Release of Select Committee Materials

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Part 1 of 5

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C.

INTERVIEW OF: CASSIDY HUTCHINSON

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

Washington, D.C.

The interview in the above matter was held at Alston & Bird, 950 F Street NW, Washington, D.C., commencing at 1:14 p.m.

Present: Representative Cheney.

Appearances:

For the SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL:

[DELETE] DEPUTY STAFF DIRECTOR
[DELETE] SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE COUNSEL
[DELETE] SENIOR COUNSELOR TO THE VICE CHAIR

For CASSIDY HUTCHINSON:

JODY HUNT
BILL JORDAN
STEPHEN SIMRILL
ALICIA BADLEY
Alston & Bird
The Atlantic Building
950 F Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20004-1404

[DELETE] All right. Let's go on the record.

It's September 14th at 1:14 p.m. eastern time, and this is a transcribed interview of Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson.

This is conducted by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol pursuant to House Resolution 503.

Ms. Hutchinson, we've met before, but could you please identify yourself and spell your last name for the record?

Ms. Hutchinson. Cassidy Jacqueline Hutchinson, H-u-t-c-h-i-n-s-o-n.

[DELETE] Thank you.

And, counsel, if you could introduce yourself for the record as well.

Mr. Hunt. Sure. Jody Hunt, Alston & Bird.

Mr. Jordan. Bill Jordan from Alston & Bird.

Mr. Simrill. Stephen Simrill from Alston & Bird.

Ms. Badley. Alicia Badley from Alston & Bird.

[DELETE] Great. Thank you all.

We have met with you and had several interviews with you since February, and you testified, of course, publicly in June. But I do want to take a moment to introduce us again for you so you know who's in the room, and then also go through some of the ground rules with which you're already familiar.

But my name is [DELETE] . I'm a senior investigative counsel with the select committee. And with me today is [DELETE] who is our chief counsel for the committee; [DELETE] who is of counsel to the vice chair for the select committee; and, of course, Ms. Cheney, vice chair of the select committee.

So the ground rules are going to be the same as we've gone over before, but just to go over them again briefly.

There is an official reporter. There's actually two in the room today. Only one of them is taking the official record at a time, though. And they are taking the record via stenography, so please, while they take things down, wait until my questions are done, and we'll wait for your questions -- or your answers to be complete until we ask our next question.

And as a reminder, the stenographers can't take down nonverbal responses, such as shaking your head, so it is important, and we ask that you answer with audible, verbal responses.

You've been good about this in the past, and if my questions aren't clear, please ask to clarify them, and I'd be happy to do so. And if there's something that you don't recall, please just simply say that as well.

And, finally, I do want to remind you that it is unlawful to deliberately provide false information to Congress.

Do you have any questions about any of the ground rules or anything we just went over?

Ms. Hutchinson. I do not.

[DELETE] Okay. Very good.

Is there anything that you'd like to put on the record before we begin?

Mr. Hunt. I don't believe so.

Mr. Jordan. No.

[DELETE] Okay.

Part of this interview is going to be about previously privileged information in the relationship that you had with your former counsel, and we understand that you want to provide that and think that it's helpful for our understanding of testimony and the facts as the select committee is developing them from not only you, but potentially others as well.

EXAMINATION

BY [DELETE]

Q So I do first want to bring up exhibit No. 46, which is in the binder in front of you.

And that is a letter, for the benefit of the record, it's addressed to [DELETE] of the committee, from Joseph Hunt, your attorneys here at Alston & Bird, and it indicates that you have made a decision to waive the attorney-client privilege in order to share information with the committee that's relevant to your prior testimony.

Is that correct?

A This is correct.

Q Okay. And are you comfortable sharing the information that you have related to your prior relationship with your former counsel with the select committee today?

A Yes, sir.

Q And we understand that the information that you've -- you're going to provide, you've also provided to the Department of Justice before today. Is that right?

A That's correct.

Q Okay. We do have a question about payment of fees. We think that's a relevant area for the select committee to investigate and understand how it is that some folks within the former President's associates and the world -- some folks that are close to him have helped certain witnesses who have appeared before the committee obtain counsel and pay for fees. And I know Ms. Cheney has a question about that for you today.

Ms. Cheney. And we also, just as [DELETE] said, we recognize that you've not waived attorney-client privilege with respect to your current representation.

And so the question we have is just whether or not you all are willing on the record to talk about how the fees are being paid currently. Is someone paying those fees? Are they being provided pro bono?

Mr. Jordan. They are pro bono with respect to fees and costs and for all purposes.

Ms. Cheney. Thank you very much.

[DELETE] So at this point, as we discussed earlier, I'm going to step out and turn things over to [DELETE] and [DELETE] and Representative Cheney.

Ms. Hutchinson. Thank you.

Ms. Cheney. Thanks, [DELETE]

Ms. Cheney. So, Cassidy, thank you again, as [DELETE] said, very much for being here today. Thank you for your willingness to come in and talk to us about your prior counsel and prior representation.

Can you start by describing the process that you went through when you were first notified that you were going to be asked to come testify in front of the committee?

Ms. Hutchinson. So I was publicly -- well, in a press release on November -- Tuesday, November 9th, 2021, that I was subpoenaed to testify before the January 6th Committee. And in the days leading up to receiving the subpoena I sort of had -- I at least had a gut instinct that I would be subpoenaed at some point. I obviously didn't know when. So I had been thinking about finding an attorney, but I hadn't really started the search until I was in that press release. I had not yet been served.

So immediately upon receiving that press release, I began reaching out to people that I previously worked with to try to find an attorney who would either work for me pro bono -- which I made clear to most people I spoke with that I really needed somebody pro bono for financial reasons -- or for a low cost.

I knew also at the time, though, because I wasn't working, that if it was somebody that could work for me at a low cost, I'd be extremely grateful, but I probably would have to take it on incremental payments because I couldn't afford to pay a fee up front.

So I was thoroughly up front about my financial situation and not wanting to go back to Trump world to ask for representation. I wanted to be able to do this on my own, and I didn't want to feel like I was using an attorney in Trump world where I'd potentially have to be responding to their interests as well.

So the first person I had reached out to was Liz Horning, who worked in the White House Counsel's Office in the Trump administration through January 20th, and because I knew that she would have attorney connections in D.C.

Liz connected me with Pat Philbin, because I didn't want to reach out to Pat Philbin or Pat Cipollone on my own, I wanted to sort of have that bridge, because I knew they also probably would be speaking with the committee. And before that, I just wasn't sure, like, if that would put them in a fickle position.

So Liz connected me with Pat Philbin, and Pat Philbin connected me with Mike Purpura. Mike Purpura gave me the first tranche of names of attorneys to reach out to, and then Liz also connected me with an individual named James Burnham, who previously worked in the Trump Department of Justice.

So I had a fairly extensive list of attorneys. Throughout the month of November I interviewed, I don't have the exact number, but probably between and 50 attorneys. I would talk to attorneys and then ask them also for attorney connections, not in a -- I hope they didn't take that in an offensive way. It was more of a, "Just in case it doesn't work out, can you please -- can you help me find somebody else?" And most were willing to.

By mid- to late November, I had found one attorney whose name is Andrew White of Silverman Thompson Slutkin & White, who Mike Purpura connected me with, and he agreed tentatively that they would be able to work something out, likely pro bono or at an extremely low cost.

This seemed like a great option to me. I met with him for about three and a half hours at his office in Baltimore, Maryland, and he had said that he wanted to formalize the attorney-client relationship once I had been served my subpoena. He said there was a chance that I wouldn't be served a subpoena and in that case it wasn't necessary to put anything in writing yet.

So once I had had that conversation with Andy, I sort of tapered off my conversations with other people.

And so, kind of moving through the timeline with respect to finding an attorney, I received a call from -- or I received a text message from [DELETE] of the January 6th Committee on Thursday, December 16th, asking about serving my subpoena, or he said, "If you want to chat about meeting [inaudible]." Sorry.

So I called Andy that night, and he was sort of the same advice. "Ignore him. Like, if they reach out or if they serve you, like, they know how to find you. If they serve -- end up serving you, let me know, and then we can formalize our agreement."

So I said, "Okay."

And that's pretty much it through the end of January, because, in my mind, I had felt that "if, slash, when" I was served a subpoena, I would retain Andy officially.

And so I'm just trying to see. On Tuesday, January 25th, Ben Williamson had his deposition with the January 6th Committee. And once I found out that he was going in -- or I think I found out that morning that he had his deposition or his interview that day, and in my mind I knew that it was only a matter of time before I'd get served. And I received a text message from [DELETE] later that day, and he had said that he had the subpoena ready for me, that the marshals were prepared to deliver it.

So this was when I started, like -- I don't want to say -- I was getting more nervous, because I hadn't retained Andy, but I also in my mind still thought that I could.

I was served the subpoena Wednesday, January 26th. I went and saw Andy in person on Thursday, January 27th.

So I called Andy on the 26th, told him I was served, asked if I could come in to meet with him to sign the engagement letter.

He said, "Sure."

I let him know that my financial situation hadn't changed.

He said, "Don't worry. We're going to take care of you. Don't worry about it."

I get there, and there was a retainer letter prepared for $150,000, I believe. I'd have to go back and double-check the number. I actually don't even think I have it. think I left it there. But I remember I walked in, and I looked at Andy, and I was like, "This is not what we talked about."

And then he sort of went through a brief explanation of things have changed from our original conversation. Mark started -- Mr. Meadows started stonewalling the committee. He withdrew his cooperation. And then he was held in contempt. He was like, "There is a little bit more of a spotlight on this now. I have to keep the lights on here."

So I sort of just, like -- I didn't tell him that day that we weren't working together, but I just walked out. And I said, "I'll be in touch," and I never talked to him again.

So, as I left, I called Liz Horning. I was like, "I need to start my attorney search again."

She was like, "Well, we pretty much exhausted our resources finding attorneys, like, in non-Trump-world-related attorneys, and, like, let me know if you need anything else."

So I started reaching out to other people in the administration. I started to -- I talked to Paul Teller, who worked -- previously worked for the Vice President, President; Chris Hodgson, who previously worked for the Vice President; Ben Napier, who worked for -- who works for Steve Scalise on Capitol Hill; Steve Castor, who works in the House Judiciary Committee, to try to get more attorney connections, which I received a lot, and I sort of just restarted the same process that I had begun in November.

In the same time period, so Thursday, January 27th, I'm talking -- I was speaking with Liz Horning. She had suggested that I reach out to Matt Schlapp because Matt Schlapp was running the First America Fund, I believe is what it's called. And she said that it was probably time to reach out to Trump world, that it was -- we're hitting a point where it was necessary for me to do so.

I -- just to -- if --I know I'm going a little out of order, but this is what the top lines of this follow-up say. This, too, I'll go back, because I know that there is some text messages in here, too, that may be a little bit more specificity, but -- so, on Thursday, January 27th, she said that she was going to like potentially reach out to Trump world people for me if I hadn't found someone in the next few days. So I continued these conversations.

Ms. Cheney. Cassidy, can I just -

Ms. Hutchinson. Yes.

Ms. Cheney. So with respect to Liz Horning, she was somebody that you had been friends with before?

Ms. Hutchinson. She was one of my closest friends at the White House -

Ms. Cheney. And--

Ms. Hutchinson. And throughout the post-election, first -- 2021.

Ms. Cheney. And when you first connected with her, did you tell her, "I need somebody who is not in Trump world," or--

Ms. Hutchinson. I did.

Ms. Cheney. And--

Ms. Hutchinson. I told her that I didn't want to use a Trump world attorney and I wanted to do it on my own. And she understood. She never questioned that.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. There is one point where -- it's a little out of order, but if we go back to Friday, December 3rd, Liz was in town. She currently works for Pat Cipollone, and -- but she lives in Kentucky, so she commutes to D.C. to work sometimes.

Her and I had dinner -- Liz and I had dinner on Friday, December 3rd. And her husband -- now husband, then fiance -- Derek Lyons, who was the White House staff secretary, had his interview or deposition on or around Friday, December 3rd, from what I understood from Liz.

Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh.

Ms. Hutchinson. And, while we were at dinner, I spoke with her about -- well, one, about how I was grateful that I potentially was going to work with Andy White. But, two, she had talked about Derek's interview a little bit, and that's the first that I had heard somebody telling me that the committee was asking questions about me.

And she said, "But don't worry. Derek talked it down a little bit, like the committee has the wrong idea about all of this. He's taking care of you. Don't worry. Like we're all on the same page about that."

And I remember thinking -- and I don't remember if this is exactly how I said it, but I said something to her like, "Well, what is there that needs to be taken care of, like." And she said, "Well, they just think that you're -- that you have a lot more insight than you do on things."

And I think I just had left it at that point. I didn't really -- and that was the only time in this time period, in its current form -- you know, looking back, I think some of the conversations Liz and I had were a little bit more intentionally driven to kind of bring me back into Trump world, but I just wasn't thinking that at the time. But that was a conversation I had where I thought it was kind of bizarre, one, that Derek would do that, but, two, that she would even bring it up with me.

Ms. Cheney. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, Cassidy, in terms of your perspective on Liz Horning now?

Ms. Hutchinson. The last text that I ever received from Liz Horning was the day before my live testimony [June 28, 2022] when there was a press release about there being an "unnamed" witness. And, for the record, I'm putting air quotes around unnamed. And she sent a text message, and I -- I'm -- still have -- I believe it said, "Please tell me you're not the effing witness tomorrow."

And I remember showing that to my lawyers, and believe you had said -- I believe said something like, "Well, why would she say something like that?" And the tone -- again, I just was -- we had kept in contact. Liz and I didn't have a bad relationship. Nothing had happened.

And so, in my mind, I was just thinking, "Oh, she is worried that I got called to testify. She's worried about me." But, looking back now, you know, I sort of think -- and this is speculation. I haven't had a conversation with her since then.

Because she works for Pat Cipollone, you know, I think that she has an increased sense of loyalty to him. And I think that, looking back on all of this, I think that -- again, this is speculation -- but I think that there were people in Trump world who were a little more worried about me being more forthcoming with the committee because of the access and insight that I had into what was happening throughout these months, and I also was somebody that was sort of untethered to Trump world at this time.

So I'm not trying to say that, you know, they were laser focused on me specifically, but I think that Liz also kind of saw me as that link that could potentially put Pat in a position -- Pat Cipollone in a position that he wasn't wanting to be in, and she was trying to keep tabs on things for him.

And, again, because I haven't spoken to her since my live testimony or that day -- I mean, I didn't respond to her that day, but, since we haven't had a conversation since then, it kind of just solidified.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. So you had dinner with her. And so, just -- I'm sorry. Continue in terms of --

Ms. Hutchinson. No, you're fine. I'm sorry I backtracked there.

Ms. Cheney. No, no. It's very helpful.

Ms. Hutchinson. So I spend the next -- now I'm on Friday, January 28th. I spent the next several days meeting with attorneys in person and on the phone. And there were a lot that I really liked. There were two that I had -- I spoke with that I wanted to retain.

The first was Bob Driscoll. And Bob -- when I had an in-person -- I spoke with Bob in November, ended up liking Andy White a little bit more. So I was going to go with Andy.

Met with Bob Driscoll Friday, January 28th, and this is the first that I had heard -- he had suggested to me that I reach out to Trump world, because, if I was going to retain him, he would want Trump world to pay the legal bills, because he had clients that were also being represented before the January 6th Committee who were having their legal bills paid for by Trump world. And he had said -- you know, I don't think he was trying to sway me in that direction, but he had said, "You should definitely do the same thing."

So I don't know if it was for financial reasons for me, if he was looking out for me, or if it was more for him -- Bob trying to keep everything under the same umbrella.

And the second attorney that I really liked, his name was Mark Epley of Arnold & Porter. And I had these two names ready to go.

So then we hit, Tuesday, February 1st. And at this point I'm still starting to get worried, though, because I'm -- I didn't want to reach out to Trump world about paying for Bob. He had a higher retainer. Mark Epley was working on getting it pro bono, but otherwise it was going to be a $125,000 retainer.

So I just didn't have a response. My document deadline date was approaching, and I kind of was starting to freak out.

So on Tuesday, February 1st -- I'm sorry, I know that this is a lot of detail here. But Tuesday, February--

Ms. Cheney. Don't worry about apologizing.

Ms. Hutchinson. Tuesday, February 1st, I had another conversation with Liz Horning -- oh, I'm sorry. I have to backtrack really briefly.

Liz Horning, on Sunday, January 30th, suggested that I reach out to Mr. Meadows about getting my legal bills paid for, either by him or somebody at the Conservative Partnership Institute or somebody that he had connections with.

She had also suggested that, throughout the month of November, but I didn't -- I didn't even have Mark's -- Mr. Meadows' new cell phone number in my phone. I didn't want it in my cell phone. I didn't want there ever be a question of we had -- we communicated after January 20th, because we had not. But she had told me that, if push came to shove and I had to reach out to Trump world, I should have -- I should be able to demonstrate that I at least tried to communicate with Mark.

So I sent Mark a text and said -- I think this is the exact phrasing, I don't have it in front of me -- but, "Hey, Mark, it's Cass. Can you give me a call when you have a moment, or can you give me a call in the next few days when you have a moment?" never heard back from him.

So I text Liz on Tuesday, February 1st, and say, "I never heard back from Mark. don't know what to do."

And she said, "Let me make a few calls."

And then she had said, "You need to contact Matt Schlapp," or Matt Schlapp's team. So she provided Laura Nassim's (ph) number, who -- Laura Nassim (ph) is Matt Schlapp's assistant. And she had said also simultaneously -- so she instructed me to reach out to Matt Schlapp's operation. And she said -- she had called both Pam Bondi and Eric Herschmann.

Pam Bondi at the time was employed by Mr. Trump's PAC. I don't know if she still is, and I'm not sure if Eric Herschmann is employed by Trump Organization or a Trump PAC, but he's in Trump world. Liz let me know that they were both going to reach out to me.

Eric had called me that night, said that he was working on logistics and that somebody would be in touch with me in the coming days. Didn't specific who.

Pam said that she was working on logistics with Susie Wiles, suggested that I sort of paper trailed Susie Wiles like I did with Matt Schlapp's organization just to get things in writing so they could get things moving for me.

Ms. Cheney. Can you tell us about the conversation with Mr. Herschmann?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah. So he called me on Signal, and it wasn't -- it wasn't a long conversation. It was -- I don't remember it being more than maybe minutes. He didn't really give me any details. He had just said something like, "Hey, I'm so sorry that we haven't taken care of you yet. We didn't know you didn't have an attorney yet. Why didn't you reach out sooner? Well, don't worry about that now. Like, we have things moving. Like, we'll be in touch. I'll call you in a couple of days to connect you with somebody."

And I -- I mean, I was extremely grateful, too. I -- you know, because, in this -- at this time, I'm in the mindset of it wasn't ideal, but maybe I've been overthinking this whole I don't want to go back to Trump world notion, and it especially would be ideal if, you know, I could choose my attorney and they could pay the bill, because Mark Epley at that point was a good option.

I still liked Bob Driscoll, but Mark Epley was a good option, because he didn't have -- he wasn't tethered to Trump world in any way.

At the time in my conversations with him, Arnold & Porter didn't have any other January 6th Committee clients, so it was sort of a sweet spot for me where I found a good lawyer who had the Republican connections that I knew Trump world would look for.

So I just was kind of hoping I could submit a name, and they would approve and he -- the bills would be paid.

Ms. Cheney. With respect to Mr. Herschmann, were you surprised by this phone call? Did you know he was going to be calling you?

Ms. Hutchinson. Liz Horning had told me that he was going to contact me, and I hadn't spoken to Eric since the end of the administration. I think the last day we spoke was the 19th. I believe that was the day he off-boarded.

Eric and I worked closely, though, at the White House, so it was -- you know, I put myself back in the mindset that I was in on Tuesday, February 1st, 2022. Like it was kind of nice to hear from him.

And, to be frank, too, it was nice to kind of feel like somebody had cared, because at this point like Mark hadn't reached back out to me, which I was like -- I didn't expect him to. I honestly didn't really want him to.

But, you know, I just sort of felt like I was being backed into this corner, and, you know, I was nervous, so it was like -- from -- to hear from somebody that I did trust as an employee of the White House, I didn't really think he had ulterior motives with it at the time, like when he called me on the 1st.

That night, I emailed Susie Wiles.

Next day, February 2nd, I began going back and forth with David Safavian.

Mr. Jordan. Uh-huh.

Ms. Hutchinson. David Safavian of the America First Foundation -- the First America Fund. The First America Fund. So he began a email chain on that.

Simultaneously, I'm still talking to other attorneys. So the next few days, I'm talking to other attorneys while simultaneously speaking with Susie Wiles and David Safavian.

Susie Wiles in one email had asked if I was looking for representation or financial help, and I said primarily financial help, although I'm open to having other conversations with attorneys. I've already spoken to a few, though, in essence just saying like I'm primarily just looking for financial help. I didn't -- but I also didn't want her to think that I wasn't willing to take an attorney, because I thought that would just sort of end all this, and I would just be alone again.

So I fill out -- David Safavian, that afternoon, sent me an application from the America First Fund to receive financial help with all of this, so they go through and they ask what I did at the White House, who I worked for, like why I needed funding from them. And then I sent that back to him, and I never heard from Safavian after I sent the application to him.

I also had never heard back from Susie Wiles after I told her what I was looking for.

So, on Thursday, February 3rd, or Friday, February 4th, that's when, to me, it seems that all the t's were crossed and i's were dotted in Trump world, and the corners were covered, like in terms of the Matt Schlapp organization and the Trump PACs.

You know, on Saturday, February 5th, Eric Herschmann called me in the morning on Signal -- again, very brief conversation -- and said, "Hey, there is a guy named Alex Cannon. Did you ever meet him when you worked at the White House?"

This is all -- I'm paraphrasing here. I don't remember the exact conversation.

I said, "No, I don't recognize his name. Who is he?"

He said, "He used to work at Trump Org. He used to work at the campaign. He's a great guy. He's going to call you later today."

So, like, "Okay, great. Thanks, Eric."

And that was the end of the conversation.

Later that afternoon Alex Cannon called me. I didn't have his number, so it came up, and I just answered it. Alex Cannon called me. He briefly introduced himself. And he tells me that "they" -- and, for the record, air quotes around "they" -- had a lawyer for me, and the lawyer will be in touch soon. And he asked me to email him my subpoena.

And I ended up sending him my subpoenas, plural, because I also had one -- received one from AT&T for my phone providers.

