Trump Times

 “The country needs to see you, needs to see your courage. The country needs to hear the truth.”

           –Jody Hunt, Cassidy Hutchinson’s attorney, the day before her live hearing with the January 6 Committee

I know he is right. I know the impact I could have, a White House staffer with extensive access testifying in open hearing to what amounted to, at a minimum, President Trump’s shocking dereliction of duty. I know it will expose how much he was prepared to hurt the country to assuage his own wounded pride. I know it will reveal him as a reckless, dangerous man. I see that plainly now. January 6 was a dark day–trraumatizing–a genuine threat to the health of the world’s greatest democracy.

        –Cassidy Hutchinson

I trust her [Liz Cheney] implicitly. She has asked me to do a difficult thing, and I will do it to the best of my ability. Liz is on the right side of history, and she welcomes me to join her.

I testify to the difficulty Pat Cipollone, Eric Herschmann, and others had getting an adamant Trump to call off his supporters ransacking the Capitol and threatening the lives of members of Congress and the vice president…. I recount overhearing [Mark Meadows, chief of staff] tell Pat that Trump “thinks Mike [Pence] deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.” Liz briefly interjects to make sure everyone realizes what I had just attested to: the president of the United States had told his chief of staff and legal counsel that he was fine with an armed mob trying to kill the vice president of the United States.

           –Hutchinson at her live hearing, June 28, 2022

Introduction

Cassidy Hutchinson’s book, Enough, published in 2023, was a vital perspective on the dysfunction of President Trump and his first administration. Would that more Americans had read it, for we are now dealing with a more vengeful and  empowered Trump with fewer advisors and cabinet members capable of thinking for themselves, courtesy of a compliant Senate.

I first published most of what follows on November 15, 2025. That version began partway through Chapter 16, with the rally at the Ellipse on January 6. This revised version contains material from the three preceding chapters as well.

This earlier content helps to convey how centrally located in the Trump administration Cassidy Hutchinson was, how close she was with Tony Ornato, assistant director of the Secret Service and deputy chief of staff, and  how determined the president was to stay in office, despite the election results. Both John Ratcliffe, director of national intelligence, and Kevin McCarthy, minority leader of the House of Representatives, shared with Hutchinson their bafflement at Trump’s inability to simply accept the fact that he lost the election. He could briefly acknowledge that fact, only to immediately backpedal with allegations of fraud. 

For months, of course, Trump had primed his followers to believe that the only way he could lose would be by fraud.

In transcribing and highlighting so much material, especially as a “hunter and pecker” with the keyboard, I engaged it more thoroughly than I had upon my initial reading of the book. A few  impressions stand out. First, in Donald Trump’s world, you only lose if you concede the fact or are forced to give up power. Had he been able to remain in office by any manner of subterfuge, that would have proven he had not lost after all. Might makes right. 

Second, as January 6 approached, Hutchinson was frustrated by the reluctance of Mark Meadows, chief of staff and her immediate boss, and other advisors to the president to tell him what he needed to hear. At one point she writes: “Assuaging the president’s impulses took precedence over order and protocol, and we were the enablers.” As a large man with a volcanic temper, Trump is a force to be reckoned with. It may not be easy to hold your ground against him, or always think for yourself in his presence. As he told Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in 2016, power is derived from instilling fear.

Third, Hutchinson truly was loyal to Trump, and felt that much of his unproductive scheming in defiance of the election results was a failure of his staff, including herself. But she was eventually capable of putting her loyalty to country first, and seeing the president’s dark nature. It is not clear that Mark Meadows was capable of this. At one point Meadows told her: ““I’ll be the best chief of staff if I can keep him in office. If that’s what he wants, that’s what I want.”  And on January 7, ignoring the obvious, Meadows told Hutchinson: “I think yesterday was antifa.”

Fourth, Trump’s inclination to impose martial law in his second term is not new, or contingent upon protests against the tactics of ICE. On the night of December 18, 2020, weeks after losing the election, the White House legal team had to fight back in the Oval Office against General Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell and others who were apparently pushing for Trump to impose the Insurrection Act or martial law and seize voting machines. 

