents, Meadows and even Trump himself. Thus far, there has never been a trial for Trump on Jan. 6, only an investigation by the Justice Department. While there were charges ultimately filed, they were dropped after Trump won the 2024 election.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been concerned about Loudermilk's efforts, it was reported last year. He fears that subpoenaing Hutchinson could bring to light "embarrassing information" as well as sexually explicit text messages she allegedly received when she was working in the White House during Trump's first presidency.

For years, Republicans have alleged that Hutchinson lied about her account and in her book about what she experienced on Jan. 6 and beyond. Johnson has been the one worried about the can of worms it might open.

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rww

01/23/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Jacqueline Alemany @ The Washington Post: Johnson aide advised against Hutchinson subpoena over concerns about lawmakers’ ‘sexual texts’

An aide to House Speaker Mike Johnson advised Republican colleagues against subpoenaing former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson as part of their investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack in an effort to prevent the release of sexually explicit texts that lawmakers sent her.

Charisma Madarang @ Rolling Stone: Trump Brushes Off Jan. 6 Rioters Beating Cops: ‘Minor Incidents’

The president’s pardoned 1,500 individuals, including offenders convicted of violently assaulting police.

Zoë Richards @ NBC News: Trump picks father of convicted Jan. 6 rioter to serve as CEO of U.S. Agency for Global Media

L. Brent Bozell III wrote a letter last year defending his son L. Brent Bozell IV, who was charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Stephen Robinson @ Public Notice: The shitcoin presidency

Donald Trump declared on the campaign trail that he’d be a “crypto president” during his second term. He said he’d make America “the crypto capital of the planet” and a “bitcoin superpower.” His sudden and wholehearted embrace of cryptocurrency thrilled the industry, but just days before taking office, Trump surprised his crypto supporters with a cash grab that’s shameless even by his standards.

Nicole Lafond @ Talking Points Memo: Trump’s Long, Not Terribly Convincing Con On Abortion Policy Is Over

Donald Trump’s Week One actions on abortion appear to be just as brazen and trollish as his attempts on the campaign trail to convince voters he’d moderated on abortion.

Jordan Green @ Raw Story: Nashville school shooter's social media shows he embraced white supremacy

The 17-year-old who killed a female student at a high school in Nashville before taking his own life was an African-American Reserve Officers' Training Corp member who hated Black people and identified as involuntarily celibate, according to a manifesto apparently posted by him online.

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wapo phil bump 12 24

As his former attorney Michael Cohen once explained, Donald Trump often doesn’t need to tell his loyalists precisely what he expects them to do. He hints at it, nudges them and expects that they understand what is intended.

Sometimes, though, he’s more explicit.

In March, for example, he said that former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) should “go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee” — a reference to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Cheney served as vice chair of the panel.

He was responding to a preliminary report compiled by the House Administration oversight subcommittee, which Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) leads. That report, a review of the Capitol riot investigation, suggested that the select committee had withheld evidence. This triggered Trump’s recommendation of criminal charges for its members.

Loudermilk is a Trump ally whose subsequent claims that the select committee had also failed to adequately preserve evidence evolved into a Trumpworld insistence that evidence had been destroyed. This has been debunked, but Trump nonetheless referred to that idea during an interview with NBC News this month in which he again suggested that Cheney should “go to jail.”

“They deleted and destroyed a whole year and a half worth of testimony,” he falsely claimed, referring to the select committee. “I think those people committed a major crime.”

Donald Trump awake just a few hours ago posting about...

Trump warns on social media 'Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble'

vid]](https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/news/trump-warns-on-social-media-liz-cheney-could-be-in-a-lot-of-trouble/vi-AA1w59zp)

On Tuesday, the final report from Loudermilk’s subcommittee was made public. In it, the subcommittee does recommend criminal charges against Cheney, as Trump had repeatedly demanded. But — probably in recognition that the “destroyed evidence” claim was a canard — the recommendation centers on Cheney’s alleged “tampering” with one of the committee’s key witnesses.

The report’s conclusion summarizes the claim:

“Based on the evidence obtained by this Subcommittee, numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, the former Vice Chair of the January 6 Select Committee, and these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Evidence uncovered by the Subcommittee revealed that former Congresswoman Liz Cheney tampered with at least one witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, by secretly communicating with Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge. This secret communication with a witness is improper and likely violates 18 U.S.C. 1512. Such action is outside the due functioning of the legislative process and therefore not protected by the Speech and Debate clause.”

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation must also investigate Representative Cheney for violating 18 U.S.C. 1622, which prohibits any person from procuring another person to commit perjury.”

Trump, predictably, celebrated this determination, paraphrasing the vaguest snippet of that allegation on social media: “Numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the FBI.”

It’s an endorsement of a fishing expedition, a demand from Loudermilk and Trump that the FBI use this pretext to find something to pin to Cheney. But it sits alongside two actual allegations — both of them flimsy to the point of transparency.

At issue is the testimony of Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s last chief of staff when he previously served as president, Mark Meadows. Hutchinson, you will probably recall, offered shocking testimony at a June 28, 2022, hearing about Trump’s behavior on the day of the riot, including allegations about his dismissiveness about the threat posed by the crowd at his speech outside the White House that morning, Trump’s insistence on driving to the Capitol after the speech and how he responded to reports about the threat posed to Vice President Mike Pence.

That testimony, though, came about only after Hutchinson went through an internal struggle described in her 2023 book “Enough.” Hutchinson was a loyal Trump supporter and, as such, was provided by Trump’s team with an attorney, Stefan Passantino, when the select committee first subpoenaed her in January 2022.