And on that initial call with Alex Cannon, I asked him who the attorney was, and he said that, "We're keeping that private for now, but he'll be in touch with you in the coming days. We're just working through the few final touches on making sure that he's going to be your attorney."

I said, "Okay, awesome. You know, if -- if there is -- I also have a few people in mind in case, like, that's of interest."

And he said, "No, no, no. Don't worry. Like, we're going to take care of you. You don't have to worry about anything anymore. Like, we found a great attorney for you."

So I said, "Okay, great."

Oh, he also had said that he had previously worked in the White House Counsel's Office, so that those were the only clues that I had gotten on Saturday, February 5th.

On Monday --

Ms. Cheney. I'm sorry, Cassidy. So did you -

Ms. Hutchinson. No, you're fine.

Ms. Cheney. Did you hear back at all from Safavian or Susie Wiles, or you just -- you submitted the material --

Ms. Hutchinson. Not after Friday --

Ms. Cheney. -- and the next things?

Ms. Hutchinson. Not after Friday, February 4th. The last email I ever received from David Safavian was asking to fill out the application that he had -- it was a blank application he attached, and he asked me to fill that out and send it back to him.

And the last email I sent to Susie Wiles was -- I basically had run her through -- I'm just trying to read through it here -- but I told her that I was looking for an attorney, I'm in a bind financially, but I want to make sure I retain counsel that's reasonably priced and sensitive to the circumstances.

And I told her who I had talked to find attorneys, White House Counsel's Office, Pat Philbin and Mike Purpura. I had reached out to John Ratcliffe and Trey Gowdy, as well as a few other people in the Trump DOJ.

I told her my deposition deadlines. And that was pretty much it. I said, "Please call me if you have any questions."

So I had never heard back from Susie or David Safavian after Friday, February 4th.

Ms. Cheney. And did Alex tell you he was connected to them?

Ms. Hutchinson. He did not.

Ms. Cheney. He just --

Ms. Hutchinson. He just said that Eric gave me your number and told me to give you a call.

Ms. Cheney. And you didn't know Alex before?

Ms. Hutchinson. No. No. I had never heard of Alex Cannon.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. So it was just -- to line it up, though, on Tuesday, February -- or where is the 1st -- Tuesday, February 1st, was the day that Liz Horning said that she was starting to work some channels. And then that's when Eric Herschmann had called me. And then Pam Bondi had texted me.

Eric Herschmann said that people would be in contact with me in the coming days.

Pam had said, "You need to email Susie Wiles. Here is her email. Just start an email chain on this."

The next day is when I was instructed to reach out to Matt Schlapp's organizations. So now we're on Wednesday, February 2nd, and we're having all these conversations simultaneously. Then it's the following Saturday, February 5th, is when Alex Cannon first reached out to me.

Now, there is nothing on Sunday, February 6th.

On Monday, February 7th, I received a call in the afternoon from Stefan Passantino. This is the first that I honestly had even heard -- well, I had speculated that it could be him, so I don't -- I googled everybody that used to work in the Trump's White House counsel, and Stefan's name came up, and I saw that he was still in Trump world, so I was like perhaps it could be Stefan.

I had never worked with Stefan. We never really overlapped, and I had never really heard of him. I also know that he worked on the campaign for a bit, though.

He had called and let me know that he was my attorney. And it was a really brief call. And that -- in that -- on that call, though, I had asked him who -- well, I had asked him about signing the engagement letter, because I had said, "This would be great if we can meet in person soon." My document deadline date at that time was, I believe, Tuesday, February 8th.

I let him know that, and I was like, "I probably should sign an engagement letter."

And he said, "No, no, no. We're not doing that. Don't worry. We have you taken care of."

And I said -- remember asking him, "I don't have to sign an engagement letter?" Because that was sort of the first alarm bell in my head that went off, because I wanted something in writing for myself, because I already was -- I kind of sometimes have a tendency to overthink things. And I had never had to retain an attorney before. But I do know enough to know that you are -- you should be signing an engagement letter.

So then I had asked him, "All right. Well, that's perfectly fine. Would you mind letting me know where the funding for this is coming from? I want to thank them. I want to thank whoever it is, because I'm just trying to kind of like figure things out."

And he said, "If you want to know at the end, we'll let you know, but we're not telling people where funding is coming from right now. Don't worry, we're taking care of you. Like, you're never going to get a bill for this, so if that's what you're worried about."

I was like, "Okay. That's what I was worried about." Wasn't the only thing I was worried about.

So -- and then he asked me to send him my subpoenas, which I did. I reminded him that my document turnover date was the next day. I told him I was happy to engage with the committee on my own, because he hadn't reached out to them yet.

And he said, "No, no, no. Thanks for reminding me. I'll reach out to the committee, and I'll be in touch with you soon."

So then, I mean, the next big benchmarks -- I kind of go back and forth a little bit about the dates for document turnover and the testimony. The first time I met Stefan in person was Wednesday, February 16th.

And this might be a good place -- could we go off the record just for one moment?

Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh.

Mr. Hunt. Take a break.

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah.

Mr. Hunt. I suggest we take a break.

Ms. Hutchinson. Okay.

[Recess.]

Ms. Cheney. So--

Ms. Hutchinson. I'm sorry.

[DELETE] We'll go back on the record, yes? Yes.

Ms. Cheney. So, Cassidy, you mentioned Susie Wiles and Pam Bondi. Did you actually speak to either one of them, or was it just email?

Ms. Hutchinson. I spoke with Pam Bondi on the phone.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. I believe it was -- I believe it was Tuesday, February 1st.

Ms. Cheney. Could you tell us about that conversation?

Ms. Hutchinson. That's when Pam had said that she -- that she was going to work with Susie. So I take it that Liz Horning had reached out to Pam and Eric Herschmann.

Pam and I also had a working relationship at the White House, so it wasn't out of the ordinary. And we loosely kept in touch for the past, at this point, a year and 10, 11 days. We would talk maybe once every couple of months. And, before this, though, I don't think I had spoken -- I spoke with Pam since the late summer of 2021.

Mr. Hunt. Can you clarify? When you say working relationship at the White House, you mean when you were working at the White House?

Ms. Hutchinson. Correct. Correct. We didn't have a working relationship where like I'd go out and -- she was -- I wouldn't see her as like a friend figure necessarily, but she was frequently at the White House. She would meet with Mark a lot. So more of a conduit thing. Even when I was in the Office of Legislative Affairs, I'd work with her, because she was running point on the impeachment operation in the fall of 2019.

So it wasn't out of the ordinary for Pam to call me, but she did call me on Signal and said that she spoke with Liz, she's so sorry that nobody had talked to me yet. Like, they're taking care of me. And she said, "Do me a favor. This is Susie Wiles. She's my best friend. She's super sweet. She's going to love you. Here is her email. Just shoot her an email, sort of explain your situation. She knows what's going on, because I'm also talking to her, but we also want to get a paper trail started on this."

So I said, "Okay, great." And then I sent Susie that initial email: "I hope you're well. We met during 2020 election cycle. I was subpoenaed by the committee." And just said, like, "I've had difficulty securing a legal team. I was hoping maybe you'd be able to put me in contact with fundraising organizations that are involved in this process."

[DELETE] Could I -- did she explain to you who Susie Wiles was or what her affiliation was, what her role is?

Ms. Hutchinson. Pam on the phone?

[DELETE] Right. Did Pam explain to you what Susie Wiles' role was or what-

Ms. Hutchinson. She did not.

[DELETE] Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. Now, I knew -- I also didn't ask, because I sort of knew tangentially from people that I had communicated with just by nature of having relationships with people at the White House who were still in Trump world and reading in the press that Susie was currently working for Mr. Trump in Florida. So I didn't ask her -- prod it with Pam.

But I think, in that moment, gee, I sort of figured that, you know, knowing Pam is involved with Trump's PACs, don't know exactly what her role was -- I still don't know exactly what either of their roles are -- but I knew that they both were involved with Trump's PACs. So I figured that maybe -- in my mind, I was thinking, if I'm being instructed to reach out to all these different financial people there is sort of an operation here going on, they just want to make sure that all their bases are covered.

[DELETE] Okay.

Ms. Cheney. Did anybody else that you were talking to share the same experience in terms of, you know, Liz Horning? I mean, was everybody sort of going through the same set of doors here to --

Ms. Hutchinson. To secure an attorney?

Ms. Cheney. -- secure counsel? Yeah.

Ms. Hutchinson. I had not -- the only person I spoke with about securing legal counsel throughout this period was Liz Horning. And to this day I'm not -- I was under the impression at the time and even through June 27th that Liz had not been subpoenaed, nor had spoke with the committee, which absolutely could be true. She never told me that she had worked with the committee, only that Derek had.

So I spoke with Liz about my experience looking for an attorney. And then the only other person that I spoke with that I had previously worked with and that I knew was also involved in all of this was Ben Williamson.

Ben and I sort of talked a little bit throughout this period about our experiences trying to retain an attorney, but I was, one, cautious with what I was sharing with Ben, because, in my mind, I knew whatever I shared with Ben would get back to Mark. And I wasn't necessarily concerned about that, but I also didn't -- I hadn't spoken -- I had not spoke with Mark since January 20th, 2021, and I didn't see a need to reopen that door, and I wanted to keep that part of my life separate.

So I just wanted to be careful about anything getting back to Mark. You know, some of it I think I was being paranoid and I was worried that, if he found out that I was potentially going to reach out to Trump world for attorney help, that he would call somebody in Trump world and tell them maybe not to help me out, because he didn't make an effort to help me. So I was thinking, you know, maybe he has something against me. I don't know.

But -- and I just wanted to be more private with Ben about it. But I understood from my conversations with Ben that he was getting assistance. I don't know if it was completely covered by the Conservative Partnership Institute, or I don't know what Cleta Mitchell's law firm -- that's a branch of CPI -- is called.

But Ben did tell me at one point that he was working with an attorney, and they were working on that with finances and that I should reach out to Trump world to get their fees paid for. And I had asked Ben if he -- if Mark was covering his fees. He said, "We haven't really talked about all that yet."

Now, Mark -- I think Ben was also being private about his conversations with Mark, which is entirely fine. And there was a point, too, I got really frustrated with Ben about -- which I think we might hit on later.

Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Ms. Hutchinson. But -- so we can press pause on that for now, because that -

Ms. Cheney. So, when -- when you reached out to Mark Meadows and he didn't respond to you, did you raise it with Ben?

Ms. Hutchinson. I did. So initially, I had reached out to Ben. And I'd have to double-check the date. I don't have it in front of me. But the day before I had reached out to Mr. Meadows, I told Ben that I was going to call him, and -- because I was like, "I'm getting to this point of complete desperation, Ben. Like, I need help."

And I still hadn't reached out to Trump world, didn't want to reach out to Trump world.

And he said, "I'll talk to Mark, and I'll see if he has -- I'll see when he has time to chat with you."

Now, I knew that Ben still works -- worked for Mark, but I didn't think that it was anything super formal where he like sat outside of his office.

So I remember being extremely aggravated when he said that to me, because I was like, "Do I need your" -- I didn't say this to him -- in my mind, I was thinking like, "Why do I need your permission to reach out to somebody that I also previously worked for about something like this? That's ridiculous to me." And then I just reached out to Mark on my own.

But when I hadn't heard back from Mr. Meadows, Ben reached out to me the next day. So whether it was the -- if I had reached -- I believe I had reached out to Mark on the 31st, which would mean that Ben reached out to me on the 1st. But it was the next day.

Ben said, "Hey, Mark got a text from you. He said he tried to call you and you didn't answer."

So I said, "I don't have any missed calls from Mark. I know for a fact I don't have missed calls from Mark. He didn't try to call me."

He said, "Oh. Well, I'll ask him about that. But, anyway, have you had any luck finding an attorney?"

So it was just sort of like -- and I knew. Like, I didn't --I didn't need to ask a bunch of questions to try to put two and two together on that one, which, again, [inaudible] and it's fine. I don't -- I'm not criticizing the way that Mark handled it with me. You know, that's not my place to criticize that. I think in the long run, it was better.

But, you know, but I did hit that point of frustration, though, of I worked for Mark, and I felt at least that we could have a -- it didn't even have to be a conversation between Mark and I. It could have -- I was just looking for help.

And he worked somewhere where he had resources to potentially know somebody that could work for me pro bono or connect me with somebody. So I was just, again, trying every route to find someone without needing money to take -- without having to take money from people.

Ms. Cheney. Did you have any--

[DELETE] No.

Ms. Cheney. I sort of took you off, but to take you back, then, to February 7th -- this is when Stefan called you. And then the first time -- I think we walked through that. And the first time that you then sat down with him was on the 18th.

Ms. Hutchinson. Correct.

Ms. Cheney. Do you want to tell us about that?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yes. I'm sorry. Wednesday, February 16th, was the first time --

Ms. Cheney. 16th. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. -- I met with him.

So we planned to meet at Michael Best at the wharf on February 16th, which was exactly one week before my first interview with the committee.

It was very informally scheduled. He had said in the days leading up to this initial meeting on the 16th, "We can meet if you want. We don't have to if you don't want to. Like, but if you just want to talk through some things -- like, I don't know exactly, like, what you would want to work through, but I'm happy to meet with you in person for a couple hours if that makes you feel better before going into the interview."

And I said, "Yeah. I think it would be great to sit down and meet with you." I think I said, "Yeah, I'd love to meet you in person. Like let's do this."

So I got to Michael Best. We go into a conference room. It's overlooking the Potomac. And he sits down. It was super informal. He had a black padfolio with a notebook inside of it, but I don't recall him taking notes at all during it -- during our conversation.

And I got there around that day. I don't think it lasted more than an hour and a half, because, when I left, it was still light outside. And I remembered that, because I wanted to walk home, because I was in Navy Yard at the time. So, you know, hour and a half, maybe 2 hours, but it wasn't -- it was not a long meeting.

And I remember feeling kind of awkward at first, because he was like, "All right. What do you want to talk about?" after we did our little introductions.

And I was like, "Well, maybe what the committee is going to talk to me about," because, again, I hadn't done deposition prep before, and I felt like an idiot sitting there.

And I was like, "Am I doing something wrong? Like should I have come more prepared with things?" Because I had asked him, "Do you want me to bring you anything?"

He said, "No. Just maybe a flash drive with some text messages that you think we might need to turn over." And he was like, "But most of them probably won't be responsive."

So I said, "Okay."

So I sort of just walked him through --

Ms. Cheney. I'm sorry, Cassidy. At this point, had he sign [seen] your subpoenas?

Ms. Hutchinson. I had sent them to him.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. Whether or not he looked at them, I'm not sure. He didn't have them printed that day. Thank you for raising that, though, because I do remember he -- I remember I had told him that I -- this is when I was discussing the text messages that I put on the flash drive for him. I said, "I believe that my subpoena was between the dates of November 1st, 2020, through January 20th, 2021-- 2021."

And he said, "Yeah, yeah. I'll double-check that. But this is great. Thanks."

So it ended up being January 30th, 2021, so he never really walked me through, like, what actually was in my subpoena and what could be responsive or what may not be responsive.

So I sort of -- in that meeting, I was like, "Well, I guess I'll just kind of start at the beginning." And I just felt awkward. And I was like, "Do I downplay? Do I not?" And so I started just walking through, like, well, "Mark and I had COVID for the first few weeks of November."

And I started telling him, too, through like the attorneys I had spoke with had said, "When you retain us, we'll do deposition prep, like we'll kind of recreate those months for you so you are prepared to answer these questions," which, for me, that is extremely helpful, because I like to think I have a pretty good memory, but my mind operates almost like an Outlook calendar where I have blocks of time, but I need dates in front of me. And I can piece together things if I have those dates, and especially benchmark dates.

So, as I start to try to walk through this with him, I remember I hit a point, and it was probably around like the third week of November where I was like, "Could we print off a calendar really quick?"

And he said, "Well, what do you need a calendar for?"

So I -- "I want to make sure that I'm getting the dates right with these things?

He goes, "No, no, no." He said, "Look, we want to get you in, get you out. We're going to downplay your role. You were a secretary. You had an administrative role. Everyone's on the same page about this. It's extremely unfair that they're" -- "they're" being the committee -- "that the committee is putting you in this position in the first place. You really have nothing to do with any of this. It's Mark's fault that you're even involved in this. We're completely happy to be taking care of you now. We had no idea that you weren't being taken care of this last year. So we're really happy that you reached back out to us. But the less you remember, the better. I don't think that you should be filling in any calendars or anything."

[DELETE] When he said --

Ms. Cheney. Go ahead.

[DELETE] -- everyone's on the same page about this, did he explain who he was referring to when he said "everyone"?

Ms. Hutchinson. He didn't at that moment. Then there are times throughout my working relationship with Stefan where he said similar things that I had asked.

Later that day, sort of put together that the "they" he was referring to then were Justin Clark, Alex Cannon, Eric Herschmann. I think that's -- yeah, I think that's all of them.

Ms. Cheney. And how did you put that together?

Ms. Hutchinson. Because he -- he had said that -- Justin -- yeah, Justin Clark. Stefan had told me that -- towards the end of the day that because he was involved with Elections, LLC, and tangentially, I guess Trump's PACs, he had law partners. And unless I was extremely unwilling for him to share, he said it would be natural for him to have to share that information with the people that he works with that are his partners that are involved in Trump world.

Ms. Cheney. And he put it that way?

Ms. Hutchinson. To the effect of. Not exact phrasing.

Ms. Cheney. What did you say to him?

Ms. Hutchinson. At that time I didn't like it, but I also -- you know, in this -- and this period is difficult for me to look back on now, and we've spent a lot of time working through the varying emotions of it, because I look back, you know, and I wish that I hadn't talked myself out of thinking that I was overthinking a lot of this, because I, in that moment, I was like, this is bad. I don't want him to do this.

I also was scared to tell him that, because I was worried if I told him that then they would become suspicious of me; and my loyalty to Trump, because I knew the moment that I went back and had to get a Trump world attorney, it's -- I don't like to categorize the world, the Trump world in this way, but in a lot of scenarios that I have been privy to, once you are looped in, especially financially with them, there sort of is no turning back.

And, you know, even the days after I had secured him as my counsel on February 7th, I remember having a conversation with my mom a few days later. And my mom and I are close. We're not extremely close. And I hadn't really talked to her about a lot of this throughout this period. Like, she knew I was looking for attorneys, and she asked me, like, "Aren't you really happy? Like, this is great. I'm so happy that, like, they connected you with someone."

And I remember saying to her, like, kind of snarly laughing, saying, "No, I'm fucked."

And she was like, "What? What do you mean?"

And I was like, "No. I am completely indebted to these people," and I was like, "And they will ruin my life, Mom, if I do anything that they don't want me to do."

And she was like, "Well, what would you possibly do?" She was like, "There is nothing that they can do to you."

And, at that point, I just remember being like, I can't delve into these conversations.

But that was always a thought in the back of my mind, and I was scared. Even in the days -- like, as I had been speaking with Eric and Susie Wiles and David Safavian -- I can never say his last name -- and I still -- I was communicating with my aunt and uncle, who I had not spoken with in years because they are QAnon fans, but they were looking to refinancing their house to free up money so I could not have to go back to Trump world. Like, they understood why I didn't want to.

I don't have a relationship with my biological father, but I went to his house one night. I drove up to New Jersey, and I went to his house one night and begged him -- it's probably 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." 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 me 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.

So --

[admin]

Part 2 of 5

Ms. Cheney. So on the meeting with Stefan, just to walk through -- through that piece of it. So he -- did he ask you to begin talking to him about, you know, sort of your information, your knowledge, what you thought the committee would be interested in?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah. So that's when I began working through -- the first weeks of November were moot, because Mark and I were out with COVID, and that's when I asked, like, can we print off the calendar, because I need to, like, try to pinpoint dates here.

And that's when he had said, "No, we're all on the same page. We're not going to -- we're not going there. We're downplaying, this and that."

So then he was like, "Well, is there anything that you're worried about, anything that you're -- you think that they'll ask you about?"

And I was like, "Yes, that's why I asked for a calendar." I was like, but okay. Now I'm trying to, like, work through everything in my head. And I was like, "Well, I had a lot of exposure to Members of Congress."

He was like, "Well, okay. That's fine, though. That was part of your role." He was like, "Did you overhear things?"

And I said, "Yes."

And he said, "Were you in the meetings?"

I said, "Not all of them, but I was in some of them."

He was like, "Well, if you had just overheard conversations that happened, you don't need to testify to that."

"So, if I overheard it from a Member, do I have to?"

And he said, "It's circumstantial. We can talk about it."

So I said, "Okay."

I told Stefan that day about the incident that happened in the Beast, which I should refer to it as the Presidential limo, because that was one. And I remember saying to Stefan, "Tony Ornato and I were very close at the White House. Tony told me this incident happened."

And I didn't go into extremely graphic detail telling Stefan about it. I tried to kind of make it more casual than my conversation with Tony really was, but I think I said something to -- I said something to Stefan like, "Yeah, I had this conversation with Tony Ornato when we got back from the rally that day, and he told me that the President tried to wrap his hands around Bobby's neck and strangle him because he wouldn't take him to the Capitol."

And Stefan said, "No, no, no, no, no." I remember he, like, sat back in his chair, and he's like, "No, no, no, no, no. We don't want to go there. We don't want to talk about that."

I said, again, trying to kind of appease what he was saying -- no, I own that -- I said, "I agree, Stefan, but what if they do?"

"They have no way of knowing that. Nobody would ever" -- he said, "Did you ever tell anybody about that?"

I said, "No, I've never told anybody about that."

And he said, "Well, I don't think that Tony would have told anybody about that." And he's like, "That's an example of one of those stories that is just going to give the committee a headline. It's not important to anything that actually happened on that day. It's a headline. It's a cool story for them. It will be on the news for a couple days. I don't want you to be the one to have to tell that story. Tony told it to you. If anybody is going to tell it, it's Tony's responsibility to tell it. But just because he told you doesn't mean that you need to share that with them."

So then I remember asking him, "Okay, well, what's the line that I draw here? Like, do I not ever say anything that I overheard, because I overheard a lot of things?"

And he had said, "Look, the goal with you is to get you in and out. Keep your answers short, sweet, and simple, seven words or less. The less the committee thinks you know, the better, the quicker it's going to go. It's going to be painless. And then you're going to be taken care of. You're going to be done. It's going to be off of your hands."

So I said, "Okay."