Oddly, Mark Meadows had gone home early that evening, and Hutchinson had great difficulty reaching him by phone. Tony Ornato told her the situation required Meadows’s intervention, and at one point Hutchinson had to “order” a Secret Service agent on Meadows’s detail to get him on the phone. At her insistence he returned to the White House to help quell the storm.

Kevin McCarthy was initially a steady voice and firm in his opposition to Trump coming to the Capitol after the Ellipse rally. He was at first supportive of the formation of the January 6 committee, but ultimately could not escape Trump’s gravitational pull. His withdrawal of his Republican nominees to the January 6 committee, and his withdrawal of support for Liz Cheney in her leadership position among House Republicans, were factors in his and Hutchinson’s parting of ways.

Hutchinson’s live testimony before the January 6 Committee provided vivid details of President Trump’s behavior on that fateful day, including his reaction to rioters chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” and his resistance to pleas from lawmakers, friendly journalists, family, and White House counsel and staff to call the riot off. 

(Earlier at the Ellipse, he used the word “peaceful” once, in a speech that was otherwise inciteful and laced with lies. See: https://trumptimes.blog/2025/09/24/trumps-january-6-speech-highlighted/)

As Hutchinson anticipated, Trump and Trump World went right to work attempting to discredit her as a low-level staffer with strictly administrative responsibilities and in whom no one would confide. She had once been part of such efforts to disparage critics of the president. 

Trump World seized on the denial by two Secret Service agents, Tony Ornato and Bobby Engel. of her second-hand account of Trump’s irate behavior in the “Beast”, the presidential limousine in which he rode after his rally at the Ellipse, from which a charged crowd marched to the Capitol where a riot ensued. 

(At the Capitol, rioter Ashli Babbitt was fatally shot in the shoulder as she attempted to breach a barricaded, shattered glass door leading to the House chamber. One police officer who defended the Capitol died of a stroke the following day and four more committed suicide in the days and months that followed.)

The Second January 6, 2021 Report (released on December 17, 2024), which was a valiant attempt by Republican lawmakers to discredit the official January 6th Report, portions of which are included in the Appendix, also seized on the denials by the two Secret Service agents, as well as a dispute over who actually penned a note telling the people who had breached the Capitol to go home, which aides hoped Trump would tweet.* 

(Incredibly, one “finding” of that second report was that President Trump did not have intelligence indicating violence on the morning of January 6. How very strange that Tony Ornato would not share the intelligence he received with either Meadows or Trump, or that Trump was unaware of what the news networks were reporting in preceding days. And presumably he could infer that if his armed supporters had not come to harm him, they might have come intending to harm others.)

Hutchinson has stuck by her testimony.

The close working relationship and friendship between Hutchinson and Tony Ornato is important, given Ornato’s denial of having told Hutchinson of Trump’s irate behavior in the Beast. In what Ornato would explain was planned months in advance, he resigned from the Secret Service two months after that testimony. 

The rest of us are left to ponder what motive Hutchinson would have to invent a conversation to portray the president as out of control and threatening to Secret Service agent Bobby Engel, as opposed to what motive Ornato and Engel would have to deny it. In any case, Hutchinson repeated the alleged episode in her book a year later, along with a subsequent reference to the incident Ornato made in jest not long afterward.

Included in the excerpts below are accounts of Hutchinson’s first four interviews before the January 6 committee, the first three of which she was represented by a lawyer from Trump World, Stefan  Passantino. She had searched in vain for a lawyer who would represent her pro bono or accept a payment plan. 

“Stefan never told me to lie to the committee,” Hutchinson writes. “I don’t want you to perjure yourself,’ he insisted. ‘But “I don’t recall” isn’t perjury’.” Following her first interview with the committee, she writes: “I didn’t feel good about it. Deep down, I knew my loyalties should have been to the country, to the truth, and not to the former president, who had made himself a threat to both.” 

If only Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth and others today felt such loyalty to country. 

Hutchinson did not one day decide to “come clean”, from which a clear path emerged. There were notable mile markers, such as when a Republican confidant told her to go look in a mirror and decide if she liked what she saw, because her opinion of herself was the only one she would have to live with. 