She sat for two depositions with committee staffers in February and March of that year. Following Passantino’s advice, she didn’t volunteer information that would cast Trump in a negative light. But she began to have qualms about this approach, later reaching out to her former colleague Alyssa Farah for advice on how to proceed. Farah helped orchestrate a third deposition, in May 2022, during which Hutchinson was able to speak more freely. Her attorney was not pleased, and neither was Trumpworld.

In early June, Passantino recommended that Hutchinson stop complying with the committee’s efforts, including an anticipated fourth interview. In her book, she writes that she expected but “dreaded” Passantino forcing the issue, worried that she would be putting herself at risk of contempt charges. So, soon after, she contacted Cheney directly. Two months ago, Loudermilk’s subcommittee released some information about this communication, framing it in ethical, not legal, terms.

In a phone conversation with Cheney recounted in Hutchinson’s book, Hutchinson indicated that she intended to represent herself moving forward. Cheney recommended against doing so. When Hutchinson indicated that she’d previously had trouble identifying and affording counsel, Cheney said she would consult with her colleagues and get back to her. The next day she did, offering “contact information for multiple attorneys.” Hutchinson spoke with a number of them, ultimately deciding on attorneys Jody Hunt and Bill Jordan.

Later that month, she sat for another deposition. Freed from the constraints Passantino had encouraged, she offered much more detail on what she’d seen and, more explosively, what she’d been told about Jan. 6, 2021. The select committee quickly scheduled the aforementioned public hearing for June 28. Hutchinson would sit for recorded interviews twice more in September 2022.

The report from Loudermilk’s subcommittee twists Cheney’s role into criminal activity in two ways. The first is that her interactions with Hutchinson are described as “tampering,” citing federal witness-tampering statutes. But those are focused on inhibiting testimony (particularly through force), not on enabling it. What’s more, the report’s important claim that Hutchinson retained Hunt and Jordan “at the recommendation of Representative Cheney” ignores the nuances of the interactions both women describe in their respective books.

Much of Loudermilk’s report centers on discrepancies between Hutchinson’s testimony and the testimony of others, discrepancies that are often in part because (as Hutchinson always represented) her testimony included secondhand information. But because the subcommittee presents Hutchinson’s testimony as intentionally false, the second recommended charge against Cheney proposes that she intentionally orchestrated Hutchinson’s testimony so that the witness could provide that false information.

In a statement offered in response to the Loudermilk report, Cheney wrote that “[n]o reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take [the allegations] seriously.” And that’s probably true. But the report’s recommendation for an FBI probe will most probably be taken seriously by the incoming head of the FBI — if not Trump first choice, fervent loyalist Kash Patel, then whoever ends up being confirmed by the Senate.

Trump sent his Capitol Hill allies an unsubtle signal: Cheney must pay, even beyond her Trump-orchestrated ouster from the House. Loudermilk and his subcommittee were no doubt cognizant of that signal when they upgraded their allegations against Cheney from ethical to legal ones. And now Trump’s incoming FBI director has a trivial predicate, in case he even sought one, to start the fishing expedition that Loudermilk and Trump endorse.

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Chairman Loudermilk Responds to Former Member Liz Cheney's Baseless Claims, Debunks Claims with Receipts

December 19, 2024

WASHINGTON - Today, Committee on House Administration's Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) released the following statement.

"Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson are trying to say that my investigation has disregarded the truth of January 6, pointing to their Select Committee’s 'tremendous weight of evidence'," said Chairman Loudermilk. "We evaluated that exact weight based on their records and found it slimmer than claimed.

"Cheney claims the Select Committee's report was based on the testimony of hundreds of witnesses, whose testimony was made public. However, Cheney and Thompson did not make ALL transcripts public. They hid transcripts of first-hand witnesses who directly refuted their 'star witness' Cassidy Hutchinson's sensational story, which Cheney had personally procured.

"Americans can see the facts for themselves. That is why I have always released first-hand accounts and evidence, including today, where I am releasing the transcripts from the interview of USSS employees who directly refute Hutchinson's story. Cheney and Thompson's Select Committee conducted these interviews and had this information but chose not to release it publicly.

"Former Chairman Thompson might not be aware of these transcripts, which refute the narrative put forward by his committee, so I understand his confusion. I encourage him to read these transcripts taken by his select committee.

"I also invite Chairman Thompson to explain why the Vice Chair of his committee, Liz Cheney, was having secret conversations with the committee’s “star witness”, behind his back."

Click here to read the United States Secret Service transcripts taken, but never released, by the January 6 Select Committee under Chairman Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney.

eg ornato

suv driver

USSS Transcripts - Google Drive

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an 12 24

Throughout the course of his third bid for the White House, President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly promised to use the full powers of the federal government to prosecute his political enemies. Now, President Joe Biden appears to be taking those threats seriously.

According to a Wednesday report by Politico's Jonathan Martin, Biden is now weighing preemptive pardons for several people Trump has directly targeted, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — who won California's U.S. Senate race in November — and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who was vice chair of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

Martin wrote that Biden was "deeply concerned" about the fate of the people Trump has singled out, particularly after the president-elect nominated Kash Patel to be the next potential FBI director. According to the Hill, Patel has referred to Schiff — who led Trump's first impeachment effort — as a "government gangster," and has accused Cheney of being "the main architect of this disinformation campaign."

"[Cheney] and her band of miscreants suppressed evidence that completely exonerates the Jan. 6 defendants from their ginned-up charge of insurrection," Patel wrote in a May email.