And we dropped the limo incident at that point. And then we walked through a couple more things, nothing that was like -- you know, I walked him through the pardon requests that came after January 6th.

Again, he said, "If they ask, you could share. I don't really think they're going to go there."

There was another thing, too, that we spoke about. It was the Beast incident.

Oh, well, I did speak with him about -- I remembered a lot of planning behind the march to the Capitol and how it went on that last week of December, like December 29th through roughly Sunday, January 3rd.

And he had said, "Well, we're not building out timelines. So, unless you remember, like, a very specific day with a very specific event, like, 'I don't recall' is your answer."

So that's when he sort of -- sort of had went into the "I don't recalls." And he said, "If you don't 100 percent recall something, even if you don't recall a date or somebody who may or may not have been in the room, that's an entirely fine answer, and we want you to use that response as much as you deem necessary."

I said, "But, if I do recall something but not every little detail, Stefan, can I still say I don't recall?"

And he had said, "Yes."

And I said, "But if I do remember things but not every little detail, and I say I don't recall, wouldn't I be perjuring myself?"

And he had -- Stefan had said something to the effect of, "The committee doesn't know what you can and can't recall, so we want to be able to use that as much as we can unless you really, really remember something very clearly. And that's when you give a short, sweet response. You don't want to get ahead of their questioning. Let them ask the questions. And you'll know." He's like, "We'll get into a rhythm, and you'll be fine."

So I said, "Okay."

Ms. Cheney. Do you recall anything else from that meeting, Cassidy, that you told him? So you talked to him about the Beast story. Anything else specific that you raised with him?

Ms. Hutchinson. The march to the Capitol. The planning behind the march to the Capitol we spoke about that day. And that's when he had said, "We're not putting together timelines. The less you remember, the better."

Ms. Cheney. And, when you say the march to the Capitol, you mean the formal plan for the President to go to the Capitol, or the plan for people from the rally to go to the Capitol? What were you thinking about when you say the march to the Capitol?

Ms. Hutchinson. Both. Primarily a potential White House movement to the Capitol, though, because, starting more around December 29th is when I heard the conversations when Mark had the meeting with Scott Perry, for instance, about -- that's when I had learned that there were more rally sites throughout D.C. and they were going -- there was going to be a march -- marching movement, a movement from the Ellipse to the Capitol that day, because Scott had said something to me like, "Try to convince Mark to give a speech that day."

So, you know, and then, as those days transpired, I learned, yes, that people were going to migrate to the Capitol, but also the planning -- potential planning behind the President's logistical movements.

I was always on the side of things in my communications with Mr. Ornato that we just weren't even really going to plan a movement, because it just couldn't happen. We knew that volume of people in D.C. that day was going to make the movement nearly impossible.

But I did have a lot of insight on that, and I did tell Stefan. I didn't tell him in thorough detail, because I didn't have a timeline to work through it all. I just told him that I was involved not in planning the actual movement to the Capitol, but in conversations surrounding a potential movement to the Capitol.

And he had said, "We're not working through timelines. 'I don't recall' is the best answer to any of that," And he's like, "Unless there is a very specific nuanced question that you can answer."

So I said, "Okay."

[2:21 p.m.]

Ms. Cheney. Did you talk about any individuals in particular?

Ms. Hutchinson. I'll make a note of that. In regarding the march to the Capitol?

Ms. Cheney. No, just generally. Were there people that you discussed or Stefan raised with you?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yes. And there's a few other things in here. There's my-

Ms. Cheney. Okay. Do you want to go through the --

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah.

Ms. Cheney. -- other events first?

Ms. Hutchinson. We talked about the magnetometer situation, too, on Wednesday, February 16th. Again, I didn't give him an extremely colorful analysis of it, but I did tell Stefan that I heard the President say that he wanted the mags to be taken down. I probably said something like, "He was really pissed off that we weren't able to fill the arena."

And he was like, "Oh, that was a whole campaign problem, wasn't it?" And I was like, "Yes, it was. So he wanted them taken down, and they all had weapons"; I was like, "It was kind of crazy, Stefan." He was like, "Yeah. I'm glad I wasn't there that day." And I said, you know, "If they ask questions" -- he said, "I doubt they're going to get to that." "Okay."

So the last thing just for that -- and then there's one other thing too, but it's sort of unrelated. But on Wednesday, February 23rd, and on March 9th, I think was my next interview --

Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh.

Ms. Hutchinson. -- the topic of rally speakers came up at the end, towards the end of the first interview. And this was one of -- and we'll get to this, I think, when we talk about the first interview. But one of Stefan's tactics that he had told me about was, if he didn't like or appreciate the way a line of questioning was going during my interview with the committee, he would do his best to kind of either stall the conversation by taking a break and, when we had returned from a break, hoping the committee had moved on to another line of questioning, or he would try to find a way to invoke attorney-client privilege with Pat Cipollone, to try to find some way.

So, whenever Stefan would start interjecting, I sort of knew -- that's when I would -- to take a step back. Which, he began interjecting with the rally speakers on the first interview. So, in reflection of my transcripts, I believe I had very vaguely answered a few of the questions, but he sort of took -- took the lead on that.

Ms. Cheney. And tell us, what did he say when he explained to you he was going to do this? How did he --

Ms. Hutchinson. This is when he had said, like, "We'll get in a rhythm. You'll start picking up on when, like, you should or shouldn't answer questions, and then I think you'll get the hang of it."

And I also, at that point, too, asked, like, "Could we do a few mock questions of things they might ask me?" And he was like, "It's going to be very straightforward. Like, there's not really a reason to do mock questions, because you're gonna have to answer questions you either know or don't know." I said, "Well, there must be a tact to do this. Like, I want to be able to answer them intelligently but also not" -- he was like, "Short and sweet. That's what you do. Short and sweet."

So, then, going back to that briefly, he did say, like, if it was going in a direction, like, he would start talking or he would kind of grumble and shift in his seat, and that's when I should know, like, all right, maybe it's time to take a break or let him talk for a second or to kind of let this part -- he would take the reins of that.

So the rally speakers was the first instance where I specifically recall, like, that kind of being a bigger area. And I don't remember speaking to him about my insight on rally speakers on our initial meeting on February 16th, but we did take a break when you all began asking me questions about the rally speakers during the first interview on February 23rd.

And he had said -- I have it here. I think we were also reaching the end of the day. And he was like, "This is ridiculous. Like, there's no reason they should be asking you questions about rally speakers. Did you have any planning of rally speakers? Like, did you talk to any of the potential rally speakers?" And I said, "No, but I kind of know a decent amount about it, because Mark was fairly involved in planning the rally speakers." He said, "Yeah, but that's Mark's problem. Just because you knew what Mark was doing doesn't mean that you have to answer these questions. This is ridiculous. I'm going to steer them off of this now."

So we broke for about 10 minutes, and when we came back, to the best of my recollection, I think we had moved on to a different subject.

From the start of my second interview, though, you all had sent over materials pertaining to rally speakers, and Stefan literally handed them to me in a stack. We walked into the room that we did the first -- that we did our deposition in for the Zoom, for the interview with the Zoom. We sat down. It was maybe 2 minutes before we signed in, and he handed me a stack of papers and said, "By the way, the committee wants you to review these."

I'm flipping through them, and I said, "They want me to review all of these? Are they going to ask me questions about these?" He said, "Yeah, but don't worry about it. Like, they'll tell you to pull up an exhibit, and you can read it. If you know something, you don't know it."

And I was like, "Well, Stefan, I probably will know a lot about this, but, like, I need a second to remember it." And he was like, "No, it's fine. If you don't remember when you look at it, it's fine; you just say you don't remember." So I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Okay."

So, rally speakers -- and then the last little thing just to touch on with this -- and I apologize; this is--

Ms. Cheney. It's very helpful, Cassidy.

Ms. Hutchinson. -- a tangent. But the -- so now I've moved on from where he sort of instructed me not to answer certain topics that I raised with him or to -- Stefan never said -- I want to make this clear to you: 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. They don't know what you can and can't recall."

So, even as we had gone through, you know, the Beast story or the pardon situations and the magnetometers, stories like that, I just want to make sure I'm not making it sound like -- now, I have a different perspective now after securing my lovely legal team. But I just want to make sure that I make it clear that he didn't say, "I want you to lie and say that you don't recall on these things when I know you recall." It was a, "You're not lying if you say you don't recall."

So I just want -- I know it's little, but I just want it to be clear, because I -- he didn't tell me to lie. He told me not to lie. But "I don't recall" is not a lie in Stefan's --

Ms. Cheney. And on the story about the SUV, I think you told us he said, "No, no, no, we don't talk about that." Is --

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah.

Ms. Cheney. -- that right?

Ms. Hutchinson. And I've thought about that reaction a lot, especially in the last couple months. I don't know if it's because he heard that before and he was reacting and was surprised that I had also heard that, or if the story sort of shocked him and he knew it wasn't something that -- if he instinctually knew that it was something the Trump world wouldn't want shared. You know, either is possible.

I never asked him whether anybody else had shared the story with him. I had only told him that Ornato told me. And he had told me that it was Ornato's responsibility to tell it, and if Ornato didn't tell it, then that's not my problem.

Ms. Cheney. And did you talk to him about the December 18th meeting?

Ms. Hutchinson. We talked about -- yes. We talked about that meeting a bit that day. And his guidance on that was pretty sterile. He had just said, like, "Were you in the meeting at any time as a participant?" And I said, "No, but I was there for logistics for Mark and for the group."

And he said, "Yeah, but, again, you don't need to repeat what you overheard. You probably heard bits and pieces of conversation. And" -- I remember him emphasizing this too -- "everybody who was in that meeting is cooperating with the committee, so there's no reason that you'll have to answer any questions pertaining to that. For whatever reason, if they bring that up, you were there for administrative purposes and to get Mr. Meadows on and off campus that night."

Mr. Jordan. Could we go off the record for about 30 seconds?

Ms. Cheney. Sure.

[Discussion off the record.]

Ms. Cheney. Back on the record.

And we are still talking about the meeting on the 18th with Stefan, on February 18th.

You walked through several items, subject matter areas, that you raised with him. Is there anything else in terms of your discussion that day with Stefan, any other issues that you raised with him, or any other instructions he gave you?

Ms. Hutchinson. You previously asked about individuals he had raised with me. In my conversation with him earlier that afternoon, when I asking him about the engagement letter, I did also ask Stefan if he was representing any other January 6th clients. And he had said, "No one that I believe that you would have any conflicts with."

And I said, "Would you mind letting me know?" Now, again, to this day, I still don't know if that's really a kosher question to ask an attorney, if they can share their clients with me, but I wanted to make sure that there actually weren't any conflicts, because I didn't have anything in writing.

He wouldn't tell me anybody he was representing before the January 6th Committee, but he did tell me that he had previously represented Eric Herschmann and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in unrelated matters.

And in that same conversation, he said, "So if you have any conversations with any of them, especially Eric Herschmann, we want to really work to protect Eric Herschmann." And I remember saying sarcastically to him, "Eric can handle himself. Eric has his own resources. Why do I have to protect Eric?" He said, "No, no, no. Like, just to keep everything straight, like, we want to protect Eric with all of this."

Ms. Cheney. Did he explain what he meant?

Ms. Hutchinson. No. And, to be honest, I didn't ask. I didn't have anything with Eric anyway that I felt that I had to protect. And I say that because, at the time of being back in Trump world -- this is where I look back and regret some of this, but -- like, I did feel a need to protect certain people. But with somebody like Eric, I didn't feel that need, I didn't find it necessary. I didn't -- I didn't think that Eric did anything wrong at the time.

Ms. Cheney. Did it have something to do with NARA?

Ms. Hutchinson. He never really explained to me what it was exactly that we wanted to protect Eric on. I sort of erred on the side of: Maybe he just represents Eric in ongoing litigation, whether it's financial disclosures or whatever it might be.

And, again, I just didn't prod too much on that either, because, you know, I was under the impression that Eric helped set me up with Stefan, so I didn't -- I was worried that Stefan would then go back-channel to Eric and -- this is my very paranoid brain at the time, but I was worried that if I, you know, pushed this subject a little too much, that he would then go back to Eric Herschmann and say, "Cassidy asked a lot of questions about you, like, why she needs to protect you." So I just didn't really press the subject too much on that.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. When we got to the NARA -- so this is later on, though, in May. When he began representing clients in the NARA DOJ investigation, he brought up with me if I thought that I would get involved in any of that. And I said, "I don't think so. I didn't have any involvement in packing up the White House to go down to Mar-a-Lago."

And he said, "Okay, that's fine. I have a few clients that I'm representing I wanted to make sure you wouldn't have conflicts with." And I was like, "Oh, who?" Didn't tell me. So then he stepped out of the room, and I saw a few of the names on his computer, who he was representing. So -- but, again, unrelated to the 6th.

And then the last thing that was discussed on February 16th, to my recollection, was the -- and I believe I briefly touched on it, but the -- I call it the loophole, Stefan's loophole. So he had said -- this is when he had said, "If the committee goes in a direction that I don't like or whatever, I'll start to interject."

But he also had said in that same conversation, "I believe executive" -- I'm paraphrasing. Stefan said something to the effect of, "I believe executive privilege has been fully litigated to this point, so we can't really invoke that for you at any point. But if there were members of the White House Counsel's Office around and you overheard a conversation that they say, that conversation is subjected to attorney-client privilege. So if I ever see the committee asking a question that could be going in that direction, even if they haven't explicitly said 'White House Counsel's Office' or referenced 'White House Counsel's Office' yet, I'll ask you, 'Was anybody in White House Counsel's Office around?'" And he said, "If yes, yes. If no, then no."

He's like, "But if you do say yes" -- and the way he said it, I kind of thought, okay, that's when I probably should say yes -- he would invoke attorney-client privilege on behalf of Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

So then we move -- so that's on the 18th of February. And did you have any other discussions with Stefan on -- did you have any discussions that day about the documents that you were going to produce? You brought a thumb drive with you, I believe you said?

Ms. Hutchinson. I gave him the thumb drive. I plugged it into my laptop. He flipped through it a little bit, and he's like, "Great organization." I'm like, "Thanks." I caught myself.

And he was like, "Oh, is this mine to keep?" And I said, "Yeah, it's yours." And he said, "All right, cool. I'm going to take the documents, plug it into my computer, and put it on a different flash drive. I don't trust technology. I don't want to give the committee this specific flash drive because I feel like they'll have a way to pull everything off of your computer. So, like, I'll take a look at it and create a separate copy and give it to the committee."

So I never actually saw what he turned over to the committee. He told me the day before -- we had a phone conversation the day before my first interview with the committee, so the conversation would have occurred on Tuesday, February 22nd. And I asked if he turned everything over that was on the flash drive, and all he said was, "The committee has everything for you. You're good to go on all of that." So I said, "Okay. Great. Thanks."

[DELETE] Did he give you any instructions before the February 16th meeting on what to put on the flash drive?

Ms. Hutchinson. He said any text messages that I felt could be relevant to the investigation. Not very specific, though. So, I mean, I screenshotted a bunch of things on my phone.

I also was -- you know, I was looking at things, and it was kind of hard for me because I was at first over-screenshotting. And I remember I called him at one point and read him a few of the screenshots that I had, and he said, "Yeah, stuff like that's not responsive, unless it's, like, explicitly talking about planning for January 6th or planning for meetings that were specific to January 6th. Those are the only things that would be responsive." So I said, "Okay."

Ms. Cheney. Have you now turned everything over to the committee that was on that flash drive?

Ms. Hutchinson. I believe so.

Ms. Cheney. Do we know?

Ms. Hutchinson. I have turned everything over to you guys that I had in my file.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. I never edited or modified my file that I originally had with Stefan because I don't know if he took anything out.

Ms. Cheney. I just wanted to make sure, if he did take some things out of that flash drive, that the committee now has them, based on --

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah.

Ms. Cheney. If you all could check that.

Mr. Hunt. We'll check it.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. And then just, at the end of that meeting, we had -- because I had asked him about doing the, like, mock question preparation, and he said, "No." So I said, "Well, do you recommend anything that I can do to prepare for next week?" He's like, "Get a good night's sleep," like, a few wishy-washy things.

And he said, "Don't read anything about this on the internet." He said, "Again, Cass, like, just trust me on this. I'm your lawyer. I know what's best for you. The less you remember, the better. Don't read anything to try to jog your memory. Don't try to put together timelines."

And he was like, "Especially if you put together timelines, we have to give those over to the committee. So anything you produce we have to give over to the committee. So I really" -- he was like, "You can have things in front of you, but I really don't want you to, because we have to give that to the committee."

So now I'm like, oh -- now I'm kind of scared. Like, what if I want notes in front of me and he gets mad at me because I have to give them to the committee now? I didn't know I would have to give them to the committee, but he told me I did, and he was my lawyer, so I was trying to trust him.

And at the end of the meeting, I was just -- again, I was grateful. I was like, "Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. Like, could we have a phone conversation next week before the first interview?" And he was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll be in touch."

So, that weekend, I'm starting to get nervous, and I drove to the Staples in Potomac Yards, Virginia, and I printed off, like, or of the deposition transcripts from the Russia investigation, because I was trying just to read and get in a rhythm of how to answer questions during a deposition, because I had no idea. So I was just, like, highlighting things --I probably looked like a crazy person -- just trying to figure out, like, okay, can I answer questions this way, and, like, to be more diplomatic about handling things.

And now I would be moving into the day of the first meeting unless you all have any followup questions on --

Ms. Cheney. I don't have anything else on this.

Do you guys?

[DELETE] No. I'm good.

[DELETE] No.

Ms. Hutchinson. So the first meeting -- or the first interview was Wednesday, February 23rd. Stefan and I met that morning for breakfast. And he again just -- I'm telling him how nervous I am, and he just -- he kept reassuring me, "Everything's going to be okay. We're taking care of you. Just downplay your position. This will be over in a few hours, and then you'll be done. This will be behind you."

And he kept saying to me, like, "Cass, you're a good person. I don't want you to feel like you have to bear the weight of responsibility for all these other people. Like, the committee is talking to so many people that, even if you were entirely forthcoming with them, they're going to have all this by the end from someone else anyway. I don't want you to be put through the ringer on this. It's not fair to you. It's not fair that Mark put you in this position. We just want to focus on protecting the President. We all know you're loyal. Let's just get you in and out, and this day will be easy, I promise. Like, you really have nothing to worry about."

[DELETE] Can I ask you -- you mentioned twice, I think, now, they said Mark put you in this position or it's his fault that you're in this position. What did he mean by that?

Ms. Hutchinson. You know, I had also explained to Stefan that, you know, earlier, when he had first mentioned it to me, that I guess inadvertently -- I took it as he was saying that Mark put me in this position because Mark, in Stefan's opinion, as chief of staff, didn't, quote, "take care of me" and put me in -- exposed me to too much.

And he was like, "It's not fair that you had this much exposure to things. It's not fair that, you know" -- and some of it, I think, was just them trying to have forms of flattery, because Eric Herschmann said the same thing to me later as we go through this in May. But they had said things to me like, "You were so effective in your role, a lot of times we forgot how young you actually are. It's not fair that you were exposed to so much at such a young age. Nobody ever thought it was going to get to this point. We just want to focus on taking care of you now."

Ms. Cheney. When they said "get to this point," what do you think they meant?

Ms. Hutchinson. That the investigation would've expanded this large.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

At this point, when Stefan was talking about Mark Meadows, had he mentioned Meadows' counsel to you at all when he was talking about the people that he coordinated with?

Ms. Hutchinson. The morning of my first interview, while we were at breakfast -- well, I guess I should backtrack briefly. On Tuesday, February 22nd, that evening, I texted Stefan, and I said, "Do you think I should let MM know that my depo is tomorrow? I haven't told anyone, but I'm worried he'll cause problems if he's not given a heads-up ... ".

Stefan said, "No. The conversation won't end there. I'll get the word passed through counsel. They will ask you" -- "they," meaning the committee -- "they will ask you if you guys talked, and I want you to be able to say no."

I responded and said, "I agree. Ben Williamson texted me this weekend and asked if I had a depo day yet and sent me his attorney's contact information in case I did. LOL."

Stefan didn't respond after that.

The morning that we had breakfast, he said that, at the end of my interview, he was planning on calling his law partners -- which I understood to be Justin Clark, Alex Cannon, potentially Eric Herschmann, that that was just the person he was planning to call -- and then he would call Moran and Terwilliger to let them know that I had my deposition that day and it went really well, that Cassidy did a good job.

And, at that point, I think -- I don't even know if I said anything to that. I was just so, like -- my brain was just kind of on overdrive that morning. So I probably just said something like, "All right, thanks. Let's talk at the end of the day."

And that morning at breakfast is also the first time that Stefan mentioned job opportunities for me. We were wrapping up breakfast, and he was like, "Do you have dinner plans tonight?" And I said, "No." And he said, "Well, I don't think this will wrap too late. Let's grab a bite to eat. We can either eat here or we can go somewhere." And he was like, "I want to talk to you about potential job opportunities. Let's do it at the end of today, though. Today's going to be a good day. I want to end it on a good note for you." So I said, "Okay, great. Thanks."

So then we go over to Michael Best and settle in for the initial interview.

Ms. Cheney. And was there anything else at the breakfast as you were preparing for the interview that you can recall?

Ms. Hutchinson. Not that I haven't previously stated. I think I already said this; I don't know. For the record in case I didn't, yeah, I just -- I don't remember raising specific issues that morning that I was nervous about, but I was telling him I was nervous that you all were going to ask me certain questions that I would recall. And he said, "Your go-to, Cass, is 'I don't recall.'"

He was like, "Again, if you start using that in the beginning, they're going to realize really quick that they have better witnesses than you, and they're not going to ask you as complicated of questions as you're worried about." And he was like, "Trust me. You just need to trust me on this." So I said, "Okay."

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

So then we get into the first interview. And can you walk us through that first interview with the committee and Stefan's interactions with you during the interview?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yes.

To be completely frank, I was extremely nervous going into the first interview, for a multitude of reasons. You know, I felt like -- I almost felt like at points Donald Trump was looking over my shoulder.

Because, one, I know how Trump world operates. Two, Stefan had already kind of planted the seeds of, we know you're loyal, like, we know you're going to do the right thing, we know you're on Team Trump, like, we want to take care of you. So it's those phrases that I had heard throughout my tenure at the White House, that I'd worked to separate myself from for a year, now I'm hearing them again.

