Now we see why they're so keen to dismiss Cassidy Hutchinson

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.

[...]

In a meeting following the June conversation, Johnson (R-Louisiana.) and senior aides also conveyed to Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia) and members of his staff that issuing a subpoena to Hutchinson and asking her to testify under oath would serve as another opportunity for her to retell her story and potentially embarrass the Trump White House, according to two people present for the meeting.

  WaPo

"Before that meeting, a Johnson aide told Loudermilk’s staff that multiple colleagues had raised concerns with the speaker’s office about the potential for public disclosure of 'sexual texts from members who were trying to engage in sexual favors' with Hutchinson."

  MSN

Let's see them.



...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

No wonder he wanted to cooperate

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Mark Meadows will likely be wearing orange one day

Among other things...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Add witness tampering to the charges

[January 6 witness testimony transcripts] reveal how much pressure [WH aide Cassidy] Hutchinson was placed under to remain “loyal” and “in the family” ahead of testimony that established to many that the hearings were a telling and horrific examination of the events on or around January 6.

Her lawyer had told her, “we just want to focus on protecting the president” and she was told, she informed the panel in testimony in September – two months after her public appearance – that she would be “taken care of” if only she followed their desired script.

“I was scared,” she told investigators. “I almost felt like at points Donald Trump was looking over my shoulder.”

[...]


In her testimony, she said she’d accepted the help of former Trump White House ethics counsel Stefan Passantino who, Hutchinson claims, encouraged her to fail to recall some events during the interviews. That claim, made under oath, could provide federal investigators with evidence of witness tampering.

“The less you remember, the better,” Hutchinson recalled Passantino telling her. “Don’t read anything to try to jog your memory. Don’t try to put together timelines … Especially if you put together timelines, we have to give those over to the committee.”

[...]

“We’re gonna get you a really good job in Trump world,” Passantino told her, Cassidy testified. “We’re gonna get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family”.

[...]

Hutchinson also testified that an array of Trump officials, including her former boss and then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, had promised that loyalty would be beneficial to her.

[...]

After the second session, Hutchinson said her testimony was shared with others in the Trump orbit. It was, she said, “the first clear indicator for me of he doesn’t care about what I want, he doesn’t care about what I think is best for me, he’s doing what he thinks is best for Trump and the people in Trump’s orbit”.

[...]

According to transcripts, Hutchinson has felt uneasy about Passantino’s advice to downplay what she knew and that she had struggled between repeating testimony she had offered in February and March, replete with “I cannot recall” statements.

Without telling Passantino, Hutchinson contacted former White House aide Alyssa Farah Griffin to ask to act as a backchannel to the committee so they could call her back in a third time and know what questions to ask her. “If I’m going to pass the mirror test for the rest of my life, I need to try to fix some of this,” she testified in September, referring to wanting to be able to look at her own reflection without feeing shame.

But, she said, she “knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything he would find disloyal,” she testified. “And the prospect of that genuinely scared me. You know, I’d seen this world ruin people’s lives or try to ruin people’s careers.”

[...]

Hutchinson changed attorneys to Jody Hunt, a longtime confidant of Jeff Sessions, the former Republican senator from Alabama who had served as Trump’s first attorney general.
  Guardian

Well, lookie here

Ooooh.  Let me guess:  they gave him the "opportunity to resign"

According to Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who serves on the [January 6] panel, committee members have stressed their desire to speak with Ornato and he has retained private counsel. It’s not clear whether Ornato will end up testifying related to the claims from Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Sources told CNN that Ornato had been eligible for retirement since earlier this summer, and he had been discussing leaving the Secret Service since before Hutchinson’s testimony.

  CNN

Whatever.

....but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

[...] just two days before his planned interview with January 6 investigators.

[...]

Ornato had finally agreed to an interview with Department of Homeland Security investigators on August 31 after multiple attempts to arrange one. According to a memo sent by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General to the head of the Secret Service, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and DHS general counsel, the inspector general had been attempting to interview Ornato since June 29 and spent all of July and much of August following up.

[...]

Ornato has indicated that he still intends to attend the interview, according to an email obtained by The Intercept, but since Ornato will be a private citizen, investigators won’t have testimonial subpoena authority to compel his cooperation.

  Intercept

Well, well, well

Update on Tony Ornato

Trump and Secret Service agent Tony Ornato are saying Cassidy Hutchinson lied in her recent testimony before the January 6 Committee.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE :  Shakeup at the Secret Servivce

Trumpworld is a mob organization

Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson received at least one message tacitly warning her not to cooperate with the House January 6 select committee from an associate of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The message in question was the second of the two warnings that the select committee disclosed at the end of its special hearing when Hutchinson testified about how Donald Trump directed a crowd he knew was armed to march on the Capitol, the sources said.