Biden is also reportedly weighing a pardon for Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Martin didn't name any other potential recipients of a preemptive pardon, but Patel is reportedly eyeing both Democrats and Republicans alike for prosecution, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and other former Trump White House staffers who later opposed him publicly, like Sarah Isgur Flores, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Stephanie Grisham. ALSO CASSIDY H

"If it’s clear by January 19 that [revenge] is his intention, then I would recommend to President Biden that he provide those preemptive pardons to people, because that’s really what our country is going to need next year," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) told WGBH.

Journalist Eleanor Clift recently called on Biden to issue preemptive pardons for Cheney and Schiff, along with former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who also publicly opposed Trump during the 2024 election cycle. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly — who both called Trump a "fascist" — have also been recommended for pardons.

Click here to read Martin's full article for Politico in full.

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Highly-classified intel on Putin and Russia went missing in Trump’s final White House days - Alternet.org

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DEFAM CASSIDY H LORDY THERE’S PIX AN 4 24

'A picture would help': Ex-Trump aide discredits GOP’s Hunter Biden witness with one photo - Alternet.org

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an 3 23

Trump's White House ethics lawyer is looking at seeing his livelihood taken away over accusations that he tried to influence staffer Cassidy Hutchinson from giving truthful testimony to House Jan. 6 investigators.

According to a report from the Washington Post, Stefan Passantino is facing an onslaught of accusations from multiple sources that could lead to his disbarment if not worse.

It was previously reported that Passantino tried to get Hutchinson to withhold information about what was going on behind the scenes at the White House up to and after the Capitol insurrection.

Speaking to the House select committee, she was upfront about her belief that she felt he was more interested in protecting the former president before she retained her own counsel.

Her claims have come home to roost for the attorney in a new legal filing.

According to the Post, "a 22-page complaint filed on Monday with D.C.’s Board on Professional Responsibility, prominent lawyers accused Mr. Passantino of the crimes of subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and bribery. The latter referred in part to Ms. Cassidy’s allegation that his advice to say little to the panel was accompanied by assurances that she would get a 'really good job in ‘Trump world.'"

The complaint alleges, "The Office of Disciplinary Counsel should promptly initiate an investigation of Mr. Passantino’s conduct and, if the facts described above are confirmed, seek his disbarment.”

The report adds that the former White House staffer told investigators, "when Mr. Passantino announced he was her lawyer, he would not initially disclose who was paying him. He then sought to influence her testimony, she said, like by advising her to say she did not remember incidents even if she did remember some facts about them."[raed more]

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an 12 22

no lnx docs

'They will ruin my life': January 6th panel publishes additional testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson

Brandi Buchman and Daily KosStaff December 22, 2022

On Thursday, the Jan. 6 committee published two transcripts from its extensive interviews with Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump White House aide who offered some of the most damning and explosive testimony to emerge from the 18-month probe of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

When she appeared publicly before the committee this summer, Hutchinson recounted how former President Donald Trump waved off warnings from his security detail about armed people in the crowd and urged that they be allowed to pass through metal detectors unmolested. She revealed learning about how Trump had lunged at the neck of his own Secret Service agent when his request to be ferried to the Capitol after the speech at the Ellipse was denied. She recalled the secrecy of her boss, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who allegedly burned paperwork after a meeting with Rep. Scott Perry, an outspoken advocate of Trump’s Big Lie.

Hutchinson’s testimony was an embarrassment of riches for the committee, filling in blank spots left open by less-than-cooperative Trump White House officials. But the transcripts released Thursday also illuminate the huge pressure she came under by testifying.

Hutchinson told the committee that she recalled telling her mother plainly: “I’m f*cked.”

Cassidy Hutchinson Sept 14 by Daily Kos

She was “f*cked,” she said, because she was effectively trapped.

She didn’t have the ability to shell out huge sums of cash to attorneys who could represent her when she went before the committee so was stuck with Stefan Passantino, a Trump White House lawyer whose fees were being paid by the former president’s Save America political action committee.

:{:{}:

“I am completely indebted to these people,” she told her mother, the transcript shows. “And they will ruin my life Mom, if I do anything they don’t want me to do.”

[Cassidy Hutchinson Sept 15 by Daily Kos

She went to her estranged father, a Trump supporter, and asked him for help.

“I drove up to New Jersey, and I went to his house one night and begged him. It’s probably the one thing I regret in all of this, I wish I didn’t stoop to that level because it was a no— but I begged him to help me. I said I would pay him back, like, ‘name your interest rate,’” she said. “Like I just need help. And I remember saying to him, ‘you have no idea what they’re going to do to me if I have to get an attorney with Trump world,’ because he’s a very big Trump supporter, as is his own right, and I don’t—it’s not being critical, it’s just a fact. And he just didn’t get it. And I didn’t expect him to. But I just left there feeling defeated.”

:{:{}:

Passantino, she told the committee, urged her to skimp on details when answering the investigator’s questions. He advised her to mislead the committee, she said, though she stressed that he did not instruct her to lie explicitly.

:{:{}:

“I want to make this clear to you,” Hutchinson said. “Stefan never told me to lie. He specifically told me, ‘I don’t want you to perjure yourself but ‘I don’t recall’ isn’t perjury.”

:{:{}:

She remembered him adding: “They don’t know what you can and can’t recall.”

:{:{}:

He also suggested that she avoid meeting with the committee altogether when she had an appointment in June. She should consider drawing a contempt of Congress charge instead of testifying, he allegedly advised. It would be an unpleasant risk but a smaller one.

:{:{}:

Hutchinson said Passantino told her, “running to the right is better for you.”

:{:{}:

Passantino represented Hutchinson during three of her depositions before she hired a different attorney. The transcripts published on Thursday are dated Sept. 14 and Sept. 15, both dates when Passantino was not representing her. For these meetings, Hutchinson was represented by attorney Jody Hunt.