And it's like, oh, my gosh, now I'm sitting here with a lawyer who also represents maybe Trump on certain matters but is definitely deeply connected in Trump world --

Ms. Cheney. And did he say those things to you?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah, throughout the February 16th meeting. But I didn't take it in a vindictive way. It was more of a: We're so sorry that it took so long for you to be connected with somebody. Like, we know you're a Team Trumper. Like, we're taking care of you now. Like, we know you're loyal. You have nothing to worry about. Like, we have your back now.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. Did he say anything about the President at that point needing transcripts?

Ms. Hutchinson. He did not.

Ms. Cheney. Not then? Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. He did not. Not at that point he didn't.

And, to be fair, too, you know, in the weeks leading up to the first interview, I was extremely uncomfortable with the situation. I was not happy to be in this situation. But there was always a part of me that was grateful at least. You know, I don't want to try to erase that part of history, my history with the committee.

Like, I don't love admitting that now. It's uncomfortable to admit now, because I look back and I'm like, why I was even grateful? But I was grateful that I had somebody, because I was ready to reach out to the committee and represent myself, and I was scared to do that. And they did pull through for me, and I did like Eric.

So I -- you know, it was this, like, battle inside my head where, like, 80 percent of me constantly felt like, "This is bad, this is bad, this is bad. I need to get out of this situation, but I can't now, I can't now. I'm indebted. I am done." But then there was a 20 percent of me -- these are rough percentages, but there was a 20-ish percent of me where I was thinking, you know, like, "Cass, you're overthinking this. Maybe it really is that simple. Maybe they really are getting this from all these other people. Maybe they really do want to take care of you and they are trying to make this easy on you. Like, don't be too cynical about this." So I was just kind of constantly going back and forth between those two narratives in my head throughout this period.

Anyway, as we began the first interview, I don't recall anything -- unless I had the transcript in front of me, and we could flip through it. But the first thing that I really remember that had struck out was when you all began asking me about questions pertaining to the Beast, the Presidential limo.

And I remember, the first question you guys asked, I immediately froze. And I think I said something like, "I never heard anything about that." And I thought you all would just drop it. And then you asked again. And this question was asked in, like, five or six different iterations, to the best of my recollection.

And as this question kept being prodded, I was getting so nervous. I remember, at one point, I'm like -- maybe put my hands on my lap, where I'm, like, kind of, like, trying to give Stefan a signal like, "I want to break."

Now, he also wasn't really letting me take breaks throughout all of this because he wanted to limit the breaks to when he would have to potentially interject if he saw a line of questioning that he didn't like necessarily. So he didn't want it to seem like we were just asking for another frivolous break. He wanted them to be deliberate.

So I remember trying to give him a signal like, "Can we please break?" And I don't have many notes, but this is the notebook that I used with Stefan in those interviews. In the first few pages, I mean, I'm crossing out --I said, "Sorry." Because he said you guys would also ask me this. "Sorry again." But it's these below. I said, "Why do they keep going back and forth? This is rough." And those --

Ms. Cheney. So this is what you were writing to him -- Ms. Hutchinson. This is what I was writing--

Ms. Cheney. -- while the interview was going on?

Ms. Hutchinson. -- while the -- this is when you all were asking me questions about the Beast, what happened in the limo. Because I knew that he knew I knew what happened in the limo -- or what I was told in the limo.

Ms. Cheney. Yeah.

Ms. Hutchinson. I don't want to say I knew what I happened in the limo. I want to make sure it's clear that he knew that I had been relayed by Tony Ornato an incident that potentially happened in the limo. Stefan was aware of this.

But I kept sitting there, and I was asked these questions, and I just needed a break. And we broke soon after that. And I remember, we stood up, and I started to talk. He's like, "Wait till we're out."

And it's, like, this little fishbowl room adjacent to Reince Priebus's office. And once we closed the door, the glass door, I looked at Stefan, and I said, "Stefan, I am fucked." And he was like, "Don't freak out. You're fine." I said, "No, Stefan, I'm fucked. I just lied." And he said, "You didn't lie."

I said, "No, Stefan. Do you know how many times they just asked me that question? I just lied." And he said, "They don't know what you know, Cassidy. 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."

He's like, "They're prodding. They want there to be something. They don't know that there is something. We're not going to give them anything because this is not important. You're doing great. You're doing fine. You're doing exactly what you should be doing."

And I remember, again, we're now at a coffee station, and I was like, "Stefan, I am fucked." And I just remember -- excuse my language, but I just remember I kept saying that, because I was so stressed and worried, but I also know in the back of my mind, I was like, this is exactly what I was worried about, which was feeling like I couldn't be forthcoming when I wanted to be.

Now, don't get me wrong, too. Like, with or without Stefan, I don't think that I would've wanted to provide information that was hurtful to the President. I mean, still to this day, like, I feel bad if he's ever embarrassed by anything that I said, but I never wanted to lie about anything. I never would've covered that story up, because I knew -- I knew what I was told.

And I was asked -- in my mind, I was thinking, if I'm asked a very pointed question, I have to respond to very pointed questions. And if I can find a loophole to a somewhat pointed question -- for example, there was one question: Did Mark ever express concerns about what was going to happen on January 6th? My mind, that loophole was: No, he didn't express concerns. He didn't express -- it was a lack of concern. So I would rationalize certain things in my head.

But, this one, there was no way out. And that's why I was so explicit with Stefan. I was like, "I lied. I lied, I lied, I lied." And he had said, "No. You're fine, you're fine."

So then we went back into the interview, and that sort of had me rattled for a little bit. And, yeah, I'd said to him, like, "They know I know a lot." And he said, "They don't know you know a lot. You think they know, because you do." He's like, "But you're doing the right thing."

[DELETE] Can I just ask, did he ever tell you about what kind of jeopardy you could be putting yourself in if you didn't tell the truth to the committee?

Ms. Hutchinson. Later on, when we hit the May time period. We can talk about that now if you would like, but --

[DELETE] I don't want to interject and kind of slow you down, so why don't we just keep going.

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah. And it's a pretty significant part that comes up.

No, but just for the purposes of here, you know, I don't remember him --

Ms. Cheney. What the penalties for perjury would be or any of that, he didn't -

Ms. Hutchinson. No, but he also said it's not perjury. Like, "You're not perjuring yourself. You're not lying." So we didn't have those discussions initially, because, in his mind, in the rationale that he was sharing with me and the counsel that he was sharing with me, I wasn't lying or perjuring myself by saying "I don't know."

And I look back on this, too -- just as a personal sidebar -- but, you know, I've thought to myself, you know, if I didn't talk to him about this incident beforehand, would I have responded to the questions? And I probably would've. But I had talked to him about it before, so I knew that there would be a target on my back with this, and he told me not to talk about this specific question if it were raised.

But then, you know, the logic that he shared with me afterwards, which was, "They'll probably never ask you about that," I was like, "Well, that kind of makes sense. Like, maybe they won't ever ask me about that and I'm worrying over nothing."

Ms. Cheney. So, just in terms of that first interview, is there anything else from that interview that you recall? And I don't think we need to walk through the errata piece by piece --

Ms. Hutchinson. No. No.

Ms. Cheney. -- but if there's anything else that you wanted to particularly raise?

Ms. Hutchinson. No. Just, at the end of that interview, we had scheduled the second interview. He didn't anticipate there being a second interview. So we broke at one point, and he was like, "This is ridiculous. I didn't think at all that there was going to be a second interview."

So, that night, Stefan and I had a glass of wine at Michael Best, and he had said, you know, "I was going to call my law partners" -- Terwilliger and Moran, George Terwilliger and John Moran, who were at the time representing Mr. Meadows. I think they still are; I'm not sure.

"I was going to call them tonight to let them know that you had your interview today and that you did a good job and that it's over." He said, "But I'm kind of having second thoughts now." He's like, "I'll figure out how to handle it with my law partners, but I think I should call Terwilliger and Moran in the next couple days and say 'Cassidy's interview is scheduled for' and then give the date." He's like, "I don't want them to think that you went in twice, because I don't think that will make Mark happy." He's like, "So I'm just going to try to downplay it and make it seem like your next second interview is your first and last interview, if that's okay with you."

And at the time, again, I didn't really have any objections. I was like, "Look, you're my lawyer. I'm going to trust that you are going to do what's best for me." And he said, "Okay. Great." We briefly talked about jobs that night, nothing too substantive until --

Ms. Cheney. I'm sorry. What did he say about jobs that night?

Ms. Hutchinson. He said that he was going to talk to his law partners in that conversation and then that they would be in touch with me soon about getting employment, because he was like -- Stefan said something to the effect of, "They're dragging this out for you. This is so not fair. We want to make sure that we get you financially set up and taken care of as quickly as possible. So we'll chat in a couple days."

Ms. Cheney. When he talked about his law partners, did he ever include Reince in that?

Ms. Hutchinson. He never said that he was going to share information with Reince, but he always made it known that Reince was -- I don't know if he would describe him as a partner. I forget how he would describe him. But he made it clear that, like, Reince would be privy to this information too.

He never told me, though -- to the best of my recollection, he never said that he was also going to sit down Reince and tell him about my interview. Now, it's very well that he could, because sometimes he would just broadly say "my partners," and I would assume that meant, like, the partners at Michael Best that he felt should be privy to this information. You know, sometimes I just didn't ask.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

So, then, we're going now to the second interview, unless -- do you have any other questions, [DELETE] or [DELETE]?

[DELETE] I just have one question.

Do you remember how this topic of employment came up in the first place?

Ms. Hutchinson. They knew -- Liz Horning told them -- so when Liz Horning on February 1st called, she told me that she let Pam know that I still wasn't working. And she was like -- Liz had just said, like, "We're going to get you all taken care of. Don't worry. Like, everybody knows your situation and why you actually, like, really need this financial help. Like, you deserve it more than anyone."

I never had -- now, I did tell Stefan in our first meeting that I wasn't working. I believe he had asked me, like, "You're not" -- I think he had said something like, "You're not working right now, right," or, "You haven't found a job since, like, we began this process, right?" So it was more of a making sure that I wasn't. And he said, "Okay, well, you're going to be taken care of. Don't worry."

But I never at this point had been like, "I also need you guys to find me a job." Honestly, I mean, in some regards, the prospect was comforting. It's uncomfortable to admit it now. Like, I hadn't been working and -- so we'll go to March 1st briefly. I'm sorry. I know I'm dragging this out a little bit.

Ms. Cheney. No, no. It's very helpful. Don't worry about that.

Ms. Hutchinson. Stefan called me on March 1st, and I believe that's the day that we officially set the next interview date for Monday, March 7th.

But I was driving up to New Jersey, and he asked me to call him. So I pulled over at a Wawa, like, before Baltimore, and I'm talking to him on the phone. And he had said something to me like, "We're getting the job stuff figured out for you" -- because I had also mentioned to Stefan at the end of the first interview, on the 23rd, like, before I was subpoenaed, I had been applying other places, I had interviews with corporations. He said, "Well, we'll figure all that out, but just press pause on that for now."

So, then, on March 1st, we called and we were talking briefly about jobs. Like, he had texted me that he had a few good job leads, so I called him. And he began the conversation saying something like, "We're gonna get you a really good job in Trump world. You don't need to apply other places. We're gonna get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family."

And I said, "All right, awesome. Like, thank you so much. Where are these job leads?", like, trying to find more out about them. He said, "I'll text you them in a little bit."

[admin]

Part 3 of 5

So then he texted me later that morning, and he screenshotted an email that [DELETE] had sent to him to do the second interview in person. And he had said, "Do you see any upside to this? Candidly, I don't know."

Even with the first interview, I told him that I had a preference to do them both in person. But I also wasn't going to dig my heals in about this. But I really wanted to do the second one in person, and I did tell Stefan that after my first interview. I was like, "Can we do the second one in person, even if they have to come here?" And he said, "I'll talk to them, but, you know, I don't think they'll want to come here," and, like, "I don't know if we should go up to Columbia (ph), but I'll talk to [DELETE] to see if we can work something out."

Stefan sent that email. He knew that I wanted to do the second one in person. He said, "Do you see an upside to this? Candidly, I don't." And then we just kind of go through it. And then he decides -- he said --

Ms. Cheney. Why did you want to do it in person?

Ms. Hutchinson. I felt that if I could see you all face-to-face, it would be easier to have these conversations.

One, I really don't like Zoom. I think Zoom is extremely impersonal, and I prefer face-to-face communication.

But I also felt that, if I were to do a second interview in person, you know, I think I articulate myself better face-to-face. It's more emotional and personal to me. But I also thought, like -- and this is going to sound quintessential and cheesy, but I also felt that, like, I would have a little bit more courage to kind of break away because you guys would be sitting in front of me, and there'd be my lawyer next to me, but there would be more people in front of me that I could talk to, where I'm not feeling like it's him, Stefan, watching over my shoulder. So --

Ms. Cheney. And did he tell you why he wanted to do it by Zoom?

Ms. Hutchinson. So he said -- sorry, I'm just trying to read my notes. He said, "I don't see an upside for us unless it keeps members off of the line." So, if we were going to do it in person, he basically was like, no Zoom function.

I said, "Could you ask [DELETE] what their thought process is, or do you just want to push back?" He said, "I'll ask." He said, "Okay."

And then we had a phone call later that day, where he essentially just said, you know, "We're not doing it in person. This is ridiculous. [DELETE] wants to do it in person because he wants you to see that he's a good person and that you shouldn't be upset about anything that, like, they are" -- whatever. And I was like, "Okay, that's fine, whatever," and, again, I just didn't really push back on that.

And in the next few days -- on Thursday, March 3rd, after having the conversation where we weren't going to do the in-person interview, Stefan reached out and said, "I have three solid job leads to discuss when you want." And then he sent me Jason Miller and Justin Clark's contact information.

And -- oh, actually, it was in writing. He did send back -- I said, "Did [DELETE] ever give you an indication for why they wanted to do it in person?" Stefan said, "He thought it might put you at ease to see he's a really good guy." I said, "'Cassidy knows that.' No need to bring the circus to us."

And then he called me about the job opportunities, and in the call he said something to the effect of, "Justin and Jason" -- Justin Clark, Jason Miller -- "know your situation. They know you're loyal. They want to take care of you. Reach out to them. They have good job opportunities for you. I think you'll be really happy. Just reach out to them soon."

I reached out to both Justin and Jason and sent them very, like, pithy texts, which I believe you all have now. Jason set me up for an interview with Kaelan Dorr, who is his executive at his company, GETTR. And they set the interview up for the day after my second interview with the committee. So that would've been Tuesday, March 8th.

Ms. Cheney. So Stefan is talking to you about the job offers both before the first interview and before the second interview.

Ms. Hutchinson. The morning before my first interview, he had mentioned that at the end of that day he wanted to talk about job opportunities. We didn't have a lengthy discussion about it. That conversation was more, "We're going to take care of you. Press pause on applying other places right now. I'll be in touch though."

And then the next conversation we had about jobs occurred on Tuesday, March 1st. And that's when he said, "We want you to stay in Trump world with jobs. We're gonna find something really good for you. I think you'll be really happy."

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. Because I also told Stefan, like, you know, "I have an interest in going to corporate America. I kind of want to take a step back from politics. I don't really want to be imbedded in this world right now. I think it's toxic, but it's toxic for me. Like, I know I wouldn't be happy."

And he's like, "Well, we'll find you something in Trump world, like, tangential to politics. You'll be happy, don't worry. But, like, we're going to get you taken care of."

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

So, then, the night before your second interview, this is when Ben Williamson reaches out to you. And if I have skipped something --

Ms. Hutchinson. Could we take a brief 5-minute break?

Ms. Cheney. Sure.

[Recess.]

Ms. Cheney. It's 3:33, and we're going back on the record now.

So, Cassidy, we were just at, I think, the night before your second interview. So do you want to sort of walk through -- did you hear from Ben Williamson that night, I believe?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yes. And would you mind if we briefly step back just for one item on the 23rd?

Ms. Cheney. Not at all.

Ms. Hutchinson. I just wanted to make it clear for the record -- and I believe I've sort of alluded to this, but I just want to make it a little bit more clear that, throughout my first interview, yes, there were specific instances where either he would interject or I would say "I don't recall," but in my mind this whole time I felt this moral struggle.

And, looking back now, it feels a little -- not even "a little" ridiculous -- it feels ridiculous, because in my heart I knew where my loyalties lied, and my loyalties lied with the truth. And I never wanted to diverge from that. You know, I never wanted or thought that I would be the witness that I have become, because I thought that more people would be willing to speak out too.

But as I'm going through the first interview, I remember just in the back of my mind I was constantly thinking, like -- I was trying so hard to be loyal to the President and to be loyal to Meadows and to be loyal to the Trump White House, one, because I felt that I had to be. I had Stefan sitting next to me, and he had never explicitly said, like, "You have to be loyal to these people, and if you're not, these will be the repercussions," but I knew the repercussions. I'd been in this world. I knew what I was subjecting myself to when I got into this situation, and I knew what I had to do to get through it.

But in the back of my mind, too, I just kept thinking, like, "This is wrong. I don't like who I'm being right now. I don't like the way that I'm handling this right now." But I just sort of reconciled that as I moved through as, "You know what? I'm getting it done. And it's what my lawyer told me to do. Maybe it is the right thing. Maybe I am overthinking it. You know, they are talking to other people." But I did just feel this heavy guilt, walking out of Michael Best that night.

And I told Stefan that when I left that night. I was like, "Stefan, I feel really guilty and bad about not answering some questions today." I was like, "I feel like I should go back and clarify some things next time." He said, "Well, we can talk about it," he's like, "but you did really well today, Cass. I don't want you to second-guess anything. We're all really proud of you. Don't worry. Just go home and get some sleep. We'll talk in a couple days."

So I just, like, for the purposes of the clarity of the record too, I'm not sitting here trying to make myself out to be some hero. I know I handled things wrong. At least, I think I handled some things wrong in the first interview. You know, I hate that I had this moral struggle, because it shouldn't have existed.

But once I got back into that world and they were, quote/unquote, "taking care of me," I felt that I owed my allegiance to other people too. And drawing that line, for me, was nearly impossible, moving through this day.

And it's hard. Like, there were some questions I would say, like, "I don't recall, but" -- and then, as I read through the transcript, I can see, like, where I'm trying to give a little bit.

And we'd take a break, and Stefan would say, "You're doing really well, but you're starting to answer questions that they're not really asking yet. Maybe they won't go there. Let's just keep trying to taper it down a little bit. You're doing well. Let's wrap this up. We don't want to make this longer than it has to be."

So the question for me became, where do my loyalties lie? And I knew where they were, but I wasn't equipped with people that allowed me and empowered me to be loyal to the country and to be loyal to the truth.

And whether or not what I had to share was important to the scheme of your investigation, like, I didn't know. Again, I partially thought that it would be corroborating. I didn't think that it would be sometimes the first that you guys had heard things or however it ended up playing out.

But, you know, I did feel like it was my obligation and my duty to share it, because I think that if you're given a position of public power, it's also your job, your civic responsibility, to allow the people to make decisions for themselves. And if no one's going to do that, like, somebody has to do it.

So, anyway, that's just -- you know, it's a sidebar, but just sort of a -- my mindset that day was kind of all over the place. And, obviously, my responses are reflected in that.

And it wasn't just that I had Stefan sitting next to me; it was almost like I felt like I had Trump looking over my shoulder. Because I knew in some fashion it would get back to him if I said anything that he would find disloyal. 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. I'd seen how vicious they can be.

And part of that's politics, but a lot of it, too -- you know, I obviously haven't been around D.C. all that long, but I think some of it is unique to Trump world, the level they'll go to to tear somebody else down. And I was scared of that.

So just, this first interview, like, that was also going on in the back of my mind. And trying to work through and deal with that was hard. But I also don't want to underemphasize that Stefan did give me legal counsel and advice, but I took it. I didn't have to take it. I took it. He was my lawyer, and I believed it.

So, like, I can't pin -- morally, I can't sit here and pin all of the blame on him, because I'm also an adult that can make decisions. It was my job to accept the legal counsel that he provided me, and, you know, I did. So --

Ms. Cheney. Well, I think it's important to just -- and I hope we made this clear at the beginning today. But, you know, the committee is very grateful and respectful of your dedication to the truth and of your willingness to walk through this in such detail and, you know, your willingness to answer questions in the way that you are and your commitment to the truth.

Ms. Hutchinson. Thanks.

Ms. Cheney. So, you know, I think, you know, you've been just a real model for the committee and for the country in terms of, you know, your willingness to make sure people understand what happened. So we're very grateful for that.

[3:40 p.m.]

Ms. Hutchinson. I just want to make sure it's clear. And thank you.

Ms. Cheney. Yes.

Ms. Hutchinson. I just want to make sure it's clear to you, though, that I'm not sitting here, you know, trying to hurt anyone, and I'm not sitting here trying to rewrite my history with the committee. Like, I know my history with the committee, and I am sorry that it took so long to get to this place. And I'm grateful that everyone has given me the opportunity to get to this place.

But, you know, I just think it's important for me at least to make the point of, one, it was hard for me, but, you know, I do accept responsibility for it. I'm not pinning blame on everybody else but myself. You know --

Ms. Cheney. No, we --

Ms. Hutchinson. That's irresponsible. That's what other people have done. I'm not going to name names, but other people during this investigation have not taken responsibility for things, and I just want to make sure it's clear that like, while I did not handle certain things that I perceive as the right way, I -- I'll own that, and I -- I would never try to rewrite that or erase it.

Ms. Cheney. Well, I think we appreciate that, and we appreciate your time and your willingness to walk through all of this.

And maybe we could go now to the second -- or to the night before --

Ms. Hutchinson. Uh-huh.

Ms. Cheney. -- the second interview, if that's where we are, and just talk about you got a call from Mr. Williamson --

Ms. Hutchinson. I did.

Ms. Cheney. -- and what that entailed.

Ms. Hutchinson. So the night before my second interview, I can't remember -- I don't believe Ben and I really spoke between my first and second interview.

Now, Ben and I also were friends, so it wouldn't have been out of the ordinary if we just had a conversation not pertaining to this.

We were more distant friends at this point, not really by any -- it wasn't necessarily deliberate. It just was schedules didn't align, and I kind of also was really trying to separate myself and isolate myself from people at this point, because I didn't want anybody to feel -- I didn't want to put a target on my back and have to talk about any of this stuff, because people just talk.

But I'm under the impression that Ben knew I was testifying on Monday, March 7th, 2022, via Mr. Meadows, Mr. Terwilliger, Mr. Moran, or somebody in that orbit, because Mr. Stefan Passantino did call John Moran and George Terwilliger to let them know that I had my interview scheduled for March 7th.