“[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition,” read the message. The redaction was Meadows, the sources said.

  

Witness tampering.

The exact identity of the person who sent Hutchinson the message – beyond the fact that they were an associate of Meadows – could not be confirmed on Thursday, but that may be in part because the select committee may wish to interview that person, the sources said.

I should hope so.

The other message was also directed at Hutchinson, the sources said; the quote displayed on the slide was one of several calls from Trump allies that Hutchinson recounted to House investigators.

“What they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a team player, they know that I’m on the team, I’m doing the right thing, I’m protecting who I need to protect, you know, I’ll continue to stay in the good graces in Trump World,” the slide read.

“And they reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind as I proceeded through my depositions and interviews with the committee.”

Typical mob move.

Politico, which first reported that the message to Hutchinson came from an associate of Meadows, also reported that it came before her second interview with the select committee. Hutchinson changed lawyers before her fourth deposition that preceded her public testimony.

Smart woman.  And I expect that prompted the last-minute emergency public hearing.

Turning tide

While there remain hardline Trump supporters who still stand by the former president and dismissed Hutchinson's testimony as "hearsay," some others who previously defended him have started to change their tune.

Mick Mulvaney, Trump's former Acting Chief of Staff, explicitly stated that he can no longer support Trump in the wake of Hutchinson's testimony.

[...]

Sarah Matthews, a deputy press secretary in the Trump administration, tweeted that those who are attempting to downplay Hutchinson's role or her access in the West Wing "either doesn't understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they're scared of how damning this testimony is."

Even the Rupert Murdoch press, which includes some of the staunchest supporters of Trump, appeared to acknowledge the damage Hutchinson's testimony inflicted.

[...]

Conservative lawyer and frequent Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy wrote an opinion piece for the Murdoch-owned New York Post arguing that the case to charge Trump with a crime "appears to be getting stronger" following Hutchinson's testimony.

[...]

McCarthy previously defended Trump around the time of his first impeachment. He wrote a book attacking Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference at the 2016 election, as well as the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Obama administration, entitled Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.

The Washington Examiner, another right-wing news outlet, published an editorial arguing that Hutchinson's testimony shows that Trump is "unfit to be anywhere near power ever again."

[...]

On Tuesday, Fox News anchor Bret Baier described Hutchinson's claims as "compelling" while highlighting the alleged quote from Meadows, stating Trump "doesn't care" that his supporters were chanting "hang Mike Pence" at the Capitol because he believes the then-vice president "deserves it."

Baier went on to dismiss the series of posts Trump wrote on Truth Social while Hutchinson was delivering her testimony.

"Cassie Hutchinson is under oath on Capitol Hill. The president is on Truth Social making his statements," Baier said.

[...]

"For the first time since the hearings started, no one is dismissing this," [a] Trump aide said.

  MSN

Who pays the lawyers?

Good for her.  And Trump had something to say about it, too.

'She changed lawyers a couple of days ago, and with it, her story totally changed! SHOCKER???' the ex-president alleged.

  Daily Mail

She didn't change her story; she told it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The plot thickens

Investigative journalist and author Carol Leonnig [...] spoke to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow following testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson in the Tuesday Jan. 6 Committee hearing.

[...]

"There was a very large contingent of Donald Trump's detail who were personally cheering for [Joe] Biden to fail," she said.

  Newsweek

That isn't surprising.

"Some of them even took to their personal media accounts to cheer on the insurrection and the individuals rioting up to the Capitol, as patriots. That is problematic.

"I am not saying that Tony Ornato or Bobby Engel did that but they are viewed as being aligned with Donald Trump, which cuts against them.

[...]

"The second part I would stress is both of these individuals, Bobby Engel and Tony Ornato were very close to President Trump.

"Some people accused them of, at times, being yes-men and enablers of the President, particularly Tony Ornato.

"People who wanted to do what [Trump] wanted and see him pleased.

"That was frustrating to agents that were more focussed on security or being independent or good planning.

"So both of these individuals lose a little bit of credibility because of how closely they have been seen as aligned to Donald Trump

UPDATE 7/8:  Shakeup at the Secret Servivce

Not good

Senior Secret Service agents are reportedly prepared to testify that Donald Trump did not lunge for the wheel of his vehicle or physically attack the chief of his security detail after his speech near the White House on January 6 – as a former aide said he did in sworn testimony on Tuesday.

[...]

CNN and other outlets reported the pushback on the alleged Secret Service incident from Tony Ornato, who was also a deputy chief of staff in the Trump White House, and Robert Engel, who was Trump’s security chief.

[...]

Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post, author of two books on the Trump administration and a history of the Secret Service, Zero Fail, said: “Sources tell me agents dispute that Donald Trump assaulted any agent or tried to grab the steering wheel on Jan 6. They agree Trump was furious about not being able to go to Capitol with his supporters. They offer to testify under oath.”