The committee has not yet published its final report in full or the complete record of its witness transcripts. Her earlier interviews under Passantino’s representation are expected to be included in that group.

When news first broke Wednesday about Passantino’s alleged advice to Hutchinson, he denied any wrongdoing in statements to reporters. Hutchinson, he said, was truthful and cooperative and he never instructed her to mislead the committee. His biography, meanwhile, has been pulled off the webpage of the law firm where he serves as partner.

:{:{}:

During her initial interviews with the committee prior to September, Hutchinson said Trump aides would reach out to her. Jason Miller and Justin Clark extended potential job offers to her after she met with the select committee for the first time. The next time she was scheduled to testify, she said Ben Williamson, an aide to her former boss Mark Meadows called her on the eve of her appearance.

:{:{}:

‘Mark wants me to let you know that he knows you’re loyal,” Williamson said in a voicemail, Hutchinson recalled. “He knows you’ll do the right thing tomorrow and that you’re going to protect him and the boss.”

:{:{}:

The “boss” was watching, Passantino would later hint to her.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/meadows-cassidy-hutchinson/

witness intim?!

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an 12 22

An ethics attorney to Donald Trump allegedly instructed former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson to lie about her own recollection of events during her notable testimony in June, CNN reports.

Stefan Passantino, who Hutchinson fired as her attorney prior to her testimony, was paid by Trump’s political action committee, Save America for his legal services. The former Deputy White House Counsel claims that many people drop their lawyers “because their interests or strategies change.”

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the committee said to CNN, “She was advised to say that she didn’t recall something when she did. So that’s pretty serious stuff.”

Passantino said in a statement to CNN that any claims of him advising Hutchinson to deceive the committee are untrue. “I represented Ms. Hutchinson honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me,” he said. “I believed Ms. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the Committee throughout the several interview sessions in which I represented her.”

The committee also alleges that the attorney provided Hutchinson’s testimony to fellow lawyers, as well as the press, despite her disapproval.

Passantino claimed, “External communications made on Ms. Hutchinson’s behalf while I was her counsel were made with her express authorization.”

Michael Best & Friefrich LLP, the law firm he’s served as partner, deleted the long-time attorney’s headshot and bio from its website this week. Although, he says “given the distraction of this matter” he’s only on “a leave of absence.” The firm maintains that they were not involved in any way and Hutchinson was never a client, according to CNN.

The Jan. 6 committee included their assessment of this matter in the executive summary of their report. “The lawyer had advised the witness that the witness could, in certain circumstances, tell the Committee that she did not recall facts when she actually did recall them,” the report says.

“When the witness raised concerns with her lawyer about that approach,” according to the summary, the lawyer said, “They don’t know what you know, [witness]. 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.”

The report continues, “The lawyer instructed the client about a particular issue that would cast a bad light on President Trump: ‘No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want to talk about that.’”

The committee stated that it will share the transcript of the witness testimony in question with the public.

cnn ref no lnx

Exclusive: Trump’s former White House ethics lawyer told Cassidy Hutchinson to give misleading testimony to January 6 committee, sources say

Katelyn Polantz Pamela Brown Jamie Gangel Jeremy Herb

Wed December 21, 2022

UNITED STATES - JUNE 28: Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testifies during the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol hearing to present previously unseen material and hear witness testimony in Cannon Building, on Tuesday, June 28, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Rep. Lofgren says executive summary will have 'very bad' previously unreleased evidence from Jan. 6 hearings

Exclusive: Trump lawyer allegedly urged WH aide to mislead Jan. 6 cmte

The January 6 committee made a startling allegation on Monday, claiming it had evidence that a Trump-backed attorney urged a key witness to mislead the committee about details they recalled.

Though the committee declined to identify the people, CNN has learned that Stefan Passantino, the top ethics attorney in the Trump White House, is the lawyer who allegedly advised his then-client, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, to tell the committee that she did not recall details that she did, sources familiar with the committee’s work tell CNN.

Trump’s Save America political action committee funded Passantino and his law firm Elections LLC, including paying for his representation of Hutchinson, other sources tell CNN. The committee report notes the lawyer did not tell his client who was paying for the legal services.

Over the summer, Hutchinson emerged as a blockbuster witness for the committee, providing key insight into Trump’s state of mind and his actions leading up to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Before her public testimony, Hutchinson dropped Passantino and got a new lawyer.

When asked about pressure on Hutchinson after Monday’s hearing, committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren, told CNN: “She was advised to say that she didn’t recall something when she did. So that’s pretty serious stuff.”

The episode is just one of several instances in which the committee has accused members of Trump’s orbit of trying to obstruct the panel’s investigation.

Two sources familiar with the situation tell CNN that Hutchinson has discussed the episode with the Justice Department. CNN has previously reported that Hutchinson was cooperating with the Justice Department’s January 6 investigation, after she became a crucial public witness in the House probe.

CNN reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

Passantino has not been accused of a crime. He said House investigators never reached out to him for an interview.

In a statement to CNN, Passantino said he didn’t advise Hutchinson to mislead the committee. “I represented Ms. Hutchinson honorably, ethically, and fully consistent with her sole interests as she communicated them to me. I believed Ms. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the Committee throughout the several interview sessions in which I represented her.”

Passantino pointed out it’s not uncommon for people to change lawyers “because their interests or strategies change,” according to his statement. He also said political committees sometimes cover client fees “at the client’s request.”

In response to an accusation from the committee that he also shared her testimony with other lawyers and the press even when she told him not to, he said, “External communications made on Ms. Hutchinson’s behalf while I was her counsel were made with her express authorization.”