Ms. Cheney. Did he tell you that he --

Ms. Hutchinson. I didn't -- I didn't ask him how he knew, but he -- so --

Ms. Cheney. No. I'm sorry. I meant did Stefan report back to you after he had called them or--

Ms. Hutchinson. He did.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. He did. After my -- the interview on the 23rd, he asked if I was okay if he called them.

And I said something like, "It's your call. I don't really have any objection to it," which, genuinely, at the time, I didn't. Like, maybe that was right. Maybe it wasn't. But I was sitting there like telling him to pound sand over it.

So Ben called me the night before my second interview. And it wasn't a long conversation. This part especially wasn't long. He had let in -- we were just sort of talking about random things like -- I kind of had suspicions for why he was calling me, and there was a moment where I almost didn't answer, and then I -- curiosity got the best of me, so I answered.

And he just -- he started talking like random things, like on Twitter and whatever the Biden administration was doing at the time. And he was like, "Hey, by the way, Mark said you have your deposition tomorrow. Mark told me you have your deposition tomorrow. Like how do you feel about it?" He was like, "Who is your lawyer?" And I was like, "Oh, I -- Stefan is my lawyer."

He was like, "Oh, Stefan? He's a really great guy. I know him."

And I'm like, "Do you know him, Ben? I don't know if you know him."

And he was like, "Yeah, he's really nice. Like we met once. Seems like a good guy."

Like, "I'm not too nervous for tomorrow."

And he was like, "All right. Good, good." And he said, "Yeah, there is nothing to be nervous about. Like mine was -- mine was pretty easy." He was like, "Just say" -- he was like, "I just said 'I don't recall' a lot." And he said, generally, like, "We're going to be fine. Like they're not going to come after us for anything."

And I was like, "All right, cool. Yeah."

And he was -- he said something to the effect of, "Well, Mark wants me to let you know that he knows you're loyal and he knows you'll do the right thing tomorrow and that you're going to protect him and the boss. You know, he knows that we're all on the same team and we're all a family. Do well. Let me know how it goes."

And I was like, "All right. Awesome. Cool. Thanks, Ben." And I might have -- I don't remember if I asked him or not. I might have asked -- my gut instinct is no, but there is a chance that I did ask him, which is why I just want to say it just for the purposes of the record, there is a chance I asked him like, "Does Mark think I'm disloyal?"

And the only reason I think I might have asked that is because it was sort of out of the blue that Mark sent the message of he knows you're loyal. So, in my knowing how my mind works, that probably sparked an anxiety thought for me of, "Does he think I'm disloyal? Does he have a target on my back? Is he going to try to like leak a bad story about me or something?"

So there is a chance I asked him that. I really don't remember asking him that. But there is a chance, because I know how my head works.

So that was pretty much the extent of the call with Ben that night.

Ms. Cheney. Did he --

Ms. Hutchinson. And he called me again the night after my deposition on Signal, too, but I didn't answer that phone call.

Ms. Cheney. And did you hear from anybody else that night?

Ms. Hutchinson. No. Not what -- I mean, I think Liz Horning and I spoke that night maybe. And I only say -- I don't think we would have even talked about my deposition. I'm just trying to think of Trump world people that I was talking to at the time. It wouldn't have been out of the ordinary for Liz and I to be texting around then. But I don't remember. I don't -- I went through my texts, and I don't think I had anything from her.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. And then -- so then you would get into the second interview --

Ms. Hutchinson. Oh.

Ms. Cheney. Oh.

Ms. Hutchinson. Sorry. Really quick. Justin Clark sent me a text message on March 6th and working to try to schedule a call that we could talk about job opportunities. And he asked for Monday.

I said, "Monday is the only day I have constraints."

And he said, "Okay. How about Tuesday?"

So that was the only other Trump world outreach I had that night -

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. -- before my second.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. So then we get to the second interview, also by Zoom. Anything that you need to talk about from the second interview or that you want to recall from that interview?

Ms. Hutchinson. I think we've discussed most of it in the errata, and it's all pretty much on par with what we've discussed with the first. The same -- I don't recall any different guidance that I had received from Stefan or -- I don't recall any separate counsel and legal advice that I had received from Stefan pertaining to my second interview that was different than my first.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. So all of the topics that we have covered then have been clarified and elaborated on in our errata.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. So then the next sort of event that we have been focused on is the Meadows brief. But I don't want to skip ahead --

Ms. Hutchinson. There is just a few small --

Ms. Cheney. Yeah.

Ms. Hutchinson. -- things here if you don't mind.

So the day after the second interview, so March 8th, I had a "job interview" -- and I use air quotes on job interview, because it wasn't really a job interview -- with GETTR, Jason Miller's social media company. It was led by Kaelan Dorr. Essentially it was a Zoom. He had said, "Jason's told me great things about you. We're looking for somebody that fits exactly what he says you are."

I never really worked with Jason Miller. I really don't know Jason Miller. He was like, "We're just working" -- I say this. It wasn't really an interview. It was more of a, "We think you'd be the perfect fit for this job that doesn't really exist yet, so we're going to work the next few weeks on crafting a specific position for you. We'll be in touch. And when we're in touch, like, you're hired," type of conversation.

Ms. Cheney. This was -- I'm sorry -- March 8th -

Ms. Hutchinson. The day after, yes.

Ms. Cheney. -- the day after your interview? Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. So we scheduled -- he reached out to schedule this interview on March 4th, the Friday before my second interview. Friday, March 4th, we scheduled the second -- or we scheduled the GETTR interview. Monday, March 7th, scheduled -- or we had the second interview. Tuesday, March 8th, GETTR interview.

And then there is just periodic texts through the month of March from Justin Clark and Pam Bondi about job opportunities, like, "Let's schedule a call soon." It's kind of wishy-washy.

Pam -- this was on Signal, so I don't have it, but I remember the not exact phrasing, but I remember what the message had said. She texted me on Friday -- or she messaged me on Signal on Friday, March 18th, and she has message expirations on. Pam texted me that night and said something to the effect of, "Susie, Matt Schlapp, and I had dinner with POTUS at Mar-a-Lago tonight. Call Matt next week. He has a job for you that we all think you'd be great at -- that you all -- we all think you would be great in. You are the best. Keep up the good work. Love and miss you."

Ms. Cheney. And what day was that, Cassidy?

Ms. Hutchinson. Friday, March 18th.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. We don't have that text?

Ms. Hutchinson. No.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. And so can you just read that again?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yes. It was something to the effect of, "Susie, Matt Schlapp, and I had dinner with POTUS at Mar-a-Lago tonight. Call Matt next week. He has a job for you that we all think you would be great in. You are the best. Keep it up. Love and miss you."

Ms. Cheney. Okay. And did you call Matt?

Ms. Hutchinson. I did not. I thanked Pam. I responded, said, "Thanks, Pam. Really appreciate it." And I said, "Love you, too." I don't know. I probably didn't. It's not really my style.

Ms. Cheney. Did you talk to Matt Schlapp directly at all throughout this process?

Ms. Hutchinson. No.

Ms. Cheney. Was there a reason why you didn't?

Ms. Hutchinson. No. I wouldn't have been opposed to talking to him. I never was asked to talk to him. And I didn't want to talk to him personally, so I also wasn't questioning it.

Ms. Cheney. What about--

Ms. Hutchinson. I really didn't want to talk to anybody in Matt Schlapp's operation, to be frank with you. The Trump PAC operations are one beast. I know nothing about the Schlapp operation. I don't know the Schlapps. I never worked with them other than sometimes they'd be travel guests on Air Force One.

But, you know, that's a whole different caliber of an operation that I have absolutely no insight on, so I just was completely uncomfortable with that, because at least with the Trump world PAC stuff I knew enough people there to get some information out, but the Schlapps, I just don't at all.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. So you didn't talk to Mercedes -

Ms. Hutchinson. No.

Ms. Cheney. -- Schlapp either? Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. I talked to -- the only two people I spoke with in the Schlapp world, Schlapp operation, which I know it's tangential to Trump world, but in his separate organization, I spoke with Laura Nassim (ph), Matt's assistant, and David Safavian.

Mr. Hunt. Can you just clarify? You spoke to them, or you messaged with them, communicated with them?

Ms. Hutchinson. I communicated with them.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. Thank you.

Ms. Cheney. That's very millennial.

Ms. Hutchinson. Yes. What did she say?

Mr. Hunt. Very millennial.

[Laughter.]

Ms. Cheney. Did you -- so do you recall any other times, Cassidy, when someone had mentioned to you that they had talked to the President about your testimony?

Ms. Hutchinson. Not until the weekend of March -- or April 22nd.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. So we'll get up to that shortly here.

Ms. Hutchinson. After my interviews, though, there would be some times -- like -- or in between breaks sometimes, Stefan would say, like, "Trump world is not going to be mad at you. Don't worry. Like, the boss is not going to be mad at anything you're saying right now. Like, you're handling it right. We have your back."

But I don't think he had related -- this was like in real time.

Ms. Cheney. Yeah.

Ms. Hutchinson. So it wasn't -

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. But just for the clarity of--

Ms. Cheney. Okay. And then you met -- were there a couple other things before we get to --

Ms. Hutchinson. Not particularly. Again, it's just pithy texts trying to schedule calls with Justin Clark about job stuff, and I'm not really like being proactive about it, to be honest with you, for no reason other than like, one, I kind of thought that the Jason Miller GETTR thing was going to work out, not that I really wanted to take that opportunity. But I also was like, if I keep talking to Justin, maybe that'll tick off Jason Miller.

So I just was like, let me just see how this plays out before I like cast a net too wide, because what I really wanted to do was get through all this, know for sure I was done with the committee, and then start applying corporate and just try to cut off Trump world again. I didn't really have a plan, but I was just trying to wait it out for a little bit.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

[DELETE] How frequently did Justin Clark contact you about these opportunities?

Ms. Hutchinson. Justin and I -- in March -- we exchanged text messages in March on Thursday, March 3rd; Friday, March 4th; Sunday, March 6th; Tuesday, March 8th; Wednesday, March 9th; Monday, March 14th; Wednesday, March 16th; Thursday, March 17th; Tuesday, March 29th; Thursday, March 31st. And that's it for that time period.

[DELETE] Thank you.

Ms. Cheney. And those -- I'm sorry. Were those calls specifically about jobs, or those were just general conversations?

Ms. Hutchinson. General conversations talking about he has job -- job leads.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. Let's get a call soon.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. That I often would be like, I'm going to reschedule, or sometimes he said, I'm going to -- so it was just kind of this game of cat and mouse with it.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. Okay. Then I think on April 22nd the brief came out that the committee filed in the Meadows case.

Can you tell us about how you became aware of the brief and your reaction to that?

Ms. Hutchinson. So just to briefly backtrack, at the end of my second interview, again, I didn't like the way I handled that day. I didn't like the way that I answered questions. But, in my mind, I was done and I had come to terms with that.

And there was a part of me, like, I did feel guilty, but I sort of -- I remember walking out of Michael Best that night, and it was pouring rain. I remember walking out of Michael Best that night and thinking, like, you know, I am a little bit more free than I was this morning and maybe I did do the right thing. And I just kind of compartmentalized any guilt that I had had and was just like let me just move on for right now and try not to think about it.

And, to be completely frank, I did think about it the next month, but I wasn't sitting there in my apartment every single day with this like intense sense of regret and pain and guilt. Like it was crossing my mind, but, again, it was more of the I probably did do the right thing. I probably was overthinking this. My role was pretty quiet at that point.

When the brief was filed on April 22nd, I was just scrolling through Twitter. I think it was probably like 45 minutes delayed at that point. And I opened it, and I'm starting to read through it and as I'm reading through it, I realized that there are going to be the transcript citations in there.

So then I'm like, "Oh, shit." So I just search my name, and I see that there are citations from my transcript -- both of my transcripts. So I'm reading through them. And then I read through them again and again and again. And each time I read through them that night, I just -- I was sitting on my couch in like my old apartment, it looked out over the bullpen and the Navy Yard near the Nats' stadium. I remember sitting there reading on my phone like this, glancing out the window, and I just kept thinking like, "Oh, my God, I became someone that I never thought I was going to become."

And there really wasn't anything -- yes, there were citations in that filing where I could have been more forthcoming, but it was more I was -- I kept reading how I was responding to questions, and the "I don't recalls," and dancing around my responses, not giving full-throated responses about things. I would say things, there were a few in that filing, but I knew there were more where like I was completely hedging for Trump and for Mark where I would say, like, I was sticking up for them and saying that, like, essentially what they did wasn't really that bad.

And I remember sitting there thinking this isn't completely out of my control yet. Like I did not handle this well, and that, you know, there is -- I guess I would have to backtrack a little bit.

But there is a Republican Member of Congress who, for years I've been close with and confided in, Republican Member of Congress who is not on the committee. And I remember calling this Member as I'm reading through this.

And this Member had told me -- this Member had reminded me that, when I spoke with this Member back in January when I reached out to them about potentially getting money from Trump world to pay for my legal bills, like if that was a bad or a good idea, this Member had told me that, "If you do that, just know that you're kind of making your bed and you're getting back in Trump world, Cassidy. That lawyer isn't just going to be working for you. Like, I just -- I want you to be aware of that. I'm not telling you to do it or not to do it, but I just -- I want you to know that you can't take money like that and expect them to just be working for you and your interests."

So that night I had called this Member, and they essentially said, "Yeah, Cassidy, you need to -- you're the one that has to live with the mirror test for the rest of your life. I know that you feel like that you didn't handle things right. I know that you're stressed about this. Are you going to be able to live with yourself if you just move on and kind of forget about this, or do you want to try to do something about it?"

So then I'm just -- I just had a mental breakdown after that, because I just -- you know, I was disappointed in myself. I was frustrated with myself. To be blunt, I was kind of disgusted with myself. I became somebody I never thought that I would become.

And it was hard. It was hard to come to terms with then. It's hard to look back on now.

And so I got in the car, and I drove up to New Jersey, because my parents live in New Jersey, and what does Cassidy do when she has problems and doesn't want to -- she doesn't want to confront? I try to get out -- try to get out of here.

So, as I'm driving up to Jersey, it's like super early in the morning at this point, I start googling "Watergate." Like there has to be somebody that participated in Watergate that either had a similar job to me and had exposure. Like how did they handle this? Like did they kind of chaff the Nixon White House?

So I'm going through. And I didn't know that much about Watergate. I had heard John Dean's name before, but then I come across this man named Alex Butterfield, who had -- I was on the Wikipedia page, and it looked like he had a similar role and title to what I had in the White House. So I'm, in driving, sort of trying to read about him.

Then I go onto a new tab. And I'm like, this guy has got to have done something after all this. And I found that he, a couple years ago, worked on this book with Bob Woodward. And this is like the most comprehensive piece of work that he had done since he had testified to the Watergate committee at that time about 40 years ago.

So I ordered two copies of this, had them shipped to my parents' house, and I sat there that weekend and read it. And I read it three times. I read it once. Then I read it again, underlined. And then I read it a third time, and I went through and tabbed it.

And it was after I read all of this, where he had talked about like how he fought the moral struggle, where he felt like he still had to be loyal to the Nixon White House, but he talked about a lot of the same things that I felt like I was experiencing. And, you know, it wasn't an identical situation, but it's -- it's the -- the emphasis he placed on the moral questions that he was asking himself resonated with me.

And then, you know, he ended up testifying to the Watergate committee. And I wasn't by no means trying to compare what I knew to what Butterfield knew at all. But he was somebody that I found and was looking at as somebody who did know things and who was loyal and who had a position that required an incredible amount of trust and confidence, but he ended up doing the right thing.

And it was after I read this I was like I -- if I'm going to pass the mirror test for the rest of my life, I need to try to fix some of this.

So I got back from New Jersey and -- I'm trying to find -- on Tuesday, April 26th, I went over to my former colleague from the White House --I went over to my former colleague's house that I worked with at the White House. Her name is Alyssa Farah. Excuse me.

Ms. Cheney. Before we go -- and I want to cover that -- but did you hear from Stefan after the Meadows brief was filed?

Ms. Hutchinson. So Stefan and I did briefly talk about that this weekend -- oh, thank you for -- because there was an important piece here.

Yes. So I had let -- I let Stefan know that I was really upset about that. And there also were some like news stories that weekend that were citing the citations of my testimony and interviews before the committee. And, you know, Stefan was sort of nonchalant about it. He was like, "Just ignore it. It's going to go away. This isn't your fault. This is super unfair."

And I kept saying to him, "Stefan, I'm really upset about all this."

Like -- he was like, "It's not fair at all. It'll die down. Don't worry."

And then I -- he had said something. I'm trying to read through to find where he -- he said, "You're beating yourself up over things that aren't your fault."

And I said, "You know that I'm good at beating myself up."

And then he called me. After I sent that text, he called me on Signal, and he stressed to me that my citations weren't, quote, "that bad," end quote, and that he still is, quote, "proud," end quote, of how I handled everything.

And then he went on to remind me that I wasn't the only person cited in that motion, the --

Mr. Hunt. Brief.

Ms. Hutchinson. The brief?

Mr. Hunt. Uh-huh.

Ms. Hutchinson. And he said that he had talked to folks down at Mar-a-Lago, and the President was not mad about anything that I had discussed in my interviews. And Stefan reassured me that he did hear that the President was really angry at Jason Miller's, because there was a citation to Jason Miller's testimony in that brief.

So he said, "I haven't heard anything about the boss being mad about anything discussed in your interviews. He is really ticked off, though, at Jason. So, you know, I would have heard if he was mad about anything discussed in yours, but it's just a good reminder that the boss does read transcripts. And we want to make sure that like whatever he's reading isn't going to put you in a bad situation."

He said, "But, again, I told you I'm proud of how you've handled all of this. You're on a good track, Cass. You have nothing to worry about. I know it sucks this weekend, but the story will die down."

And the stories weren't that bad. I just didn't want to outwardly say to Stefan, "No, Stefan, I'm not upset about how the boss might look at me with this. I'm more upset about how I handled it."

So I sort of just let the conversation die there with Stefan. I didn't really want to tip him off to anything, because we go into the next little phase where I have the genius idea to take the matter into my own hands, which was maybe I can do a little course correction here.

Ms. Cheney. And did he talk to you about either Pat Cipollone or Pat Philbin and their response?

Ms. Hutchinson. He had said that White House Counsel's Office wasn't thrilled with some of the things that I had discussed. He never pointed to anything specifically.

Did he point to anything specifically? I want to go back and look at if I have any notes on that --

Ms. Cheney. Okay. And then your--

Ms. Hutchinson. -- just to make sure, because he might have pointed something out specifically. But I do remember him -- and thank you for bringing that up, because I do remember him raising that -- I think he said, "The Pats weren't happy about a few of the things that you talked about, but like that doesn't matter as much. What matters is the President doesn't have -- the President doesn't seem angry from what I've heard."

But I do want to look back to see if I have any notes on if he specified anything that White House Counsel was not happy about.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. And then did you hear from Jason Miller?

Ms. Hutchinson. So a few days afterwards I heard from Jason Miller that the GETTR job offer was done, which I was like, "Okay, thanks. Thanks for letting me know." That was on --

Ms. Cheney. Was that connected to the filing of the brief, or--

Ms. Hutchinson. They didn't say that specifically. They said, "There is a lot going on right now, and we just want to make sure that everything is settled in Mark's world before we, you know, continue having conversations with you."

I said, "Okay, great. Thank you for letting me know."

[DELETE] Well, do you know, what does that mean, "settled in Mark's world"?

Ms. Hutchinson. I don't know. I can speculate. Would you like me to speculate?

[DELETE] I mean, what would you speculate?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah, it could go multiple ways. I think that, you know, Mark had been making a spectacle of himself in the press for a little bit. I think the President wasn't -- this is from what I heard from people -- the President wasn't in -- very thrilled with Mr. Meadows at the time.

And Jason Miller is somebody who always works to really stay in Trump's good graces. So I think that, in their minds, had the President somehow connected that Cassidy Hutchinson -- she had some of her interviews cited in and this thing kind of ticked the President off, because he was ticked off at Jason, let's not hire Cassidy because we don't want more of a reason for the President to think that Jason's working against him.

That's my speculation. Personally, I think it's pretty spot-on, but I just --I don't have any corroborating evidence of that other than --

[DELETE] Sure.

Ms. Hutchinson. -- knowing the personalities of Trump world and the coincidence of timing.

[DELETE] Okay.

[DELETE] Do you know exactly when Miller called you to say you didn't have the job?

Ms. Hutchinson. It was Monday, May -- Monday, May 2nd. I'll double -- it was Monday, May 2nd. I'll triple-check that, but I'm 99 percent sure it was Monday, May 2nd.

Oh, no. I'm so sorry. It was Thursday, April 28th. I did have it on here. knew it.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. So then you were -- I think -- anything else around the 22nd?

Ms. Hutchinson. I can move to the 26th if that's acceptable.

Ms. Cheney. Sure.

Ms. Hutchinson. So on Tuesday, April 26th, I went to Alyssa Farah's house. I had not seen Alyssa since she resigned from the White House in the beginning of -- her White House job at the beginning of December 2020. But I was fairly close with her at the White House. I knew that she has been pretty outspoken about the events surrounding January 6th. I trusted her enough to go talk to her about my situation, and not in great detail, but enough where I could, you know -- I knew that she was also interested in getting to the truth.

And I was nervous, too, because I, you know, I -- I didn't want anything getting back to Stefan, and I was, honestly, really scared that somehow it would, and I -- Alyssa is my best option that everything is kind of staying close hold.

So I went to Alyssa's house, and we hung out for a while. And then, towards the end -- because I wasn't saying anything to her. I was like, this is dumb. I'm going to regret this. But, no, this is why I came here.

So towards the end of the conversation I believe I was fairly vague with her, and I said, "Look, like I don't know if you read what was put out last week in the brief with Mark and the committee, but like my transcript was in there a lot. It was referenced in there a lot."

And I was like, "Alyssa, like, I know you know I had a Trump world attorney. I don't think I have to go into excruciating detail to tell you like the situation I'm in right now, but I think that I should go in and like elaborate on a few things. I think I need to go in and kind of expand on some things."

And she was like, "Okay, well, how do you want to do this?"

And I was like, "You know, I don't know."

I essentially had just told her like, "Can you just back channel to the committee and say that there is a few things that I want to talk about," because I was trying to think of things that the committee had not asked me in my first few interviews where it wouldn't set off alarm bells to Stefan.