She second-guessed herself a few times, and wished that someone else would do what she felt herself being pulled by civic duty to do. But she was also inspired by certain individuals, notably her colleague Alyssa Farah, who broke with Trump World before she did, the steady Liz Cheney of course, and Alexander Butterfield, who fifty years earlier had provided critical testimony in Watergate and which led to President Nixon’s resignation.

To reiterate, coming clean was not simple. Indeed, it was something of an ordeal. In her words, she “bushwacked” her way out of her predicament. Having found her way at a time the Country needed a truth teller in her position, history will remember her as a profile in courage.

* Congressman Barry Loudermilk, the chief author and driving force of the Second January 6 Report, had this exchange with Mark Meadows on January 6:

 Representative Barry Loudermilk, 2:44 p.m.: “It’s really bad up here on the hill.” “They have breached the Capitol.”232 At 2:48 p.m., Meadows responded: “POTUS is engaging.”233 At 2:49 p.m., Loudermilk responded: “Thanks. This doesn’t help our cause.”234 (January 6th Report, p.602)

Chapter 13: The Election

pp. 172-175

The president and his legal advisors–led by Rudy and Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor–would file ninety “Stop the Steal” lawsuits….

I didn’t think there was anything wrong or unjustified about challenging the results of the election when the counts were within the margin of error….It didn’t bother me that the president was exhausting every option before conceding he lost the election. I couldn’t imagine him doing anything otherwise. But the erratic, to say the least, performances of the campaign’s lawyers and the rhetoric from some of the president’s surrogates were starting to worry me.

I didn’t blame the president for any of it yet. I didn’t want to blame him. I felt strongly that he should concede the election, and I worried that we were surrounding him with people who fueled his most impulsive behaviors. I knew things could get out of control, and fast. 

As we lost each lawsuit, I thought there was a clear end in sight. But, despite our unbroken string of legal defeats, the battle continued, and the president’s core staffers stood by him as he decided to settle in for a long fight.

In mid-November, Mark [Meadows, chief of staff] and I went to the Hill for various end-of-year policy negotiation meetings. We stopped by the office of Leader McConnell, who earnestly pleaded with Mark to tell the president not to meddle in the upcoming Georgia Senate run-off elections. Mark assured the leader he would do his best. I struggled to remain stone-faced–I knew Mark had been discussing the president’s involvement for days….

On Thanksgiving Eve, Mark was scheduled to fly to Florida. We kept having to push the departure time while we made arrangements for the president to meet with a group of Pennsylvania legislators. Rudy and former New York City police commissioner Bernie Kerik had brought the lawmakers to the White House following an election fraud hearing in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Dan  Scavino and I were among the few stragglers in the West Wing that day. “Look around, Cass,” Dan said. “No one is here. No one sticks by the boss’s side when things get hard. It sucks. I feel bad for the guy,” He looked at me closely. “You actually care about the President, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “But Dan, this is getting a little out of control. I mean, look at us. We’re here on Thanksgiving Eve, and now we’re entertaining Rudy’s cast of characters for a meeting that has no purpose.”…

Dan conceded. “I know, but the president needs loyal people, like you, surrounding him now more than ever. And in Florida, if we end up having to move down there in January. You see who is actually on our team on days like this,” Dan said. “But who knows. Maybe we’ll actually pull this off.”

Chapter 14: December

pp.177-

The Quad-Screen T.V. in the office showed CNN reporting that Attorney General Barr had acknowledged to the Associated Press that the Justice Department had found insufficient evidence of widespread voter fraud that would have changed the results of the election,

Moments later, the president’s valet rushed down the hall to say that the president wanted to see Mark in the dining room. I knew the president would be livid about the attorney general’s statement and would blame Mark for not alerting him beforehand or quashing it entirely. Mark went to the dining room and returned soon after, which sparked my curiosity. I decided to walk down there to see what was going on.

The door to the dining room was propped open slightly and I saw the valet rushing to tidy up the space. I stepped into the room and immediately saw a shattered plate to my right, and Heinz ketchup smeared on the fireplace mantel. I grabbed a tea towel from the pantry drawer and started wiping away the condiment.

“Did you see what Barr said”? The valet asked. I nodded. “I think he’s at the White House right now. What the hell is going on?” I began to pick up pieces of the shattered plate. 