By Tuesday, Passantino’s professional biography had been removed from the website of a midwestern-based law firm where he was a partner – and he acknowledged in his statement he was on a leave of absence from the firm “given the distraction of this matter.”That firm, Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, said on Tuesday it was not involved in the situation and Hutchinson wasn’t a client.

Passantino said he remains a partner at Elections LLC.

Concerns over witness tampering

The House January 6 committee, during hearings over the summer, said it was concerned about potential witness tampering. CNN has reported that witness was Hutchinson.

The committee summary stated that the panel “is aware of multiple efforts by President Trump to contact Select Committee witnesses. The Department of Justice is aware of at least one of those circumstances.”

Then on Monday, in the executive summary of the final report, the committee revisited the issue in its handoff of the investigation to the Justice Department.

According to the report, “the lawyer had advised the witness that the witness could, in certain circumstances, tell the Committee that she did not recall facts when she actually did recall them.”

“The lawyer instructed the client about a particular issue that would cast a bad light on President Trump: ‘No, no, no, no, no. We don’t want to go there. We don’t want to talk about that,’” the report said.

At the committee’s final public hearing, Lofgren said: “The witness believed this was an effort to affect her testimony, and we are concerned that these efforts may have been a strategy to prevent the Committee from finding the truth.”

Lawyers must follow extensive ethics guidelines as part of their profession, including avoiding conflicts of interest that could compromise their representation of a client. According to legal ethics experts, a lawyer swaying their client’s testimony in a way that wouldn’t be entirely truthful could be looked at as possible obstruction of an investigation.

Elections LLC, a political law practice Passantino and other Trump lawyers founded after he left the Trump White House, has received regular payments from Save America PAC and other Trump-backed groups, according to FEC filings. The Save America PAC distributions to the firm for legal consulting total more than $150,000 in 2021, and about $275,000 in 2022. The firm also has worked for major Republican congressional campaigns.

This year, Trump’s Save America PAC has made payments to several law firms representing witnesses in the January 6 and Mar-a-Lago investigation. An issue only arises if the lawyer doesn’t follow the client’s wishes, legal experts and professional rules say.

Other obstruction concerns

The committee, in its summary Monday, gave several other examples of “evidence suggesting specific efforts to obstruct” their work. They noted efforts by Trump to contact some witnesses, as well as multiple Secret Service agents hiring private lawyers rather than agency-provided lawyers who would represent them for free. A Secret Service driver’s lawyer admitted to writing notes to the driver as they testified, about what was being said, according to the committee.

The committee also said it believed some witnesses, such as Trump’s former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and the former president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, weren’t as “frank or direct” as others.

The report also said the committee believed a White House staffer Anthony Ornato “gave testimony consistent with the false account” in a book written by Mark Meadows, downplaying Trump’s wish to go to the Capitol on January 6.

The committee says it plans to release transcripts that will shed further light on the witness testimony they found to be questionable.

This story has been updated with other potential examples of obstruction identified by the committee.

CNN’s Zachary Cohen and Gabby Orr contributed to this story

---

the guy lunged at said never happened? ornato cryptic?

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beware winged monkeys

well maybe not

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/columnist-tears-apart-trumps-respons/

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7 22

Top Secret Service agents who tried to undermine former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony to the Jan. 6 committee have hired private lawyers and are refusing to cooperate with the investigation, members of the panel said over the weekend.

Hutchinson, who worked as a top aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified last month that she was told by deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato that former President Donald Trump was so irate that his security detail would not take him to the Capitol with his supporters on Jan. 6 that he lunged at Secret Service agent Bobby Engel, the head of his detail. Hutchinson said Ornato, who made the unusual leap from working at the Secret Service to working for Trump before returning as a senior Secret Service official, described the incident with Engel present and he did not dispute it.

After her testimony, journalists citing anonymous sources reported that Engel and the driver of Trump's vehicle were "prepared to testify under oath" to dispute Hutchinson's account and that Ornato denied telling Hutchinson that Trump "grabbed the steering wheel or an agent."

Hutchinson's lawyer, Jody Hunt, a former aide to Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions, said that she stood by her account and urged the Secret Service agents to testify under oath. Several witnesses, including a D.C. police officer assigned to Trump's motorcade, testified that Trump got into a "heated" confrontation with his security detail when he was told he could not go to the Capitol.

Ornato, Engel, and the unidentified driver of Trump's vehicle have since hired private counsel, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told reporters last week.

"Some of the officers said that they would be coming and talking under oath," said Lofgren, a member of the committee. "They have not come in, and they recently retained private counsel, which is unusual but they have a right to do that."

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., one of the two Republicans on the panel, told ABC News on Sunday that "it is not our decision that they have not [testified] so far."

Asked if the Secret Service is refusing to cooperate, Kinzinger replied, "that's a question you have to ask the Secret Service, you have to ask those particular people."

Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the committee's vice-chair, told that "we have not had the kind of cooperation that we really need to have" from the Secret Service.

Questions have swirled about Ornato and Engel's credibility since Hutchinson's testimony. Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, who wrote the book "Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service" during the Trump administration, told MSNBC that both men were "very, very close to President Trump."

"Some people accused them of at times being enablers and 'yes men' of the president—particularly Tony Ornato—and very much people who wanted to do what he wanted and see him pleased," she said, adding that "both of these individuals lose a little credibility because of how closely they have been seen as aligned to Donald Trump."

Ornato made an unusual transition from working for the Secret Service to working directly for Trump at the White House, serving as deputy chief of staff for operations. Former White House spokeswoman Alyssa Farah accused Ornato, who helped coordinate Trump's infamous clearing of protesters at Lafayette Square for a photo-op at a nearby church, of lying about the incident. "There seems to be a major thread here… Tony Ornato likes to lie," Kinzinger tweeted last month.