[...]

[According to Cassidy Hutchinson's Tuesday testimony,] Trump allegedly told Engel: “I’m the fucking president. Take me up to the Capitol now.”

When he was turned down, Hutchinson said, Trump tried to seize the steering wheel. Engel grabbed his arm and said: “Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.”

Hutchinson said “Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel and when Mr Ornato recounted the story to me he motioned towards his clavicles”. Questioned by Liz Cheney, the committee deputy chair, Hutchinson said Engel did not dispute the account when Ornato relayed it.

  The Guardian

The Committee should have known before taking Hutchinson's testimony public whether these people would back her up.

Former White House chief of staff MICK MULVANEY: “This is explosive stuff. … I know her. I don’t think she is lying.”

  Politico

I don't think she is, either. It seems much more likely that the Secret Service agents want to avoid any backlash in their employment for tattling on the president.

UPDATE:  Further evidence for the more likely scenario.

Hutchinson’s attorneys, Jody Hunt and William Jordan of Alston Bird, issued a statement on Hutchinson’s behalf Wednesday defending her testimony.

“Ms. Hutchinson stands by all of the testimony she provided yesterday, under oath, to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” they said.

[...]

The Jan. 6 committee didn’t reach out to the Secret Service in the days before it aired explosive testimony about an alleged physical altercation between Donald Trump and his security detail on the day of the riot, according to an agency spokesperson.

[...]

“[W]e were not asked to reappear before the Committee in response to yesterday’s new information and we plan on formally responding on the record,” he wrote in an email. “We have and will continue to make any member of the Secret Service available.”

[...]

Earlier this year, the committee already asked the head of Trump’s detail on Jan. 6 — who was with Trump riding from the “Stop the Steal” rally to the White House that day — about that car trip. That agent, Robert Engel, gave testimony at the time that appears to be consistent with Hutchinson’s story but is not known to include the stunning details Hutchinson described.

  Politico

Let's get them into the hearings, under oath.

But here's a more troublesome bit:

With respect to the handwritten note’s authorship, a spokesperson for Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann has disputed part of Hutchinson’s Tuesday testimony. She told the select panel that she wrote the note about a statement for Trump to give on Jan. 6 calling for rioters to leave the Capitol, at the direction of then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows after he met with Herschmann. (The statement in question was never issued.)

“The handwritten note that Cassidy Hutchinson testified was written by her was in fact written by Eric Herschmann on January 6, 2021,” said a spokesperson for Herschmann. “All sources with direct knowledge and law enforcement have and will confirm that it was written by Mr. Herschmann.”

[...]

“While we understand that she and Mr. Herschmann may have differing recollections of who wrote the note, what’s ultimately important is that both White House officials believed that the President should have immediately instructed his supporters to leave the Capitol building,” [a Jan. 6] spokesperson said.

Maybe they both wrote similar notes, but shouldn't that be easy enough to determine? I mean, it was hand written. There was some mention of a word that was crossed out, and perhaps Herschmann asked for the note and edited it.  The note was projected on the big screen behind the panel, and when asked, Hutchinson told the Committee at the hearing that it was her handwriting.  I don't think it's likely she would lie about that.

UPDATE:

The January 6 Committee posted a video of Trump leaving the ellipse in his limo.  It is being said that it shows him moving his hands toward the driver.  I can't make it out, only can see rapid movement inside the vehicle, but I feel sure the Committee has determined it backs up Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony.

UPDATE 7/1:

UPDATE 7/8:  Shakeup at the Secret Servivce

UPDATE 7/21:

January 6th hearing #6

I don't know why it was important to call a special hearing today to get Cassidy Hutchinson's live testimony on the record (perhaps there's something on the DOJ's schedule they're aiding*), but the thing that I'm going to remember about it - and I'm willing to bet I won't be the only one - is that Donald Trump had tantrums where he threw plates of food against the wall, and he tried to choke someone who told him he couldn't go to the Capitol with the insurrectionists.

Other notable points:

Renato is a former prosecuting attorney.  (As is @Popehat.)

Joyce Vance was also a federal prosecutor:

Aaron Rupar's coverage of the hearing with video clips begins here:

Full hearing here.

Unsurprising GOP reaction, dismissive - and plain wrong:

And the totally expected response of Donald Trump:

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Previous hearing

UPDATE:

Read the thread here.

*UPDATE:  A more likely reason may be that Hutchinson was getting extreme pressure and/or threats:

This ought to make the July hearings viewer numbers rocket.

Next hearing (July 12)

UPDATE 6/29:  Not good.  It's being reported that the Secret Service agents involved in Hutchinson's story about Trump's actions in the limo are willing to testify in contradiction to her account.

UPDATE 7/8:  Shakeup at the Secret Servivce