He grabbed the tea towel from me and suggested I return to my office. “The president is really, really angry at the attorney general,” he said.

Speculation about the attorney general’s job security quickly spread through the West Wing. Many staffers, including me, hoped Barr would stay until the end of the administration.

About a week later, the president tweeted that he had accepted Attorney General Barr’s resignation. He appointed Jeff Rosen as acting attorney general, slated to assume duty on Christmas Eve.

On December 8, the president’s de facto legal team came up with a Hail Mary lawsuit that had an attorney general–Ken Paxton, of Texas–challenge the election procedures of other states, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. He believed that the Supreme Court would hear the case and side with him….(see p.180 below)

I had been dreading the White House holiday parties. Many attendees were encouraging the president’s election theft claims, and the event would open the floodgates to their direct access on campus [the White House].

I remained at my desk for most of the evening and spent the time catching up on work. When John Ratcliffe, the director of National Intelligence, stopped by the office with his daughter toward the end of the ball I felt a calming sense of normalcy temporarily return. John and I were both close with Kevin (McCarthy) and had spent much of the last year working to build our working relationship. He had become someone I relied on as a mentor and ally….

Delicately, John asked whether I had heard any of the recent advice Mark had given to the president. ‘I hear a lot of things. What are you referring to specifically,” I asked.

“Well, you know, I’m a little worried about what’s going on around here,” he began, and explained he had spoken a few times to the president about the election. “He acknowledges he lost, not that he wants to concede, but he acknowledges he lost the election,” John said. He looked at me for a reaction, but I offered no comment. “Then he’ll immediately backpedal,” he continued, “or call the next day and say he didn’t lose the election and I should call Mark. Mark has more information. I’m a little worried Mark’s not giving him good advice. 

I conceded that Mark might be “in the phase of telling people what they want to hear. But” I added, “I don’t know everything that’s coming across his desk right now.”….

p.180

I was at my desk when the news broke that the Supreme Court had declined to hear the Texas case. The press, legal experts, and most Americans had expected the decision, and it was a cause for celebration for many. But in the West Wing, it felt like the final blow. I sympathized with my colleagues who mourned our second term, but privately, I was relieved we had reached what seemed like the last impasse. The legal challenges had been disorganized and unserious and had only succeeded in embarrassing the president. I wanted the chaos to subside so that we could prepare for the next phase of our careers, and encourage the president to leave with his dignity intact.

After a Christmas reception at the residence that night, Mark asked if I had thought any more about going to Florida [with Trump, following a change of administrations]. I said I had, and that I was leaning toward going….

Mark and i were walking through the Rose Garden colonnade later that evening when we crossed paths with the president, who was beside himself about the Supreme Court’s decision. While they spoke, I stepped back and stood across from the president’s valet.

“They got it wrong, Chief [Meadows]. How did this happen? Why didn’t we make more calls? We needed to do more. Okay? We can’t let this stand,” the president raged. Mark tried to reassure the president, asserting that there were still other options on the table, and he was going to figure it all out. The president pushed back. “I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing,” he said. “Figure it out.” Mark assured the president that he would work on it. 

I was irritated that Mark gave the president false hope. Of course, that’s what the president wanted to hear, but he was damaging the country by concocting false rationales for perpetuating a fight that was now certainly a lost cause.

It was also upsetting to witness the president so distraught. He looked run-down, defeated, almost frightened, like a hollowed figure of himself. He tried to cancel his trip the next day to the Army-Navy game at West Point, unwilling to be seen in public after the Supreme Court rejected his token fraud case. Eventually, we persuaded the president that cancelling the trip would make him look weak–his greatest kryptonite….

pp.182-187

Mark asked for General Services Administration (GSA) staff to light a fire in his office fireplace first thing every morning. He kept a pile of firewood and throughout the day added logs to keep the fire burning. When I went into his office to deliver lunch or a package to him, I would sometimes find him leaning over the fire, feeding paper into it, watching to make sure they burned, and placing logs on top of the ashes.