The committee members also called out the Secret Service over missing text messages from around the time of the Capitol attack. The Secret Service said that agents' text messages were deleted during a system migration in Jan. 2021. The agency turned over just one text message thread in response to a subpoena from the committee. Joseph Cuffari, the top watchdog at the Department of Homeland Security, was aware of the deleted texts since February but did not inform Congress, according to The Washington Post. Cuffari's office has since opened a criminal investigation into the destruction of the text messages, NBC News reported last week, after the committee accused the agency of potentially violating federal record-keeping laws.

The committee, which held eight televised hearings over the last six weeks and plans to hold three more in September, vowed to continue its investigation, including into the "extent to which there are no text messages from the relevant period of time," Cheney said Sunday.

"Those are all the things the committee is going to be looking at in more detail in the coming weeks," Cheney told Fox News.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/09/hutchinson-former-meadows-aide-replaces-lawyer-jan-6-hearings-00038439

no lnx

INSURRECTION FALLOUT

Hutchinson, former Meadows aide, replaces lawyer on cusp of Jan. 6 hearings

Her previous attorney has deep Trump World connections. Her new lawyer is a longtime close ally of former attorney general Jeff Sessions.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and White House legislative aide Cassidy Hutchinson dance to the song YMCA.

Former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson, right, dances with then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany after a rally on Monday, Sept. 21, 2020, in Swanton, Ohio. Jan. 6 select committee members have praised Hutchinson for providing extensive testimony behind closed doors. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo

By BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN

06/09/2022

Cassidy Hutchinson — a top aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the Trump era — has parted ways with her lawyer and brought on new representation. Her new lawyer, Jody Hunt of Alston Bird, confirmed the move to POLITICO.

:{:{}:

The change in counsel signals an increased willingness from Hutchinson to cooperate fully with the Jan. 6 select committee’s probe, according to a person familiar with her thinking. The panel has signaled that it views her as a key witness.

Hutchinson’s former attorney, Stefan Passantino, has deep Trump World connections. Her new lawyer, Jody Hunt, is a longtime close ally of Jeff Sessions and served as his chief of staff when the former attorney general enraged Trump by recusing from the Russia probe.

Select committee members have praised Hutchinson for providing extensive testimony behind closed doors, over the course of three depositions and under two different subpoenas. The Jan. 6 panel is expected to call her in for live testimony during a public hearing.

McCarthy calls Jan. 6 committee ‘a smoke screen’ for Dems to push ‘radical agenda’

SharePlay Video]

It’s unusual, though not unheard of, for people involved in high-profile congressional probes to change counsel. Hutchinson is a uniquely important witness because she has shared information about Meadows, who has refused to sit for an interview with the select panel.

Hutchinson has told investigators that Meadows was warned of potential violence before Jan. 6 and that he burned papers in his office weeks after the 2020 election. She’s also relayed that Meadows told aides of Trump, during the riot, expressing a positive view of hanging then-Vice President Mike Pence.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a select committee member, told The Washington Post earlier this month that Hutchinson “certainly rendered truthful testimony” to the panel.

Passantino, Hutchinson’s former attorney, was the Trump White House’s chief ethics lawyer. And Passantino’s firm, Michael Best, has Trump World connections; its president is former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, and Justin Clark — also a top Trump World lawyer — is currently on leave from the firm, according to its website.

Attorney Alex Cannon, who worked on the Trump campaign and with Trump’s legal team after his presidency, is also a lawyer at the firm.

Passantino declined to comment.

Biden calls Jan. 6 riot ‘flagrant violation’ of the Constitution at Summit of the Americas

SharePlay Video

Hutchinson has brought on Hunt, of Alston Bird, just before the Jan. 6 committee’s first major hearing on Thursday night. He was Sessions’ chief of staff during the first year of the Trump administration, then became head of the Justice Department’s civil division.

Hunt has generally kept a low public profile, but on Twitter he has publicly defended Sessions’ decision to recuse from the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election — a recusal that infuriated Trump.

William Jordan, a partner at the same firm as Hunt, is also representing Hutchinson.

FILED UNDER: MARK MEADOWS, JAN. 6 CAPITOL RIOT, INSURRECTION FALLOUT,

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no lnx

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/28/us/jan-6-hearing-today#trump-jan-6-mags-mob-takeaways

Witness Details Trump’s Rage and Meadows’s Inaction on Jan. 6

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to President Donald J. Trump’s final chief of staff, said Mr. Trump wanted armed protesters to move freely and that her boss, Mark Meadows, sought a pardon. A lawyer for the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas said she wouldn’t testify.

Published June 28, 2022

Updated July 12, 2022

ImageThe testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, former top aide to Mark Meadows, contained revelations about the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

The testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, former top aide to Mark Meadows, contained revelations about the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Carl Hulse

Six takeaways from Cassidy Hutchinson’s explosive testimony.

Video

Video player loading

Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, revealed new details about the actions of Donald J. Trump and his allies before, during and after a riot that breached the capitol.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The surprise hearing on Tuesday of the special House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack lived up to the drama that preceded it, providing the most detailed and intimate picture yet of President Donald J. Trump’s actions as a mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name.

The explosive and cinematic firsthand testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a trusted longtime aide of Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, portrayed the president as almost unhinged with fury when his Secret Service detail told him he could not go to the Capitol as his supporters, many of them armed, descended on it. Ms. Hutchinson said Mr. Trump knew of the threat of violence by his supporters but was unconcerned by it, since they were not targeting him; and that he sympathized with them as they chanted for the execution of Vice President Mike Pence, who had refused his entreaties to overturn the election. And she testified that senior aides had tried in vain to persuade Mr. Trump to call off the mob, but he resisted for hours. Her testimony was replete with stunning revelations.