Like, if you guys had asked -- you guys asked questions about the Beast, what happened in the Presidential SUV. So we came back and -- to me, someone would be like, okay, she let them know that she has more on this.

So I was trying to think of things that weren't as deliberately asked in the first few interviews that I could go in and then just hope that there would be some prodding and we could -- I could be a little bit more transparent and potentially then be done with it. It was -- this was for my conscience.

And I wanted to be helpful. You know, I didn't like that I had withheld things, but I wasn't at a place where I wanted to terminate my attorney-client relationship with Stefan, which Alyssa had also suggested. She said like, "We can maybe find you another attorney. Would you be more comfortable with that?"

I said, "I don't think I'm at that stage yet. I think that I can do this as long as like the committee thinks that they can really keep this low key and low profile and not let Stefan know that I'm back channeling for this interview."

And she was like, "I think that's possible.

So I gave her a few things to proffer to the committee, and we scheduled the second interview. Well, we didn't schedule it yet. The committee had reached out to Stefan on Friday, April 29th, to schedule the interview. Stefan had called me a few times, and I sort of knew at this point what it was about.

So he called me, and he said, "I have bad news. The committee wants you in for a third interview."

And this is where I just sort of start to get very paranoid because -- this maybe isn't entirely rational -- but where I'm at, you know, I knew where I was. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew how delicately I had to handle my relationship with Stefan.

So I was just completely playing into his disbelief this entire time. So he had called me and he was like, "They want a third interview."

And I said, "What? Why do they want a third interview, Stefan? Like that's nuts. Did they tell you what they want to talk about?"

He said, "No, they won't tell me anything."

We go through this. And so this -- I just want to make sure -- this is the call. So towards the end of this call, you know, he had said like, "I want to find out more from [DELETE] if he's willing to give anything."

And I said, "Well, Stefan, like, I don't think that I don't want to not comply with this. Like I think that I'll want to comply with this, but what do you think?"

And he said, "Well, if we're going to do anything with this," he's like, "I would prefer to make you extremely unwilling, and maybe they'll completely back off." He was like, "But, if we -- if we even think about engaging with them, there is no way that we can do this without a second subpoena. Trump world will not continue paying your legal bills if you don't have that second subpoena."

So that was the first moment in my mind where I had it sort of corroborated. Now, I had had my strong suspicions that the funding was coming from Trump world. He never gave any indication that it was, the actual financials of it was coming from Trump world, until he said it that night.

And that is burned into my memory, because that's the first time that I was like, as I had been stressing these last few months, I have not been crazy. I have not been overthinking this. Which seems so silly looking back now, because I knew it the whole time, but I just -- I needed him to say that, and he said it that night.

So I was like, you know, "I do agree. I think we would need a second subpoena, Stefan."

So they go back and forth for a little bit.

[admin]

Part 4 of 5

Ms. Cheney. Cassidy, can I just stop you for a second?

Ms. Hutchinson. Uh-huh.

Ms. Cheney. When he says, "Trump world won't continue paying without a second subpoena," did he explain any more about what that meant, or did you just know?

Ms. Hutchinson. I just knew at that point. It was -- that was straightforward enough to me. And I also remember thinking in that moment, if I ask him anything -- yeah, because I could tell it was a slip. Like, he didn't -- I don't think that he intended to say that, because he had -- he was super, super careful about not alluding to Trump world paying legal bills or anything of payment, which I had raised several times with him at this point. He never would like allude to anything. Like he was very, very secretive about that.

So I genuinely think -- now, I don't know this for sure -- but I genuinely think in this moment he was stressed about the prospect of a third interview. Maybe he was taken aback not knowing at all what they -- you all wanted to talk to me about.

So I think that, in the moment, he just slipped, because he's trying to in his head to figure out how he's going to rationalize telling Trump world, "Cassidy has to go back in, but I'm going to get a subpoena for her, so it's fine."

So he just needed that insurance in his mind to help me get through this next interview.

I don't think there is anything else that's super -- so I guess in this interim period of that initial day and going in for the interview like Stefan does kind of grow a little bit cold for me, like he's not responding to my texts as much. It could have been coincidental. It could have been deliberate. On -- but, on Thursday -- oh, on Wednesday, May 4th -- this is important -- on Wednesday, May 4th, Stefan does call me and -- hold on one second. I'm sorry.

[DELETE] Could I ask you a question just to -

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah. I'm sorry.

[DELETE] The time slightly before that. So if you could look just on -- I think it's on exhibit 48. And it's -- at the top, it says page 8. That's how --

Ms. Hutchinson. That's the wrong one.

Mr. Jordan. Page 8 of 48, [DELETE]?

[DELETE] Yeah.

Mr. Jordan. Okay. Yep.

[DELETE] So in the middle of the page it has a text that looks like from you. "Did [DELETE] give any indication about what info they wanted to talk to me about this time or how long I'd have to go in?"

And then the response was, "No. I just said no. We have to go back and ask." So who made the decision to say no? Is that in -- let me first ask when he says, "I just said no," does that mean, "I told them no, I wouldn't" -- "she wouldn't come in," or what did the "no" refer to there in the email?

Ms. Hutchinson. "No. I just said no." Oh, sorry. I was trying to understand this.

I think -- now, this could be wrong, but I'm almost certain that he initially had said no to the committee about a third interview, or at least had alluded to we're probably not going to do this --

[DELETE] Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. -- trying to make me be the very unwilling witness.

[DELETE] And did you -- do you know -- did he do that at your instruction?

Ms. Hutchinson. No.

[DELETE] So he just decided that -

Ms. Hutchinson. Correct.

[DELETE] Thanks.

Ms. Hutchinson. All right. On May 4th, Stefan sends me a text message, something to the effect -- or, no, this is legit -- "I think it's less likely they, the committee, want you if you refuse to smile and don't use sentences longer than four words." So this is sort of his like -- again, the philosophy of we're not being friendly to them anymore.

So then he calls me later that afternoon and tells me, "I talked to Justin Clark and Alex Cannon. Could you give them a call? They have some ideas about jobs for you."

So this is, again, another -- the first time since March that the job prospects have been raised.

So I said, "Okay."

Again, throughout this period -- and there might be some text message explaining in elaboration that we -- although I know that we're going to do that in a little bit, too, but there is a pattern to this, and, just for purposes of clarity of what we're doing now, I want to be clear that there were a lot of times where I was completely playing into what he was saying, because I was not shocked. I knew what I had done to get this third interview.

I also wanted Trump world, Stefan, everyone on that side of things to have absolutely no indication that I had done this. And part of me felt bad for hiding it from Stefan, but I knew I would never be able to do this with his permission.

And I also knew that firing him would create more drama and stress for me than I really wanted at that moment, because I thought I can go back and I could be helpful and, you know, maybe it will be done after that, maybe they'll think that they got enough from me and they have a lot of other evidence. But there are some things that I would like to share in the spirit of being forthcoming. But anyway.

So I spoke to --I'm trying to figure out the date -- I spoke to Justin and Alex Cannon on a joint call on Thursday, May 5th.

I'm trying to see when we got this. I think this was right after -- I don't know. I'm trying to -- I'll try and figure out the day I got the subpoena.

But I talked to Justin Clark and Alex Cannon on Thursday, May 5th, briefly talked about job opportunities. On the phone, they discussed a job opportunity with a company called Red Curve Solutions, which does -- Bradley Crate is the head of Red Curve Solutions, and I believe that he is also the treasurer of Trump's PACs. And then, in text messages I have from Alex Cannon he's instructing me to send my resume to Bradley Crate, Jason Young, and Amanda Todd.

And then he said something -- he said, "Not to get too personal, but do you need anything else to help? Are you going to be okay -- not financially. Are you going to be okay for the next couple weeks while we work to find something steady for you?"

I said, "I could never ask you for anything more than what you've done for me. I feel terrible that we met under these conditions in the first place."

So they had connected me with Read Curve Solutions on Thursday, May 5th. I emailed them further -- I emailed Read Curve Solutions Thursday, May 5th, per the instruction of Alex and Justin.

Red Curve emailed back on Friday, May 5th, and scheduled an interview for May 10th, which was a Tuesday. And that was before my third interview.

So I interviewed with Red Curve -- and that was also the day that I received my subpoena. So we jump forward. Friday, May 6th, Red Curve emails me back with Bradley Crate and says, "Let's do a Zoom interview on Tuesday, May 10th." Tuesday, May 10th, comes.

Stefan, that morning, I was trying to call him, and then he was responding, "I'm on the phone with Bradley Crate," with a smiley face. And in my mind, I'm like, "Oh, he's reminding me that I have this interview later today."

He said, "All good things."

I received the second subpoena that afternoon, and then I interviewed with Red Curve Solutions. And it, again, wasn't really an interview. It was a, "Justin, Alex, and Stefan have great things to say about you. We really want to bring you on board. We'll let you know in a couple weeks, like, what your position is and when you can start. Is this something that you're interested in?"

Like I asked a few questions about the company, and then I was just like, "Yeah, it would be great. I'll touch base in a couple of weeks," because they wouldn't have the position carved out for me for a few more weeks, coincidentally also when I -- the day I received the subpoena.

Ms. Cheney. Cassidy, just so that I am straight on the phone calls, there was a call -- and it may have been earlier -- that you mentioned with Pam Bondi, Justin Clark, and Alex Cannon. I don't know if it was all the same phone call?

Ms. Hutchinson. Not Pam.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. If I said Pam, I'm --

Ms. Cheney. It may not. It's not clear if it's -

Ms. Hutchinson. Okay.

Ms. Cheney. -- this was a different phone call with Pam. But -- and this is where they convey to you that, as long as you continue to be a team player, they know you're on the team --

Ms. Hutchinson. Oh, oh, oh.

Ms. Cheney. Is that earlier?

Ms. Hutchinson. Separate.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah. That with Pam is separate.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. That's in the beginning.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. But in my conversations with -- and I'm sorry I'm jumping -

Ms. Cheney. No, you're fine. I just want to make sure we have the calls--

Ms. Hutchinson. In the -- in the conversations, though, when I would periodically speak with Alex Cannon on the phone or Justin Clark, specifically the conversation that we had where they connected me with Red Curve on Thursday, May 5th, they were almost over-apologetic about me being in this position and how unfair it was to me and how they were sorry that they hadn't been more proactive about taking care of me.

And Justin -- I remember Justin saying something to the effect of, "You know, I know it feels like we're not taking care of you, Cass, but I promise you we are. Like, we're on your team. We know you're on our team. Like, we're really sorry that we haven't been better about this. We're going to get you a really great job. You're going to be really happy. Just give us a few days. We're going to keep taking care of you. Don't worry. You don't have to worry financially for yourself. You don't have to worry financially about the second subpoena and this interview. Like, everything is going to be covered. Don't worry. Just keep up the good work. No one is mad at you. Just keep doing what you're doing."

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. Okay.

Ms. Cheney. Thank you.

Ms. Hutchinson. So I guess we can just fast forward -

Ms. Cheney. To the --

Ms. Hutchinson. -- here until the third interview. Yeah, because this is -- so Tuesday, May 17th, unless you have anything in between.

Ms. Cheney. No. I wanted to go, though, and see if we could take a break and ask you guys a question about the third interview. Maybe we could do it off the record for a second.

Mr. Jordan. Sure.

Ms. Cheney. So if we could maybe take like a 10-minute break?

Mr. Jordan. Yeah. Great.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

[Recess.]

Ms. Cheney. So it's 5:10, and we're going to go back on the record.

And we are, I think, up at the third interview, Cassidy. So maybe just talk about the lead-up to that, and maybe start with that morning, and then just sort of walk us through.

Ms. Hutchinson. Yes. Let me get my notes straight again.

Okay. So then we started that meeting in the afternoon, and he intentionally wanted to start that meeting in the afternoon of Tuesday, May 17th, 2022, because he said -- it was the same philosophy as we did with the -- same reasoning as we started the meeting in March, which was, if we started halfway through the day they're on a time crunch, they can't ask you as many questions. Okay.

So Stefan lands from Atlanta. We go to lunch at the wharf. As we're at lunch at the wharf, you know, I'm not really talking to him too much about the interview, because he had had conversations with [DELETE] that he had related to me in the days leading up to the interview, the third interview, saying, "[DELETE] not letting us know anything that they want to ask us about, so, you know, I don't think it's going to be anything that big."

I was like, "Yeah, you're right. Like I don't think I have anything to be worried about," still trying to like play that side, because I knew I was going to be asked at least some of the things.

So while we're at lunch -- oh, I had had my interview with Red Curve Solutions, and about a week -- exactly a week prior to this, to the third interview. And as we're at lunch, Stefan raises Red Curve Solutions and says that he's going to call Bradley Crate at the end of the interview, so that evening.

And then he also mentioned a job opportunity with one of his friends that previously worked in the administration that is starting some foundation that needs a chief of staff.

Now, Stefan knows that like I was looking for a more managerial type of role and this is the first time he had mentioned a job like that. And he said, "I think you'd be really good in a chief of staff role. Is that something that you would like?"

And I was like, "Well, yes, Stefan. We had talked about how I would like to be in a role like that. I think I would be good in a role like that."

He said, "Oh, okay. Like, that's great. Like, I'll connect you with my friend, Snyder (ph), tomorrow morning. Let's just see how today goes first. I don't want to like bombard you with too much ahead of the interview with the committee." He said, "The pay will be great. I know this guy well. Like he's not going to underpay you. Like you're going to be financially very comfortable. Just remind me to connect you two, like, at the end of today or tomorrow morning. Like today is going to go great. We'll talk about this more later. But I'm just happy to know that you're interested."

I was like, "Perfect. Thanks."

So then we go up for the third interview. And, now, I'm not going to lie. When I walked into that room, I don't want to say I had this instant moment of, "Oh, my gosh, do I regret this," but I had this moment of, "Oh, my gosh, what did I get myself into," because, in that moment, it just became real. That was the first time we all -- we had met face to face.

I knew what I was going to be asked. I was confident in my responses to those questions. I mostly, in my mind, was thinking, "How is Stefan going to react? Is he going to catch on to this?" And I kept, in my head, hoping. I was like, "Please, please, don't ask me the questions. Don't make it obvious that this came from me." And -- which it didn't.

But I think I walked in, and I just had this moment of panic. And I think I set my bag down and just walked right back out. I was like, "Hey, I'll be right back," and walked right back out, because I just needed a second to kind of like calm myself down so I wouldn't freak out in front of Stefan and not -- you know, I was trying to just get myself in this mindset of, "I have no idea what they're going to ask me. I have nothing to be scared about."

So then we just got right into it during the interview, and I remember, out of the corner of my eye in the first few questions, Stefan, I think, just was looking at me. I could feel him looking at me. And I was like, "Oh, my God, he knows. There is no way he doesn't know."

But I just -- I kept answering the questions. And I was nervous, don't get me wrong, and I was nervous answering the questions. I was trying to be as forthcoming as I was. I was not holding anything back. My nerves were more like me trying to keep a direct line of thought with how I wanted to answer knowing he was there, like, just trying to compartmentalize all the different interests I was trying to balance.

The first time we broke he -- not at one point during this day do I remember us breaking and Stefan stepping out and offering me any legal counsel at all, which is unusual, or any pointers at all, which was unusual.

Every time we stepped out, we would walk down the hall, and he would say something along the lines of, "How do they have all of this? How do they know that you know all of this?"

And I would say, "Stefan, I have no idea, but it sounds like someone's talking."

And he'd say, "But no one's talking about any of this stuff, Cassidy. Like as far as I know, nobody's talked about any of this. I know people that would be privy to all of this. Like how -- I don't think any of them have given the committee any of this. How do they know that you know any of this?"

I was like, "Stefan, I have no idea. Maybe your sources aren't that great."

Now, then I said to Stefan, "Why didn't you know that they were going to ask me about this, Stefan? Why are you -- why are you pinning this on me? Why is this my fault over here?"

And he's like, "I'm just" -- he was like -- genuinely, I think he was shocked. And in the moment I thought he was shocked because, in my mind, I was like, he knows I back channeled.

But, looking back now, I really don't think he knows that I had back channeled. I really think that he was shocked and concerned that there was somebody in Trump world talking that they weren't aware of.

So then, by the end of the day, they -- we -- you know, we ended the interview. And the committee met -- the committee staffer's walking us out, and, you know, we were on the first floor about to exit the room, or exit the building, and the committee staffer is staying inside. And Stefan is a few feet ahead of me and said good-bye and walked out.

And I remember turning to the staffer, and I had said, "I'm about to be fucking nuked."

The staffer said, "I'm really sorry."

And I just turned and walked out.

So now we're on the street, and Stefan's like, "I don't even know what to do first."

I'm like, "Well, maybe we should get a car. Do you want me to call an Uber?"

And he was, "uh." and there is a taxi. He just gets a taxi. We get in the taxi, and I'm like, "Well, where are we going, Stefan?"

And he's like, "I guess the wharf. Let's just go to the wharf. We'll find somewhere to eat. I think we need to eat somewhere."

So I'm like, "Oh, God, I wanted to go home. I didn't want to talk about any of this."

So we're going to the wharf and literally -- I want to say maximum 2 minutes after we're in the car, his phone starts to ring. I look over at his phone. We're sitting, like, probably closer than Jody and I are sitting here, so maybe about a foot, foot and a half apart.

His phone is ringing. I look down at his phone. It's Maggie Haberman calling him. And I looked at Stefan, and I said, "Stefan, did you tell Maggie Haberman that we were meeting with the committee today?"

And he's like, "No, no. Maybe that's not what she's calling me about."

And I said, "Stefan, did you tell Maggie that we were meeting with the committee today?"

And he said, "No, no, but I should probably answer to see if she knows, right? I should answer."

And I said, "Stefan, no. I don't think you should answer that call. She probably wants to know if we met with the committee today."

He said, "Cass, I'm just going to answer. It will just be seconds. I just want to find out what she's going to talk to me about."

He answers. I can't hear what she's saying, but I hear Stefan say, "Yeah, yeah, we did just leave her third interview. You can put it out, but don't -- don't -- don't -- don't make it too big of a deal. I don't think she'll want it to be too big of a deal. All right. Thanks."

And I said, "Stefan, was that Maggie Haberman asking about my interview?"

And he said, "Yeah, but don't worry. She's not going to make it a big deal."

I said, "Stefan, I don't want this out there."

He said, "Don't worry. Like, Maggie's friendly to us. We'll be fine."

So I was just like, "Whatever." I was annoyed.

So then we get to Hank's Oyster Bar in the wharf, and we sit down, and I immediately order an Old Fashioned. And as we sit down he says to me, "I really need to call Terwilliger and Moran and tell them about all of this."

And I said, "Stefan" -- something, oh, to the effect of, "Stefan, I respectfully disagree. I do not think we need to call Terwilliger and Moran to tell them about this. I think that is actually the opposite of what we should do. I do not think that they should know anything of what we just discussed with the committee, and I don't think they have the right to know what we just discussed with the committee."

He said, "Cassidy, you need to trust me on this. If I don't tell them," he's like, "the committee" -- he said, "The committee is going to leak this out one way or another. This isn't going to stay a secret for more than a week. The committee is going to leak this. This is huge for them. If I don't call Terwilliger and Moran right now to tell them about what we discussed in this interview today and it leaks, it's going to look like you're working against Mark, and then there is a target on your back."

He says, "Has there been a target on your back at all since I've been your lawyer?"

I said, "Stefan, I don't want you to call Terwilliger and Moran and tell them about this. I really don't want you to do that."

We might have gone back and forth for another 30 seconds. And then his phone starts buzzing, and it's on the table, and it's John Moran calling him.

And he's like, "Just trust me."

I said, "Stefan."

He said, "Just trust me. I'm going to take this." Walks out of the restaurant. And where Hank's Oyster Bar is, there is like a little grassy park area, and he went and sat on a bench. They were probably on the phone for like 25, 30 minutes, enough time where I downed my Old Fashioned and had another one.

And he gets back and he says, "All good. All good. Don't worry. They know everything. They're not mad at you. They know it's the committee's fault that you were asked these questions."

And he said, "And, you know, since they already know, too, like, I really need to talk to my law partners about this."

And I said, "Stefan, I really would prefer if you wouldn't talk to your law partners about this, but I know that you're probably going to anyway."

And he said, "Cass, I've never steered you wrong. Let me just do this. It's the right thing for you. We need to keep you in good graces in Trump world right now. I just don't want anybody to think that you're the leaker. I want to get out ahead of this before the committee leaks it out."

So, you know, I didn't really like push anymore and object. One of the reasons, probably I had a healthy amount of alcohol at this point to kind of calm my nerves a little bit.

And my objections to him spreading this around were for no reason other than that actually put a target on my back. And it wasn't necessarily -- like, at this point, I didn't think that it was even possible that it would get out that I had back channeled. I was more worried that they would see me as someone who wasn't -- who was being uncooperative and disloyal and people were going to start working against me. That's what I was nervous about. That's what I've been nervous about the whole time.

And, again, because this is the first instance where I sort of took matters into my own hands and, you know, did what I had done, I was personally at peace with most of it, not the entirety of it, because I knew that there were other things, too. But like to me it was a step in the right direction.

And, you know, I just -- he was my lawyer, and this is like the first time that I remember like thinking, you know, if this keeps going on, I don't think we can keep working together, because it's -- it became really clear that night that he -- while he was invested in others' interests more than mine the entire time, this was like 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, and he doesn't care about whether or not I agree with that sentiment or not, even though it's my testimony and my experience with the committee.

So --

Ms. Cheney. Did he also -- so you said that he talked to Terwilliger, to his law partners. Did he also talk to Herschmann?

Ms. Hutchinson. He did. I'm sorry. I neglected to mention that. He -- as we were leaving that evening, I got an Uber, and he walked me to my Uber, and he reiterated that he was going to have a conversation with his law partners. He was going back to Michael Best, and he said that he was going to have a conversation with his law partners that night.

And he asked -- he asked -- I forget how he said it. He said something to the effect of, "I think it's best if we tell Eric about this, too. He's not technically my law partner, but I think Eric deserves to know some of this, too."

And I said, "Look, at this point, one, I kind of know you're going to do what you're going to do." And I said, "Whatever you think is best."

And I still had strong opinions that were expressed earlier with Maggie, earlier with Terwilliger and Moran, and earlier sort of with his law partners. So at this point like I wasn't going to waste more energy trying to convince him to do something otherwise, because if I did, he was just going to go do it anyway. Just, to me, it was moot.