I do not know precisely what papers Mark was burning, but his actions raised alarms. The Presidential Record Act requires staff to keep original documents and send them to the National Archives. All copies and personal papers were supposed to go into burn bags to be properly disposed of. Mark knew these procedures. Even if he was burning copies, he was still toeing a fine line of what should be preserved, under the law….

On the evening of December 18, Mark returned from a meeting in the Oval Office and abruptly asked if I could tell his detail he wanted to go home, as if there was an emergency there. His detail quickly prepared his limo and he left campus without further explanation.

Shortly after Mark’s departure, I walked down to visit with Molly and get a sense of the president’s evening plans. Usually, if Mark went home before the president went to his residence, I would stay at my desk in case the president needed anything from Mark or me. But since Mark had left early with such confidence, I thought perhaps the president was wrapping up for the evening and I would get to go home early, too.

When I walked into the Outer Oval, I saw that the president was meeting with General Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his involvement with Russian officials, cutting a cooperation deal in special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry into interference in the 2016 election. Three weeks before today’s meeting, on November 25, Trump had issued Flynn a presidential pardon.

Why is Mike Flynn here?” I asked Molly.

“I’m  not sure,” Molly said, then added, “He’s just talking to the president about some things.” Talking to the president about some things. Got it. I went back to my office and settled in.

Molly came to my office soon after and asked if I had a wine opener…

A few minutes later, Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, Eric Hershmann, and Derek Lyons barreled down the hallway past my office door and rounded the corner toward the Oval Office.

I was imagining various reasons Flynn could have for being there that had the lawyers in a panic, but then I remembered it was Derek’s last day in the White House. I figured I was overthinking–Flynn had probably left and there was a toast for Derek in the Oval Office to celebrate his tenure at the White House.

Liz Horning, Cipollone’s top aide and Derek’s fiancee, wandered in and asked if I knew what was happening in the Oval Office. She had dinner plans with Derek and could not get in touch with him. “I’m not sure,” I said, “but a bunch of people are in the Oval.”

On cue, we both turned toward the sound of raised voices coming from that direction. Although the Oval Office was about a ten-second walk from my desk, it was highly unusual to hear any noise coming from there. We could not make out distinct words that night, just people screaming at each other.

Molly called me to come to the Outer Oval. Dan Scavino was pouring the last of a bottle of wine into a glass. The screaming was much louder than I had anticipated. I looked into the Oval Office and saw a large group. Along with the White House lawyers were Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, and Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com. How did all those people get inside the building? 

“Can you call Mark?” Molly asked. “I keep trying to get him, but the call keeps dropping.”

I was confused. “That’s weird, Molly. Mark is at home. The call shouldn’t be dropping. I’ll get him on the line and patch him over to you.” I tried several times to reach Mark, but had no immediate luck.

I could tell the meeting was growing more contentious, so I decided to text Tony [Ornato]. “Flynn is still here. And Powell. There’s a brawl.” He responded, “Oh holy hell.”  He immediately called and asked if I knew what they were brawling over. He had been in the Oval Office earlier that day and heard the president talk about invoking the Insurrection Act or martial law. If that’s what they were arguing over, Tony said, I needed to get Mark back to the White House as soon as possible.

Eventually I got ahold of Mark, who seemed reluctant to get on the line with the president. I urged him that it sounded like it was a matter of national security.

A Secret Service agent who was standing outside the Oval Office came by. “I don’t want to hear all of that,” he said. “It’s really upsetting. I wouldn’t recommend going down there.”

The West Wing was officially unhinged.

Things seemed to be breaking up as people filed out of the Oval and walked by my desk. Molly told me that the president wanted to have dinner in the residence and was planning to reconvene the meeting in the Yellow Oval after he finished eating. I told her I would stay in case something happened. She wished me luck, and then left for the night.

Dan Sacavino stopped by on his way home and said, “This is fucked up.” 

Eric Herschmann walked into Mark’s office in a fury, pounding his fist on the wall. “This can’t be fucking happening, “This is fucking insane.”

Pat Cipollone, looking traumatized, said to me, “This is nuts. Mark needs to come back.”

“Does the chief really need more of a reason to come back?” Derek asked. “Here it is. Martial law. I mean, for God’s sake, we called Rudy to come help us do damage control. Rudy Giuliani. You know it’s bad when we call Rudy for backup. The chief needs to come back!”