Here are six main takeaways:

‘They are not here to hurt me.’ Trump encouraged an armed mob to go to Capitol Hill.

Upset that the crowd at his rally on Jan. 6, 2021, didn’t fill the cordoned-off space on the Ellipse, a furious Mr. Trump ordered security officials to allow people milling outside the security perimeter into the space so the event would appear well attended. Informed that some of those people were standing outside because they had weapons and didn’t want to pass through metal detectors, the president urged that they be allowed in anyway.

“They are not here to hurt me,” he said, according to Ms. Hutchinson, who was within earshot of the president at the time. Using a string of expletives, she testified, Mr. Trump said he wanted the security features removed. She also said the president had been told that the crowd of his supporters were threatening violence and had come armed including with guns, knives, spears and flagpoles, and wearing body armor. Mr. Trump encouraged them to go to the Capitol anyway, a detail that could prove legally problematic for him.

Trump refused to call off the mob.

Ms. Hutchinson provided sworn testimony of an accusation that the panel has alluded to previously — that, despite the violence at the Capitol and the threats to Vice President Mike Pence, Mr. Trump refused repeated exhortations from his staff to intervene. Responding to a series of appeals from Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, Mr. Meadows said that Mr. Trump was not inclined to try to call off the mob, according to Ms. Hutchinson’s account. “He doesn’t want to do anything,” Mr. Meadows told the White House lawyer when informed that violence was breaking out. Mr. Cipollone tried a second time, noting that the mob was chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”

“You heard him, Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it,” Ms. Hutchinson said Mr. Meadows responded. “He doesn’t think they are doing anything wrong.”

Trump had bouts of fury.

Mr. Trump was prone to rage as his attempts to get the election results overturned fell on deaf ears in his administration.

Upon learning on Dec. 1 that Attorney General William P. Barr had publicly declared the allegations of widespread voter fraud unfounded, Ms. Hutchinson said Trump slammed his lunch against a wall in his dining room in the White House, as she learned from the valet who cleaned up the broken china and ketchup dripping down the wall.

“There were several times throughout my tenure with the chief of staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go on to the floor and likely break or go everywhere,” she said of the president.

Ms. Hutchinson said she had been told that on Jan. 6, an irate Mr. Trump, when informed he could not go to the Capitol to join his supporters, sought to wrench the steering wheel away from the Secret Service agent driving him. He continued to press to head there even after they returned to the White House.

Two top Trump advisers sought pardons after Jan. 6

Mr. Meadows and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, both sought pardons from Mr. Trump before he left office in case they were implicated criminally in any events leading up to Jan. 6 or the assault itself. As she closed her testimony, Ms. Hutchinson stated very clearly that her former boss had joined Mr. Giuliani in asking for a pardon, though neither was granted one. Just their interest in obtaining clemency demonstrated they were worried about the potential consequences from their efforts on the president’s behalf.

She also testified that at one point, Mr. Cipollone said he had serious concerns about what Mr. Trump had planned that day, including his desire to march to the Capitol. “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” Ms. Hutchinson quoted Mr. Cipollone as saying.

Trump’s cabinet weighed removing him after Jan. 6

Members of the president’s Cabinet were distressed enough by the assault on the Capitol and the president’s encouragement of the mob and refusal to intervene that they quietly discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office, Ms. Hutchinson testified. The ignominious prospect of being the first president to be subject to the amendment was one of the reasons he agreed to record a video on Jan. 7 committing to a peaceful transfer of power.

The panel believes Trump is discouraging cooperation with its inquiry.

Members of the committee are hoping that Ms. Hutchinson’s willingness to come forward and provide such significant testimony will encourage others still holding back to do the same.

“To that group of witnesses, if you’ve heard this testimony today and suddenly you remember things you couldn’t previously recall, or there’s some details you’d like to clarify, or you discovered some courage you had hidden away somewhere, our doors remain open,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and chairman of the committee, said.

Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and vice chairwoman of the committee, suggested the panel had learned of attempts by Mr. Trump and his allies to influence witnesses and would be considering a response to such efforts.[...?]

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an 6 22 no twt

former President Donald Trump joined Newsmax for an interview that aired on Thursday morning in which he spewed out a laundry list of bizarre accusations against ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson,whose sworn testimony before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol on Tuesday was absolutely devastating for Trump.

A visibly agitated Trump complained about Hutchinson's recounting of his behavior during the insurrection.

"Some whack job can stay this stuff and get away with it, and other things, that I wanted guns at my rally. Okay, now I'm speaking, why would I want guns? I don't want people having, standing with guns in my rally," he said on Wake Up America.

Hutchinson recalled that Trump believed that his armed supporters were "not there to hurt me."

Trump maintained that "this woman, she wanted to work for me after January 6th. She was a big Trump fan. She wanted to work for me in Florida and we chose not to bring her down because I got very bad things."

Next, Trump repeated what he said on Tuesday – that "I hardly knew her," even though his and Hutchinson's West Wing offices were only a few yards apart. "And I said, 'well if she's no good, I got somebody called up, numerous people, that she's not good.''"

Trump then refused to say "why she's not good, plenty of reasons... she was not respected by the people in the White House. So they thought she shouldn't go down. I was going down to Florida with a group of people, great group of people, patriots, and her name was thrown out there and they said, 'stay away from her.' They said bad things about her."

Hutchinson's strange story about Trump trying to hijack his motorcade, which was told to her by Trump's then-deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato, made him particularly upset.