Ms. Cheney. Did he say why Herschmann?

Ms. Hutchinson. No, he didn't. I look back and I wish I had asked. But, to me, I think categorically it just sort of fell in the we want to protect Eric for whatever reasons. Eric is somebody that he's close with. Eric helped connect us, so it was just -- I wasn't really thinking about it that deeply, though. It was just kind of like he's going to tell who he's going to tell. He might have even told more people. I just -- I don't know. Those are the people he had just had mentioned to me.

Ms. Cheney. Do you guys have anything else on this?

[DELETE] No.

[DELETE] No.

Ms. Cheney. And then this -- we did have a follow-up to do in the SCIF, we anticipated. It turned out we didn't.

So there was some back and forth with Stefan about that.

Ms. Hutchinson. Uh-huh.

Ms. Cheney. Can you tell us about -- and I'm sorry, I don't mean to skip ahead. I think you talked to Stefan the next day perhaps?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah. And I'm just trying to glance through these.

In the conversations -- in my conversations with Stefan in the following days after the third interview on May 17th, so Wednesday, May 18th, Thursday, May 19th, I have a fairly uneventful-- nothing of, like, particular significance.

Stefan reached out to me on Thursday, May 19th, and said, "The committee asked for our date of births for the clearance. I'm flying out in a few hours, so this isn't happening for at least weeks. What's your DOB?"

On Friday, May 20th, Alex Cannon and Justin Clark called me together on a joint call, and they let me know that they spoke with Stefan. Again, it was the overemphasis of apologies, how this is so unfair. They offered me more financial assistance, if I needed them to front me any money while they were still working to find me a job.

[5:28 p.m.] Ms. Cheney. I'm sorry. Who is this? Justin--

Ms. Hutchinson. Alex Cannon and Justin Clark. And I said no. They offered me a job on a campaign out west, which I also said no.

I'm sorry. Again, I'm just trying to read through this.

Monday, May 23rd, is the first day that I have on my timeline of myself personally raising the SCIF issue with Stefan. Because at dinner after the third interview we talked about the SCIF, and he said, "We're going to hold this off as long as possible. We've already given the committee so much, I don't see a reason for us to go into a SCIF. This is completely ridiculous. I think if I make you extremely unwilling, we can par this off. I don't think they're actually going to follow through too much on this. It's completely insignificant."

So I reached out to him on Monday, May 23rd: "Has [DELETE] reached out about the SCIF?" And then he was just kind of being wishy-washy with it.

He also let me know on that phone conversation that Maggie Haberman, quote, "got a story from the committee about my third interview," end quote, and he spent -- he, Stefan, spent the whole weekend with Alex Cannon convincing Maggie Haberman not to publish the story that she got from the committee about my third interview.

I would like for the record to reflect that I am extremely confident in the confidence of the committee and that the leak did not come from the committee. Now, I have been wrong before, but I don't think I'm wrong about this one.

Tuesday, May 24th, I received an email from Red Curve Solutions that they were respectfully denying my employment prospects with them. I said, "Thank you so much." So that was exactly week after -- exactly week? -- exactly week after my third interview with the committee.

Wednesday, May 25th, there was a --

[DELETE] Can I ask you, is that the same job Stefan mentioned you could be chief of staff?

Ms. Hutchinson. No. This was the job that is the company headed by Bradley Crate, who was the treasurer for whatever Trump's PAC name is, Save America.

[DELETE] Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. Stefan never connected me with his friend that needed the chief of staff.

[DELETE] Okay. Thanks.

[DELETE] Did he ever mention it again?

Ms. Hutchinson. He did not. Which is okay.

Well, that night at dinner, I think I raised it with him, like, kind of in a nonchalant way, like, "Hey, if you want to connect us, that's totally fine, but, like, maybe we should let it rest for a few days. Like, I'm not necessarily gunning it for a job. Like, I kind of need, like, a mental break." We're just kind of trying to, like, pull back for a little bit.

And he was like, "Oh, I'll connect you two tomorrow morning." And that was the last we talked about it. He never did.

Wednesday, May 25th, a few stories break, and I received another job offer, more serious, from Alex Cannon about working a congressional campaign out west, which I again denied -- respectfully, but denied.

It was react again (ph) on Thursday, May 26th. Nope.

And so now we're moving into the phase of -- you know, I did my best throughout this whole period -- I don't like talking to reporters. Reporters would text me during this period. Ninety-nine percent of reporter texts always go unresponded to. I don't like talking to reporters. I think there are some that I have, like, a friendship/working relationship with that I knew from being on the Hill and at the White House, but, like, Josh Dossey, Maggie Haberman, all those people, I stay very clear from.

But Josh Dossey, for example, had started reaching out to me and saying that he heard that the committee was in talks with Stefan about bringing me in for a SCIF interview and a live testimony; where did I stand on that with Stefan? And it wasn't just Josh. Like, I had heard -- I can't think of them off the top of my head, but random people, like, random people off Politico or on, like, the Hill. So my alarm bells start going off.

And I had asked Stefan frequently, almost daily, throughout this period, like, "Hey, has [DELETE] reached out about the SCIF?" or "Has [DELETE] reached out about a live testimony?" and Stefan's response was consistently, "No, I haven't heard from him on anything. No, they have not sent the paperwork for the security clearances yet. No, I think that we're all good; I've made you unwilling. But they haven't reached -- I made you unwilling in the initial conversation of it, and they haven't circled back, so I think we're all good. I'll take care of you, though. Don't worry."

So I'm like, "Okay," but I still keep hearing from people. And I know that I'm not that reporter-savvy, but the more they started asking me, the more nervous I'm getting, because, in my mind, it had to be coming from somewhere.

And I continued asking him these questions through the beginning of June. So Tuesday, May 31st, I said, "Has [DELETE] reached out about meeting this week?" Stefan said, "No."

On Wednesday, June 1st, I said, "Hi. If you have a moment today, would you mind giving me a call?" He called. We ended up connecting later in the day on that. This was Wednesday, June 1st. He did not say that he had had any conversations or outreach from the committee at that point.

This was, again, on Friday, June 3rd, I had reached out to him about it. He had said no.

Sunday, June 5th, I said, "Do you think that they're actually going to call me for a live hearing, Stefan?" He said, "I have no indication that you're testifying live. Last conversation with [DELETE] I made it sound like you would be an unhelpful witness."

So he's starting to kind of crack a little bit here. Now, genuinely, he never told me that they had conversations before this. I don't know that they had. But I kind of -- even if they hadn't, I knew the direction that Stefan was going to go in if they were to resume conversations. Although, my gut instinct had said that they already had begun resuming those conversations.

On Monday, June 6th -- and I know that we'll go into the text messages in a bit too, but just for the clarity of the timeline, Stefan texted me Monday, June 6th, in the morning. He said, "With DOJ refusing to hold Mark and Scavino in contempt and with the committee talking about you to the press again, I don't see why we do anything more with them. There's a small element of risk to refusing to cooperate, but I think it's the best move for you. Do you agree?"

I said, "Did they reach out about a live hearing? I don't want to gamble with being held in contempt, Stefan. I'm sorry, but I just don't think I can do it."

He said, "They have not."

I said, "Has [DELETE] reached out about the SCIF?"

He said, "FBI is supposed to send me the paperwork, but they haven't. That's fine with me."

And then there are some other things in between, and I ended it with, "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be difficult."

And this was the point, though, on Monday morning, this was the conversation where, you know, I sat there -- and I had deliberated this internally for a couple weeks at this point, but this was my breaking point, and I was like, I need to sever my attorney-client relationship with Stefan, with or without a new attorney.

Because his rationale was: "We've already given the committee so much. Why would we keep cooperating with them? This is ridiculous. You have nothing to do with this. They're using you. You are better off running to the right." We had a phone conversation, I guess I should say.

So then I had a phone conversation --

Ms. Cheney. What did he mean, "running to the right"?

Ms. Hutchinson. In my phone conversation with Stefan where he had said "you're better off running to the right" -- "Contempt is a small risk, but running to the right is better for you" -- I took that as FOX News, Trump world, Republicans -- I'm going to use air quotes around "Republicans" -- are going to defend you, they're going to blast the committee for holding you in contempt if they do that. He said, that's enough of a reason for the committee to not hold you in contempt, because they're going to get such bad press over it. But if they do, DOJ has such a narrow case to prosecute you because you've already given the committee so much.

And I kept reiterating to him, "But, Stefan, if they do prosecute me, I theoretically could go to prison, right?" And he said, "Cassidy, DOJ will not prosecute you over being held in contempt when you've already given the committee so much. You need to trust me on this. This is the best option for you."

And I said -- this is still on the phone -- "Stefan, I really don't want to gamble with this." He said, "Well, just keep giving it some thought. I'll talk with some people too. But we really think this is what's best for you, Cass. Like, this needs to end at some point, and I think it just needs to end now."

And I in my mind thought, "This does need to end now," "this" being our attorney-client relationship.

Ms. Cheney. When Stefan said "I'll talk to some people," do you know who he was referring to?

Ms. Hutchinson. I didn't ask. I assume it was the same entourage of people that he had been conferring with for the past few weeks.

You know, I had also received a call from Eric Herschmann, I believe on Friday, May 20th. I believe it was Friday, May 20th. It was, because this was after the interview. And Eric called me that evening, and I just apologized. And he was like, you know, "I didn't know that you remembered so much, Cassidy. Mark really put you in bad positions. I'm really sorry that he didn't take care of you better. You never should've had to testify to any of that. That's all of our jobs. I don't know why they didn't ask us, they asked you instead."

And I was just like, "Look, Eric, like, it is what it is." And he kind of talked for -- it was probably a 30-minute conversation. I was driving up to New Jersey then too.

Now, I'm not sure if Eric was included in Stefan's "I'll talk to some people about it," but, you know, that was -- my conversation with Stefan was enough. I didn't need to have a followup conversation with Stefan with whatever legal counsel they were going to give me. That's where I just drew the line.

I followed his bad legal advice; I took his bad legal advice. I will own that. But my character and my integrity mean more to me than anything. And to be held in contempt in Congress over an issue that I am passionate about and that I had been steered in what, in my opinion, was the wrong direction for the past 5 months when I was trying to correct course myself, because my lawyer, I knew, wasn't going to help me -- it was clear for a long time that he was not representing my interests in how he knew I wanted to facilitate my relationship with the committee. But I was not going to let this moment completely destroy my reputation, my character, and my integrity for a cause that I was starkly opposed to.

And that's pretty much the end of me and Stefan. I sent him an email on Thursday, June 9th, saying that I was -- I have the email, but essentially I just said, "I am ending our attorney-client relationship but still own our privilege. Please coordinate with my new attorneys, Bill Jordan and Jody Hunt of Alston & Bird."

He called me several times and texted me several times. All went unresponded to.

Ms. Cheney. What did he say in his texts?

Ms. Hutchinson. His texts, he said, "What happened? Call me?? Jody and Bill are friends of mine. It's no problem. I just want to know what's up."

Ms. Cheney. [Inaudible.]

Ms. Hutchinson. And then he did have a conversation with my attorneys that day.

Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh. Okay.

Do you guys have any other questions before we have [DELETE] come in?

[DELETE] No.

[DELETE] I don't think so.

Ms. Cheney. Okay. We could probably change the battery. Why don't we go off the record.

[Recess.]

[DELETE] It's 6:03, and we are resuming the transcribed interview of Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson.

And I have rejoined the interview for this portion. I appreciate it.

BY [DELETE]

Q We do have some additional questions on other information, as we've been talking about already, and part of it is information that we understand you have also provided to the Department of Justice about some of the statements or actions from the former President where he acknowledged or otherwise indicated that he understood he had lost the 2020 Presidential election.

I'm happy to do this however you'd like, but we would like you to walk through some of the information -- or the information that you provided the Department. And I understand it starts with an event on December the 11th, if I'm not mistaken?

A The first one I have, actually, is Wednesday, November 18th.

Q Okay. We can start there. Why don't you tell us about that.

A On Wednesday, November 18th, Mr. Meadows and I went up to Capitol Hill. We had two separate meetings, one with Senator Inhofe about the NDAA bill set to go through the Senate in the next several weeks, and we had a second meeting with Leader McConnell in his leadership office in the Capitol, both non-pertaining to January 6th, really, except McConnell did raise the Georgia Senate runoffs in the meeting that we had in his office.

But as Mark and I were leaving the Capitol that day, Mark and I had a conversation] -- because we had just returned from our COVID leave, so this was the first time that we'd spent a couple hours together. And as we're leaving the Capitol that day, I remember asking Mark, you know, "Mark, like, theoretically, like, where do you see this going?"

Like, I was kind of out of the loop on a lot of this and wasn't really following it, "it" being the efforts to prove that the election had been stolen.

Q Okay.

A Or try to prove the election had been stolen, I guess I should say. So I hadn't been following all that too closely. I didn't really know where it stood.

So I asked Mark, "Mark, theoretically, like, what do you think is going on here?" And he had said something like, "Cass, I think that you should be prepared to be asked to move to Florida on January 20th."

And I said, "Really? Like, does the President anticipate moving to Florida on January 20th?" And Mark had said, "Yeah. He knows it's pretty much done. We're going to keep pushing it a little bit more, but, you know, he knows at some point, like, there's gonna have to be a change in all of this and it's not realistic to keep this going for so long."

And that also is sort of the first conversation that I had with Mr. Meadows in -- pre-election, the President had said something to me on Air Force One at the end of October. We were flying to a rally, and we were working through some of the Members that would be on the ground. And the President had said -- he looked at me and said something somewhat sarcastic but, like, you know, "If the Democrats steal this election from us, you'll come down to Florida with me, right? You'll come down. You know all the Members. I'm gonna need somebody that knows all the Members down there with me. You'll come down. You'll come down to Florida. Florida's nice. Have you been there before?"

I was like, "Sir, I serve at your pleasure." Obviously at that point I didn't know we were going to lose.

So Mark raised it with me on the 18th. And so, following that conversation, we're in the motorcade ride driving back to the White House, and I said, like, "Does the President really think that he lost?" And he said, you know, "A lot of times he'll tell me that he lost, but he wants to keep fighting it, and he thinks that there might be enough to he overturn the election, but, you know, he pretty much has acknowledged that he's lost."

Q A couple followup questions.

Did Mr. Meadows expand at all on the conversations that he had had with the President where the President would make these comments?

A Not in this conversation that I can recall.

Q He was speaking more generally about what he had heard the President say--

A Yeah.

Q -- on one or more occasions? Is that fair?

A During several conversations, is how I took it. Even while we were up on the Hill, the President kept calling him. Now, I didn't know what the President was speaking with him about while we were on the Hill. I assumed that he wanted readouts of the Inhofe meeting, because they were talking about Section 230, which was the priority of the President to be repealed in the defense package.

But, you know, I'm under the impression that the election-loss issue had been raised somewhere in there, because once that call had been hung up is when Mark raised the issue of Florida with me. And he wouldn't have just -- me knowing Mark well, he wouldn't have brought that up had he not received an indicator from the President that there was some form of acceptance that he was probably moving to Florida in a couple months.

Q Do you remember hearing anybody else talking about moving to Florida around that time?

A Not -- this was -- at this time it was a little preliminary.

I talked to Dan Scavino the following week. I think it was November 25th. It was the evening before Thanksgiving. And Dan had raised with me -- well, Dan must have been in the hallway, and Dan had raised with me, like, "Look at this place" -- Dan was frustrated, so he was like, "Look around this place. No one's F-ing here. No one sticks by his side when things get hard. It sucks. I feel so bad for the guy." He's like, "It's just the people here that care about him and that actually care about him."

And he looked at me, and he was like, "You actually care about the President, don't you?" And I was like, "Yeah, I do." I was like, "Dan, like, this is kind of getting a little out of control. Like, we're here on Thanksgiving eve, and now we're having all these people come up with Rudy."

And he's like, "Yeah, but, you know, the President needs loyal people like you in Florida with him if we have to go down there." He's like, "But, you know, maybe there's a chance that we can still pull this off. You never know." He's like, "It just sucks. Like, you see who's actually on our team on days like this."

Q Another thing you mentioned is the pre-election comment that the President made. Did the President make that directly to you on Air Force One?

A He did. I was in his office on Air Force One. I think we were flying -- I think we were flying to Wisconsin, because we would always -- most of the time, the speechwriters would do phonetics with him, but with Members' last names, he would either have me or Brian Jack help him with the phonetics of their last names. And I think it was Wisconsin, because he could never say Grothman's last name, and we would always have to spell it out a certain way for him.

So I went up there to help him spell it out, and that -- he just -- it was an offhanded comment. I wasn't expecting it. It wasn't like I was sitting there lobbying for a job at all. It was out of the blue. It was the first time I'd heard him even say that.

But even after this conversation on the 18th, like, my heart wasn't set on going to Florida. Like, it was an option, but I also really wanted to consider opportunities still in D.C., one, because I didn't really want to move, but, two, like, I wasn't sure at that point if I wanted to -- you know, it's one thing to work for him at the White House in an official capacity as an executive branch employee, but then to pick up my life and move down to Florida was an entirely different operation, and, you know, I was still thinking through if that was something that I thought was best for my career trajectory.

So I still was having conversations with other people. It wasn't until mid-December that I decided that I'd go down to Florida.

Q Okay. And, eventually, you did stay on ultimately, but you didn't go down to Florida, correct?

A Correct.

Q Okay. You stayed with the transition but here in Virginia?

A Correct. And I have another thing in here when we'll kind of-

Q Get to that.

A -- touch on that. Yeah.

Q Okay.

A But we can also elaborate on that later too.

Ms. Cheney. And, I'm sorry, just -- when -- "stay on." Were you with the GSA transition?

Ms. Hutchinson. Yes.

Ms. Cheney. So it was the --

Ms. Hutchinson. The GSA payroll.

Ms. Cheney. -- like, the Federal Government?

Ms. Hutchinson. Correct.

Ms. Cheney. Okay.

Ms. Hutchinson. And I'm under the impression -- and I don't know all the, like, details with it, but former Presidents get a large budget for the first 3 months, and then it's cut back a little bit after the first 6 months, and then after 6 months it's significantly reduced.

So the staffers are compensated after 6 months both through GSA and through any private organization that former Presidents have set up. I'm under the impression that all of his staff that are compensated through GSA are also compensated through the PAC.

Ms. Cheney. But were you?

Ms. Hutchinson. No, no, no. Only GSA. And I only went on for the first 3 months.

[admin]

Part 5 of 5

BY [DELETE]

Q Okay. Anything else about that on November 18th?

A Not on November 18th.

Q Okay. What about the next time? When's the next time?

A The next time that I recall the President acknowledging that he had lost the election was from the President himself, and this was on Friday, December 11, 2020.

Q Tell us about that.

A This was the day -- and I always forget the name of the Supreme Court decision --

Q Texas v. Pennsylvania?

A Texas v. Pennsylvania. This is the day that the Supreme Court had rejected that case.

Mr. Meadows and I were in the White House residence at a Christmas reception. And as we were walking back from the Christmas reception that evening, the President was walking out of the Oval Office, so we crossed paths in the Rose Garden colonnade.

The President was fired up about the Supreme Court decision. And so I was standing next to Mr. Meadows, but I stepped back, so I was probably 2, 3 feet catty-corner, from a diagonal from him. The President was standing next to the military valet, who then stepped back similarly to me. So I'm looking at the valet as this conversation is going on. The President is just raging about the decision and how it's wrong, and why didn't we make more calls, and, you know, just his typical anger outburst at this decision.

And, you know, Mark's just kind of trying, "Well, sir, like, we have other options. We're still looking at other things. Don't worry. Like, we're going to figure this out."

And the President said -- he had -- I put the quote -- okay. So he had said something to the effect of, "I don't want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don't want people to know that we lost."

And Mark said, "Sir, don't say we lost yet. We're not quite sure that we lost yet. We're still figuring some things out." To which Mr. Trump responded, "Keep figuring it out, Mark. Keep figuring it out." And then a little more cross-banter, and then it just sort of dissipated.

And Mark and I kept walking towards the chief of staff's office. And I made a comment to Mark, like, "Does he acknowledge that often?" He said, "Ugh, Cass, it just depends on his moods. Like, he's real mad about this right now." He's like, "I think my life's about to get real tough the next couple weeks."

And I said -- oh, I'm sorry. Let me backtrack a little bit too. At the end of that conversation, the President made -- so the following day, Saturday, December 12th, we had scheduled a travel event to West Point, New York, for the annual Army-Navy football game. And after they had the conversation about "I don't want people to know we lost, Mark; this is embarrassing," the last bit of that little snipped conversation was, you know, "Maybe we'll pull down the travel for tomorrow. Maybe we should. What do you think about that?"

And Mark said, "Well, sir, I don't know. We can do what you want, but I think we need to keep our men and women in uniform happy the next couple weeks. You don't want them to get very angry at you, do you? They might get upset if we canceled the trip tomorrow. You go every year." And the President said, "I'll figure it out." And then that's when we walked away.

So, then, Mr. Meadows was going to a dinner at the Trump Hotel that evening. He went straight there. I was meeting him there a little while later, because I still had a few things to wrap up at my desk. And the military valet came back to my office after he had brought the President up to the residence for the evening, and the valet had said to me, "Is the chief still here?" And I said, "No, he's already at dinner. Do you need something?"

And he said, "Yeah. Can you call him and tell him that the President is canceling the trip tomorrow?" And I said, "We can't cancel that trip." He said, "The President wants the trip canceled. He told me to cancel it myself. I don't know how to cancel it myself, and I don't even think I can cancel it myself. Can you just have the chief do it?"

So I called Tony Ornato, and I said, "Hey. This is what's going on. Can you help me deal with this?" And then Tony had called Scavino.

I went to the Trump Hotel, pulled Mark out of his dinner. He was having dinner with, I don't know, some of Mrs. Meadows' "America Women" friends in a private room. And the Jordan family was there as well, Jim and Polly Jordan. And I pulled Mark out, let him know that the President wanted to pull the trip down.

Mark said, "He can't do that. He's gonna tick off the military, and then he's gonna be ticked off at me in a few weeks when the military's ticked off at him. This is not a good look for him." He said, "Can you call Tony?" I said, "I already called Tony, sir. It might be worth a call from you."

So -- and that's pretty much where we left it. Tony let me know later that evening that Scavino spoke with the President and convinced the President to keep the trip on.