I called Tony and told him what Derek had said, and that I was having trouble getting ahold of Mark. I asked Tony to come back, but he said this needed the chief’s intervention. I agreed, and continued to call Mark.

He continued ignoring my calls, so I called one of the agents on his detail. “Go pass your phone to Mark, now,” I ordered.

“Seriously?” the agent asked. “What if he’s in bed sleeping? What do you expect me to do, shake him awake?”

“Yes,” I responded. “This is a matter of national security. You need to put me on the phone with him.”

After a few minutes , I had Mark on the line. “Mark, the president is reconvening the meeting in the Yellow Oval. Rudy is on his way as backup for Pat Cipollone, Rudy for Pat Cipollone. We’re talking about the Insurrection Act, seizing voting machines.” I felt my voice begin to sound desperate. “Please, Mark, you need to come back here.”

He said, “Alright, I’m on my way.”

When he got out of his limo, he said to me, “I thought they’d be able to handle it without me there. I’m not going to lose my job because of these guys. We’ve got to fix this. We’ve got to fix this.”

I walked with Mark to the residence, and he had asked me to come back at midnight to break up the meeting if it had not already ended by then. I heard the president scream. “I don’t care how you do it, just get it fucking done.” Mark and I exchanged a pained look, and he disappeared into the Yellow Oval.

My hands were sweating as I walked back to my desk. I had never heard the president sound so desperate before. Somebody needed to give the president good advice, and I worried that he was surrounded by too many people who were misleading him. But at the same time I knew that it was the president–not his advisors–that was not only enabling, but encouraging this to happen. He was in control.

I went to the residence around 11:55 p.m., but the meeting had begun to end….Mark escorted Rudy off the premises to make sure America’s Mayor didn’t wander back to the residence.

One hour after the meeting broke up, my watch buzzed with a Trump tweet alert. “Peter Navarro releases 36-page report alleging election fraud. ‘More than sufficient’ to swing victory to Trump. A great report by Peter. Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Wild.

P.188

Editor’s note: On December 19, Devin Nunes, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), and George Pappas, the committee’s top Republican aide, met with Mark Meadows. While Nunes and Pappas were waiting for the meeting to start (and Meadows was busy on his phone), Devin asked Hutchinson if they could open a window to vacate smoke from the fireplace: 

….I followed Devin into Mark’s office, where the fireplace was lit. “Mark, what is going on?!” I snapped as I propped open the door to his patio. “You’re going to set off a smoke alarm!” Mark was startled. “Sorry, sorry,” he responded. “Sorry to keep you guys waiting. Let’s get this meeting started.”

As I went to leave, Devin whispered, “How often is he burning papers?”  I glanced at him pointedly, then rushed out of Mark’s office.

I sank into my desk chair and buried my face in my hands. I did not understand what was going on. Assuaging the president’s impulses took precedence over order and protocol, and we were the enablers. I needed to correct course with Mark before we let things completely spiral out of control–before it was too late….

After a few hours Mark called me into his office….He explained that immediately after Christmas, HPSCI would come to the White House with boxes of classified documents to sort through. “We’re hoping to declassify some of this material before the end of the administration.” Mark said. “I’ll help them when I have time in my schedule, but I want them to do it here. I need you to coordinate everything with George.

I looked at each of the three men in front of me, blankly. I was confident Mark knew this request was completely out-of-bounds. HPSCI’s protocol for reviewing classified material was independent of the White House, and if Mark needed national security staffers with the appropriate clearance, we could work with Robert O’Brien and the National Security Council team. But I could tell by the look on Mike’s face that his mind was made up, and trying to give him a lesson on protocol would only infuriate him.

I was floored. For the president’s sake, I felt burdened with the responsibility to restore order.

I knew it would be an impossible task….

I hoped the president would return from Florida [after Christmas] ready to accept his electoral defeat so we could begin preparing him for his post-presidential life. The country was best served if we could all move forward.