"And then I see her, and again, I hardly know who she is. And then I see this woman getting up and she's making up stories, like one after another, but the craziest of all was that I tried to commandeer – they used that word – I tried to commandeer a car with Secret Service agents telling them to take us down to the Capitol," Trump said. "It was totally false, and that a person can get away with it... and then I watch the Times and The Washington Post, and I get reviews on MSDNC, and CNN, they hardly even talk about the fact that she's been totally discredited."

That is untrue, given that so far, nobody has refuted Hutchinson's damning statements under oath.

Watch below via Vox's Aaron Rupar:[twt]

trump's reaction rekindled widespread suspicions that he is attempting to engage in witness tampering in order to obfuscate the truth.

===

an 6 22

a reporter who has written a book on the Secret Service shredded the credibility of a former agent who has pushed back against Cassidy Hutchinson’s bombshell testimony.

The former White House aide testified thatTony Ornato, who moved from the Secret Service to deputy chief of staff, told her that Donald Trump became irate when his security detail would not take him to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and lunged for the steering wheel of his armored SUV and physically attacked his lead agent, and Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig poured cold water on his denials.

This is a person who worked as President Trump’s security detail leader, and the boss liked him so much he installed him in a political White House job,” Leonnig told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “That broke every Secret Service tradition in the book because he stayed as a Secret Service employee, but Trump essentially had him directing the Secret Service to make sure that all of its campaigns events, all of his photo ops, everything that he wanted to do to get re-elected went off without a hitch.”

“That included paid rallies that caused COVID surges and included the forcible clearing of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square,” Leonnig continued. “Tony was the secret hand behind all of that, and that is what Trump wanted. Trump White House staffers and Secret Service agents have told me repeatedly, he’s a Trump acolyte. He will defend the president to the end, and he remains in contact with Trumpworld, so I want to stress that also Tony Ornoto has indicated that this story Cassidy Hutchinson told didn’t happen.

Well, Tony Ornato said a lot of things didn’t happen. He tried to say to the press and to me indirectly that the clearing of Lafayette Square was not done for President Trump’s photo on, that’s not true. He was at the center of that, so I take the points because they’re saying in their experience, things that we reported, Tony tried to deny.”

“The Secret Service often tries to deny things that are unflattering, and then when the rubber hits the road, we learn there is a little bit more to it,” Leonnig added. “I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and if Tony Ornato testified under oath that he exaggerated this story and it didn’t happen in the limo, forgive me, in the Suburban on Jan. 6, as she relayed, then that is important and we should take that seriously.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

===

an 6 25/22

Trump told Congressional cronies how to get pardons for aiding his bogus election scheme, GOP Rep. says

Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are panic-tweeting after revelations they sought pardons

Conservative insider denounces Republicans who wanted Trump to provide pardons for their involvement in his election scheme

Mo Brooks texts email to CBS containing instructions from Donald Trump on how to request pardons

===

perry denied, then proved? 3 more denied?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/23/5-takeaways-jan-6-hearing-trumps-doj-plot/

wapo

June 23, 2022

In the Jan. 6 committee hearing on June 23, witnesses described how President Donald Trump pressured the Justice Department to investigate election fraud. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post, Photo: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

The Jan. 6 committee on Thursday held its fifth major hearing, this one focused on President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on the Justice Department to help him overturn the election.

The plot was spearheaded within the department by an official named Jeffrey Clark, whose home federal agents searched Wednesday in a significant development that reflects the increasing legal jeopardy faced by Trump’s allies and perhaps Trump himself. Trump at one point considered installing Clark as acting attorney general to further the plot — which prompted mass resignation threats....

The Jan. 6 committee on Thursday held its fifth major hearing, this one focused on President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on the Justice Department to help him overturn the election.

Timeline: Trump's pressure on the Justice Department to overturn the election

Below, some takeaways from the hearing.

1. The pardon picture, filled out

In a video presented on June 23, Trump White House officials said that at least five House Republicans asked President Donald Trump for pardons. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

The committee has repeatedly previewed evidence that certain key players in Trump’s plot soughtpardons. Last week, one of them was revealed to be Trump lawyer John Eastman, who asked to be put on “the pardon list.” The implication from that email was that there was indeed a list that seemingly might have other names.

The committee built out its own list Thursday, adding several House Republicans to it. Here are the names and the evidence:

Reps. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) — In a Jan. 11 email from Brooks, he said he and Gaetz were suggesting pardons for everyone who objected to the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. White House lawyer Eric Herschmann also said he believed that Gaetz had requested a pardon. White House aide John McEntee said Gaetz told him he asked for one from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows, also testified to the effort by Brooks and Gaetz, saying that Gaetz had been seeking a pardon “since early December” and that he reached out to her personally.

Days after the Capitol attack and the final attempt to overturn the election, Members of Congress requested pardons.

Five days after the attack on the Capitol, Representative Mo Brooks requested pardons for himself, Representative Gaetz, and others. pic.twitter.com/f0xLm5SKtT

— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 23, 2022

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) — Hutchinson testified that he requested a pardon.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) — Hutchinson testified that he requested a pardon.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — Hutchinson said that she had heard that Greene had asked the White House counsel’s office for a pardon from deputy counsel Pat Philbin but that Greene hadn’t asked her personally.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) — Hutchinson testified that he requested a pardon.

Perry has flatly denied seeking a pardon, calling it “a shameless, soulless lie,” but Hutchinson said he talked to her directly about it.

Hutchinson also said that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), whom House Republicans tried to put on the committee before Democrats objected, talked with the White House about congressional pardons but that she was unaware of him asking for one.

What John Eastman and ‘the pardon list’ means

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/jeanine-pirro-smear-cassidy-hutchinson/

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