I did not travel on the trip that day, but I heard from the agent that we had on the ground traveling with Mr. Meadows -- his name is [DELETE]; he goes by [DELETE] -- that the President was in a horrible mood all day, and he just kept saying, "I can't wait to get out of here. I can't wait to get out of here. We need to leave." He wanted to go for minutes, and the whole time he was grumbling about the Supreme Court decision and people understanding that he had lost and that we didn't have a plan in place to convince people that we hadn't lost yet.

Ms. Cheney. Cassidy, when Mr. Meadows talked about the fact that you don't want the military mad at you for the next couple of weeks, what did you think that meant?

Ms. Hutchinson. Looking back now, I can speculate. At the time, though, I didn't think much of it other than it was kind of a bizarre comment to make.

Then I remember in the moment thinking, too -- like, a couple months before, there was an Atlantic article that had gone out that upset the President and essentially said that he didn't care about the military. So I think I, in my mind at that time, related that comment more to: He doesn't want the President's relationship and reputation with the military to be tarnished in the last few months.

You know, looking back now -- this is completely speculative -- sorry--

[DELETE] I don't think you need to speculate. Yeah.

Ms. Hutchinson. Okay.

Ms. Cheney. You know, I mean, it's questions about what you thought at the time, so --

Ms. Hutchinson. Yeah.

BY [DELETE]

Q I do have a few questions about what you relayed to us, though.

You said that during that conversation with the President at the White House on December 11th he said something to the effect of, "Why didn't we make more calls?" or, "Why not make more calls?"

Did you understand what he meant by that? Do you know what he was talking about when he said -- calls to whom, about what?

A I had assumed -- like, when I heard him say the calls -- now, the President would always say, why didn't we make more calls, why didn't we have more meetings, why didn't you do more? It's just him. That's his little diatribe that he'll go on when he thinks that people weren't working hard enough for him.

But the calls one did specifically stick out to me because that was -- I remember thinking, like, "Calls? It's the Supreme Court. Who else would we have called?" And I never asked Mark, like, who he thought that he should've called. But in the context of the conversation, I took it that either the President believed that they should have been calling members of the Supreme Court more or -- I think it was Ken Paxton who had decided the lawsuit?

Q Uh-huh.

A ]That we weren't coordinating with Paxton's team well enough.

Q Okay. But you didn't know for sure.

A I didn't know for sure.

Q Okay.

A But in my mind at that time, I thought it had to be one of the two options. The Supreme Court one seemed a little bizarre to me, because that'd be odd and, honestly, inappropriate, to call the Supreme Court Justices about that, but that was my initial takeaway from it. But it also could've been the Paxton team.

Q Did Mark Meadows -- one of the things you said, too, was that Mark Meadows said his life was about to get tough for the next few weeks. Did he specify how or what he would be doing that would be tough?

A I didn't ask him what he meant by that. But, again, I spent a lot of time in proximity to him and with him, and I understood that comment to mean the President was going to be putting a lot of pressure on him to correct -- to reverse and correct the results of the election and find a way to either prove that the election had been stolen or figure out a way to extend the length of his Presidency while they figured out whether the election was stolen.

Q And in our past meetings, you talked a lot about what he was doing and things that were happening in the White House. I don't want to necessarily go back over those. Is there anything else that you can remember, that you haven't already told us about, that you remember Mark Meadows doing to --

A Action-wise? Not that I can recall. Some might come up throughout this, and if they do, I'll -- the scenarios that I'm referencing I think are all fairly regurgitating but there's just a little bit more color, in terms of kind of lining it out with --

Q Okay.

A But I'll keep that in mind, if there's anything else, too, that --

Q Okay.

Then the last thing that I wanted to clarify from that is, you mentioned [DELETE] was the agent on the ground. Did [DELETE] travel with the President that day?

A He did.

Q To West Point?

A [DELETE] was the, I think, detail leader that day, so he traveled with Mr. Meadows.

They took -- so, a nuanced, kind of silly detail, but they took the big plane up to the airport at West Point, but then they had a helicopter package to take them to the actual game, so they had a smaller, pared-down group of people. And I didn't go that day. Tony Ornata brought his wife and his son on the plane, so I stayed that one back so Tony could take his family on the plane.

Q Okay.

A But [DELETE] was traveling with him, and so [DELETE] was relaying to me what was happening on the ground.

Q And so Mr. Meadows went to that trip --

A He did.

Q -- as well?

A And Mrs. Meadows did as well too.

Q Okay.

A They flew there on Marine One. They flew into Joint Base Andrews on Marine One with the President.

And if I do remember correctly, the President also made a fuss that morning because there was a -- I don't want to say a rally, but a congregation of pro-Trump supporters in D.C. that day, and he wanted to be able to see them. So there were email chains about potentially rerouting the typical flight path pattern from the White House to Joint Base Andrews.

Q And I believe, in fact, the President did fly over a certain group that was meeting on December the 12th, if I'm not mistaken. Is that what you recall as well?

A That's correct.

Q And is that in Marine One, are you talking about, or in Air Force One?

A Marine One, to the best of my knowledge.

Q Okay.

A Because I remember these conversations -- I was at the White House that morning, and I remember these conversations happening at the White House about getting to JBA. And also, typically, Air Force One won't fly over D.C., and he would've been too high to see them anyway.

Q Okay.

Anything else on that, December 11th and into the 12th, that we haven't covered?

A No, sir.

Q Okay. And what's next? When's the next time you remember?

A I have Wednesday, December 16, 2020.

Q All right. Why don't you tell us about that.

A This was a secondhand -- this information was relayed to me secondhand by Mr. John Ratcliffe, who was the Director of National Intelligence.

Q Okay. And what did he tell you?

A That evening -- and let me double-check the date. I'm 95 percent sure it was the 16th. But there was a holiday reception for senior staff and Cabinet members. They had a few throughout the month of December, but I believe that was the one that Mr. Ratcliffe attended and he brought his daughter Darby.

So he had texted and asked me before the ceremony had started if I was still going to be there at the end of it; he would like to bring Darby by our office to give her a tour. I said, "Yeah, I'll definitely still be here." Because normally the President also will come down throughout the Christmas receptions, and he wasn't during the season (ph) because he didn't want to have to give a speech in front of people. He was trying to limit his public appearances. He was trying to make it special for Darby.

So I was like, "Yeah, like, that's no problem. I'll take her in the Oval, and we can do, like, a chief of staff office tour."

So, after the reception had concluded, he brought Darby over to the office, and, you know, we just walked around the office for a little bit. And it was, like, normal conversation. I, like, brought her into Mark's gift closet, and she was making a little gift basket for herself.

And as she's doing that, John and I are standing out in Meadows' office area. And Mr. Ratcliffe has a way of diplomatically approaching things, but I also can kind of understand where he was getting at with this, because he delicately asked me -- he's like, "Cass, have you heard any of the advice lately that Mark's been giving the President?"

And I said, "I hear a lot of things and I see a lot of things, John. What are you referring to?" Because I just didn't want to, like, assume what he was asking.

He said, "Well, you know, I'm kind of a little worried about what's going on around here." He's like, "I've had a few conversations with the President where he acknowledged he's lost -- he hasn't acknowledged that he wants to concede, but he acknowledges that he lost the election -- but then he'll immediately backpedal, or he'll immediately call the next day and say that he didn't lose the election and I should call Mark; Mark has more information."

He said, "I'm just a little worried that Mark's not giving him good advice. Or maybe Mark has more information than I have, but, you know, the President's told me a couple times that he seems to think that he lost the election, so I'm not really quite sure what the holdup is here."

And I said, "Yeah, you know, I think Mark's kind of in that phase of telling people things that they want to hear and what he may find is right at that time." And I said to him something to the effect of, "I don't have those personal conversations with him often. I pick up on enough. And, you know, I don't know if he's giving him bad advice or good advice. I don't really know everything that's coming across his desk right now."

And at that point John was just like, "Seems a little crazy around here," and we just kind of ended the conversation after that.

Q Did you ever follow up with Mr. Meadows about this conversation you had with John Ratcliffe?

A I did not. I sort of kept -- Mr. Ratcliffe and I were -- I don't want to say super-close, but we did have a working and personal relationship in the sense of, like, we would catch up on things with each other. Like, we would go on walks on West Exec if he was working out of his office in the Eisenhower Building, or, like, sometimes he would call just to check in about things.

I became closer with Mr. Ratcliffe through Mr. McCarthy, because they're good friends. And, just like my relationship with Mr. McCarthy at the time, I always sort of tried to keep that isolated and separate from my working relationship with Mr. Meadows, just because, you know, I felt like I had to kind of -- they were delicate relationships, and there are a lot of interests that you have to keep in mind.

So I wouldn't have said anything to Mark about that because I wouldn't want him thinking that Mr. Ratcliffe was saying anything negative about him.

Q Anything else about that December 16th conversation you had with Mr. Ratcliffe?

A No, sir.

Q Okay. What happened next, I guess? What's the next time you can recall?

A I'm just reading through these notes because I want to make sure I'm being clear with it.

Okay. So the next time that I recall a conversation of this nature was on Wednesday, December 30, 2020.

Q Okay. Tell us about that.

A And I heard these sentiments expressed secondhand from Mark Meadows and Tony Ornato. This has to do with the post-Presidential Secret Service protection for the President's children.

I know we've talked about it before, but just for brief clarification purposes, typically, at the end of a Presidential administration, if a President has a child under the age of 18, they will get Secret Service protection until they turn 18. If a President has a child over the age of 18, that child will get Secret Service protection for the first 6 months post-Presidency.

So, in this period -- and I don't know exactly when the date was; it was before the President left for Mar-a-Lago -- the issue was raised with the President in the Oval Office. And he said, "No, if we have to leave here, my kids are going to get 1 year," which has never been done before, except Barron. I mean, Barron would have Secret Service protection until he turned 18. But the President wanted all of his children to have it for year, which was just a precedent that hadn't been set before.

So Tony and I had objections to that, because, one, bluntly, all of his children could afford private security, so there was no reason to contribute excess government resources to Secret Service protection when there were no credible threats on his children's lives and they could afford their own security, and the months of protection was entirely viable for them and enough time for them to find and hire private security.

So, on Wednesday, December 30th, I had asked the Office of the Staff Secretary to draft two different versions of the memorandum, one for 6 months and one for 1 year, because I was hoping that we could just do the 6 months.

Mark popped out of his office at one point on December 30th -- and Mr. Ornato was not at work that day, so I was texting with him. But Mark popped out of his office at work one day and said, "The President's real mad at me. Can you have Staff Sec print the 1-year memorandum for him to sign down there? I think that'll make him happy."

And I remember saying to Mark, "Mark, I think we need to talk to Tony about this. That's never been done before. He's going to get bad press. That's actually going to make him mad."

And Mark had said, "He gets real mad at me whenever I talk to him about post-Presidential activities. He" --I have it -- hold on. This is a paraphrased quote, but Mark said something to the effect of, "He's just so angry at me all the time. I can't talk to him about anything post-White House without him getting mad that we didn't win. I'm trying to figure out something to make him happy."

So, at this point, that's when I began texting Mr. Ornato. Mr. Ornato was on my side with this and had said this will just give in to the notion that the chief of staff was giving up. Because that was a common thing the President was saying to Mark at this time to get him to continue pursuing the efforts that the President wanted done to try to contest the results of the election.

So I think Mark felt pressure to make him happy in this moment. But, in this conversation, it was the fact that he had said "I can't talk to him about anything post-White House without him getting mad that we didn't win." Because, before that, we had had conversations about this and he hadn't said the "didn't win" portion. Before this, he had said he didn't want to think about anything post-White House because he's not gonna have to leave.

Q Okay. So this is the first or one of the first instances where you heard him specifically tie the fact that the President didn't win to getting upset about making some of these decisions. Is that fair? Or do I have that right?

A Yes, unless we would consider the December 11th -- I don't know if I'm understanding your--

Q Okay.

A -- question correctly.

Q That wasn't a very good question either. And I think we can move on. think your previous explanation was fine on that.

Anything else on that, December 30th?

A No.

Q Okay.

All right. Are there any other times you remember hearing about the President saying something or the President saying something acknowledging that he had lost?

A On Saturday, January 2, 2021. And the source was Mark Meadows.

Q Okay. Tell us about that.

A This was after the call with the Georgia State legislators had wrapped up. Mark's door was propped open for the majority of this call. And, I mean, the call went on for a long time. I had a backlog of information that I wanted to speak with Mark about.

And I remember, first thing, I went in there, and Mark had his phone stretched, and he just had it on mute. So he was using his desk line; he had the physical phone on his thing here, and he wasn't really speaking at this point. And when the call was wrapping, he was like, "Can you hang up the phone?" He, like, was just too exasperated to even, like, get up and hang it up.

And I saw kind of -- because I had heard a lot of the call, and I remember looking at Mark, and I said, "Mark, he can't possibly think we're going to pull this off. Like, that call was crazy." And he looked at me and just started shaking his head, and he's like, "No, Cass, you know, he knows it's over. He knows he lost. But we're gonna keep trying. There are some good options out there still. We're gonna keep trying."

Sorry. I put the paraphrased quote down here. He said something to the effect of, "He knows it's over. He knows he lost. But we're going to keep trying. There's a chance he didn't lose. I want to pull this off for him."

Q And you said that happened right after -- or, was that -- let me clarify. Was that right after you were hanging up the phone for Mr. Meadows?

A Yes.

Q Okay.

A Because soon after that, we had -- we talked for maybe another minute or two, but then Pat Cipollone came downstairs, and they went in and had a private, closed-door meeting. But when Pat had walked in, he had said, "That call was not good."

Ms. Cheney. Pat said that to Mark?

Ms. Hutchinson. Uh-huh.

Ms. Cheney. Did you hear anything else that stood out to you?

Ms. Hutchinson. No, because they went in and closed the door.

BY [DELETE]

Q Is it your understanding that Mr. Cipollone was on the call, listening in to it?

A That was my understanding.

Q Do you know that?

A I don't know it for fact, because I didn't have a list of the call participants and I didn't check with White House Counsel's Office to see if anybody had dialed in. But, you know, he came down fairly soon after the call had commenced and made a comment about how bad the call was. So he could've been referring to a separate call, but I was under the impression --

Ms. Cheney. I'm sorry. After it commenced or after it ended?

Ms. Hutchinson. After it ended. I'm sorry.

BY [DELETE]

Q Anything else on that?

Okay. Any other times when you recall hearing statements about the President or from the President about his loss?

A I can't pin down the date of this one, but it was between Saturday, June 2nd, and Tuesday -- or, I'm sorry, Saturday, January 2nd, and Tuesday, January 5th. And the source was Kevin McCarthy.

Q Tell us about that.

A And the only reason I can't pin down the specific date is because in this period Kevin and I did speak frequently, if not daily.

So Kevin called me, and we were just talking about various things. And, sort of similar to the conversation I had with Ratcliffe earlier in December, Mr. McCarthy asked me -- it was a little bit more blunt. Mr. McCarthy asked me something like, "What's Mark doing? What's Mark thinking? He's giving the President bad advice."

I said, "Well, what do you mean?" And Kevin said, "I talk to the President sometimes, and he admits he lost the election, but then he'll immediately say he didn't lose and there's actually a way that he's going to stay in office." And he's like, "I can only imagine that that's coming from Mark. Mark's lying to him, Cassidy. There's no way that he can actually think that he won the election, right? Like, he knows it's over."

And I said, "Look, I don't know." I was like, "I hear a lot of conflicting things." And he said, "Well, Mark needs to give him better advice." And I said, "Okay. I'll let Mark [know] that you think he should be giving better advice."

Q Okay. Anything further from that call about the President's loss?

A No. And I only have one more example of the President acknowledging or potentially acknowledging that he lost the election.

Q Okay. Before we get to that one, can I ask you quickly -- you said you had multiple calls with Mr. McCarthy in that period of January 2nd to the 5th.

I think one of the things that you mentioned at the hearing was that Mr. McCarthy said something like, "You didn't tell me you guys were coming up here," or, "You told me you weren't coming up here."

Can you tell us about those conversations that you had with Mr. McCarthy in that week about possibly going up to the Capitol?

A Yes. So this is -- I have my time -- well, I have to find it, but -- you know, actually, I'm going to take a second and find the timeline, because --

Q Sure.

A So December 29th was the first that I had heard of a march to the Capitol and the several rally sites that were planned around the Capitol and around D.C. during this time period.

And from that point forward and then leading into the January 2nd House Freedom Caucus call about the march to the Capitol/January 6th rally at the White House that day, I believe it was January 1st or 2nd, Tony and I sort of wanted -- not "sort of." I want to fix my phrasing. Tony and I was were instructed by Mr. Meadows to come up with a contingent plan to potentially go to the Capitol that day.

Again, we were fairly well aware that it just -- that movement wasn't able to happen. And Mark had said something like, "Well, we do it for State of the Union. Why don't you just call the Leader's office to see, like, what they normally do?" So I said, "Okay." And this was more of a, I'm trying to cover my own back with this, in case the President calls and says, "Is anybody calling you about us coming up there?"

So I called Kevin, and I had said, "Hey, I know that you've personally never really plan this, but I know that when we've done State of the Unions before and brought a Presidential package up to the Capitol, we've used your leadership office as a holding area for staff. If we were to make a movement from the Ellipse to the Capitol on January 6th, do you think it would be a viable option for us to kind of use the same plan that we would do for the State of the Union?"

And then I remember quickly saying, like, "Look, I've never planned a State of the Union before. I just know that I've held in your office before. I don't know the proper point of contact for this. I'm just trying to gauge, like, what you're thinking with this."

And Kevin had said, "You guys aren't coming up to the Capitol, right? There's no way he wants to come up to the Capitol. Why would he want to come up to the Capitol?"

I said, "Look, I don't know. Mark just asked me to figure out if there was a plan that we could potentially put in place. I can assure you, this movement can't happen as of now. There's going to be way too many people here; it's not gonna be safe to bring him up. I'm just trying to cover my own back so I could say to Mark and to the President that a call was made to Capitol Hill about a potential movement and there are people on Capitol Hill aware of a potential movement so, you know, if he decides to do this, we can facilitate from there. So I just called -- I didn't know who else to call."

Q Okay.

A And he had just said, "Okay. Yeah. No. You guys aren't coming up here." And I was like, "Sir, I know. We're not coming up there. I just -- this is more for me to cover my" -- I think I said "to cover my ass."

Q Okay.

Any other calls that came up with Mr. McCarthy?

A Not that I can recall. That was the longest one. And it went on for a little while longer. I think he had asked me, like, why would he want to come up to the Capitol, what's he planning to do up here. And, just to be frank, I don't remember, like, the depth of which we discussed that. I think I kind of just -- I know I just brushed off a lot of it.

Q Okay.

A Because I -- I don't want to say I knew it wasn't going to happen. I was very hopeful it wasn't going to happen. So I didn't think it was something that we should really spin the wheels on.

Q Okay.

And sorry for that little detour there, but you were about to get into the next time --

A No, it's okay. And hopefully he'll remember that conversation. Selective memory is incredible.

Q I think you were about to get into the next time you recall either the President or somebody talking about the President --

A I do. And, just for the record, to start this, my memory isn't super-clear on this one, although I do remember it being mentioned. And it's from the President himself. That's why I just want to preface it with that, because there were other people around, and I just want to make sure that -- like, I'm not speaking to exactly what I remember happening. I just -- this is a broad overview of it.

But it was on Monday, January 4, 2021, and we were flying back to the White House from Georgia. We had the rallies in Georgia. And we were on Air Force One. The President spent some time in the conference room with Members and the other guests. And I was in the conference room for a portion of that time with Mr. Meadows, and then Mr. Meadows and I had also stepped out.

If you're on the Air Force One, there's the conference room, and then catty-corner to the conference room there's a long couch, and directly across from the couch there's an office space that the chief of staff uses.

So the President at one point came out of conference room. I'm sitting on the couch by myself; I'm on my laptop. And the President goes into doorway of the office where Mr. Meadows was and pulls out Mr. Meadows, and they walk a few steps forward towards the President's cabin, in a sense, but not quite there. So I kind of overhear what they were talking about.

And he, in the conference room, was talking about how he thought he was going to pull off on the 6th. And he was talking to Marjorie Taylor Greene. And they were all hyping him up, like, "It's been a really great day," and he was going along with it.

But then when he stepped out with Mr. Meadows and had the more private conversation, I remember hearing bits and pieces of it, where Mark had told him that -- where Mark had told the President that, you know, "In case we didn't win this, sir, and in case, like, tomorrow doesn't go as planned, we're gonna have to have a plan in place."

And the President said something like, "Yeah, you know, there's always that chance that we didn't win, but I think tomorrow's gonna go well. Do you think tomorrow's gonna go well, Chief?" And Mark just said, like, "Yeah. Yes, sir, I think it's gonna go well. Just, just in case, I'm just letting you know. Like, we can chat about this later." Then the President's like, "Okay, okay," and just went up to the cabin.

But, again, that's -- I like to say it's something to the effective of when I'm -- it's very choppy. And that's just --

Q Okay.

A There were other things said in between. I just -- I don't remember. But I remember hearing in that moment and trying to, like, turn my hearing on more, because I was thinking, like -- honestly, I was thinking more, "What is this that they think is gonna go so well tomorrow?" I didn't know if it was just the rally or if there was something else.

And around that time, too, is when my interest had -- not my "interest" -- my -- I became a little bit more concerned about what they were planning to do on the 6th that I may not be privy to.

Q Okay. And you said in that conversation -- that was on the 4th?

A That was on the 4th.

Q You mentioned "tomorrow." Are you talking about the 6th?

A Oh, I'm sorry. I'm talking about the 6th.

Q Okay.

Ms. Cheney. I don't mean to interrupt. I just wanted to suggest something. We're close to 7:00. Do we -- and I don't know. I think we have more to go. Maybe we should sort of think about maybe wrapping at 7:00 and coming back. Or are there ways -- and I'm just trying to make sure people don't get too tired.

Mr. Jordan. We'll go off the record so we can talk scheduling for a second.

[Discussion off the record.]

[ 6:52 p.m.]

[DELETE] So let's go back on the record. It's 6:52, resuming the transcribed interview of Ms. Hutchinson.

And at this point I think we're going to break for the day, and then we'll resume tomorrow to pick up on a few additional topic areas that we had planned for today.

But with that, we can go off the record for the day.

[Whereupon, at 6:52 p.m., the interview was concluded.]

Certificate of Deponent/Interviewee

I have read the foregoing __ pages, which contain the correct transcript of the answers made by me to the questions therein recorded.

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Witness Name

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Date