Chapter 15: New Year

pp.191-192

After I spent about forty-eight hours in New Jersey for Christmas, I returned to the office on December 28 with Mark. A week earlier, the Secret Service had informed me that Mark had made an unscheduled visit to a Cobb County, Georgia, vote-counting center, which I wrote off as another attempt of Mark’s to placate the boss. He had promised the president that he would visit all the states where the election results were being disputed. I thought that the Georgia stop was unwise; I believed that it would read as an effort to pressure local election officials. 

That first week back, at Mark’s request, I received regular ballot-count updates from Jordan Fuchs, Georgia deputy secretary of state and chief of staff to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Mark also asked me to put together gift packages for Cobb County election officials and workers, each stuffed full of expensive White House memorabilia that he and the president had selected to send….I managed to talk Mark out of sending them.

To prove he hadn’t stopped trying to keep the president in office, Mark stepped up his efforts. “I’ll be the best chief of staff if I can keep him in office,” he explained to me. “If that’s what he wants, that’s what I want.”

Shortly thereafter:

Mark stuck his head out of his office….and said, “The president’s real mad at me.” By then many of us knew that Trump had accused Mark of “giving up”–failing to continue contesting the election results….

….”He’s 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.”….

Before the new year, I had thought that Mark had just been indulging some of the January 6th plans, but as the days passed, he seemed more prepared to embrace a plan for the vice president to reject states’ electoral votes.

On New Years Eve, he asked me to talk to Tony about a potential motorcade movement to Capitol Hill following  the president’s rally. Tony and I agreed that the movement would be almost impossible. I hoped Mark would not raise the issue again.

p.193

January 1

On New Year’s Day, Mark again directed Tony and me to come up with a plan to take the president to the Capitol after the rally on January 6.

I called Kevin [McCarthy].  “Hey, I know that you’ve never personally brought a presidential package up to the Capitol for the State of the Union. But we’ve used your leadership office as a holding area for the staff. If we were to make a movement from the rally at the Ellipse to the Capitol on January 6th, do you think it would be a viable option to use the same plan? I’m just trying to gauge what your thinking is about this.”….

“You guys aren’t coming to the Capitol, right?” he replied. “There’s no way he wants to do that. Why would he want to come to the Capitol?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Mark just asked me to figure out if there was a plan that we could actually put in place. Kevin, I assure you that this move can’t happen as of now. There are going to be way too many people. It’s not safe to bring him up.

“So why even ask about it?” he said, losing patience. 

“I’m asking you to cover my back so I can tell Mark and the president that I made a call to Capitol Hill about it, and there are people on the Hill who are aware of a potential movement.”

“Yeah, okay, no. You guys aren’t coming here.”

I said, “I know! I just have to ask.”

…..The news networks were warning that the crowds on January 6 were expected to be large and militant.

p.194

January 2

Mark spent much of the morning in his office with George Pappas, sorting through the classified documents that had arrived a few days earlier. When I went into his office to remind Mark about an upcoming call he was scheduled to join, there were thousands of papers sprawled across his conference room table. He quickly began to scoop them up in a rush so he could prepare for the call. 

“We can get this stuff, Chief,” I said. “I’ll bring George to the Situation Room to continue reviewing the documents.” Mark shot me a sharp glare. “No, no, no. No Situation Room. These documents need to stay up here. Can you unlock Tony’s office for him?”  Absolutely not, I thought, but said, “We’ll figure it out.”

George and I left Mark’s office with arms full of classified documents. I contemplated where he should go before settling him into the Roosevelt Room, a conference room that is not a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), but was close enough to our office that I could keep a watchful eye on him.

As I turned to leave the Roosevelt Room, George invited me to look through the documents with him. “There’s a lot of interesting stuff in these. I thought I knew a lot about Crossfire Hurricane*, but turns out there is a ton I didn’t know. You should read them, too.”

“Crossfire Hurricane? What does that mean?” I asked him, genuinely perplexed. He laughed and said I had a good sense of humor. I shook my head and walked out of the room.

I had not wanted to know what was going on before, but I especially did not want to know now.

*Crossfire Hurricane was the code name for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterintelligence investigation into potential coordination between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the United States election  https://legalclarity.org/crossfire-hurricane-the-fbi-counterintelligence-probe/

The call was with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, and it went on for a long time….Mark was listening to the conversation on his desk phone’s speaker and had the phone cord stretched to his couch. His door was propped open, and I heard much of the conversation.

