by admin » Sat Dec 24, 2022 6:19 am
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."