When the call ended, Mark asked if I would place the phone back on the receiver for him. He was too wrung out from the call to do it himself.

“Mark, he can’t possibly think we’re going to pull this off. That call was crazy, right?” I asked, looking for reassurance. The president had pressed Raffensperger to “find” the nearly twelve thousand votes that would have put him ahead of Biden.

Mark shook his head and replied, “Cass, he knows it’s over. He knows he lost, but we’re going to keep trying. There are some good options out there still. We’re going to keep trying.”

Pat Cipollone appeared in Mark’s doorway and said, “That call was not good,” Pat was also dialed in to the call.

Mark gulped. “Maybe I should go up to the residence and talk to the president. I’m worried that call might leak to the press.”

The next day, the press reported an audio recording  of the call. That evening, Rudy and associates met with Mark and Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina. I was under the impression they were meeting to discuss allegations of voter fraud, and the plan for Trump allies in the House and Senate to object to certifying the electoral college votes from certain states. As Lindsey left the meeting, Rudy followed him out of Mark’s office with a huge binder and asked me to make a copy for the senator. When Rudy went back into Mark’s office, Lindsey waved off his request. “Don’t waste your time photocopying dead peoples’ names. I’m not even sure these people are really dead.”

Lindsey left, and the president convened a call with Freedom Caucus members to discuss the plan for January 6. When the meeting ended, Rudy asked me to walk his group out. 

I got my coat and escorted Rudy and his associates out of the West Wing. As we walked, Rudy said, “Are you excited about the 6th? It’s going to be a great day. I’m excited. We’re going to go to the Capitol, Cass!”

“I’m curious, Rudy,” I said. “What are we going to do at the Capitol?”

“It’s going to be great. The president is going to be there. He’s going to look powerful…The chief knows all about it. Talk to the chief about it.”

Remarkably, I followed Rudy’s advice and went to discuss the topic with Mark. He was still in his office, seated on his couch, scrolling through his phone. I leaned against his doorway and reported that I had just had an interesting conversation with Rudy. “It sounds like we’re going to the Capitol.”

Mark didn’t look up, but he stopped scrolling for a moment. “There’s a lot going on, Cass…Things might get real, real bad on January 6.”

Until then, I’d been apprehensive about the rally–and whatever else people on the Hill were cooking up. But Mark’s warning that night made me genuinely frightened that something “real, real bad” was going to happen.

p.197

January 3

George [Pappas] brought an entourage of HPSCI staffers to the White House for more document review sessions. Mark met with the group in his office, and after about thirty minutes, he asked me to put them in the Roosevelt room for several hours. “Just keep an eye on the group and make sure none of those documents leave with them,” Mark instructed me.

“What’s Mark thinking?” Kevin [McCarthy] asked me later that day on the phone. “He’s giving the president bad advice.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, but I’d had the same conversation with John Ratcliffe.

“When I talk to the president, sometimes he admits he lost the election, and then he immediately says he didn’t lose it and there’s a way that he’s going to stay in office. Where is he getting that? I can only imagine that Mark is lying to him,” said Kevin.  “Cass, there’s no way he actually thinks he won the election, right? Like, he knows its over.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I hear a lot of conflicting things, too.”

“Well, Mark needs to give him better advice.”

“I’ll let Mark know that you think he should give the president better advice.”

“This is serious, Cass,” he said, and hung up.

Tony [Ornato] was back at work. He had information from the Secret Service that worried him. “We have intel about potential violence at the rally,” he told Mark. Max Miller had been hanging around our office suite. “It’s only going to be dangerous if the Boogaloo Bois come,” Max said.

Mark seemed puzzled. “I haven’t heard of them. Are they dangerous ones, or is some other group dangerous?”

Max said, “They’re all dangerous. Boogaloo Bois, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys.”

“Antifa is dangerous too,” Mark added.

As HPSCI was ending their review session, Mark notified me there was going to be an impromptu meeting with DOJ officials. The president was considering installing Jeff Clark, assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) and acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division, as the new attorney general. “Didn’t we just hire a new attorney general, like two weeks ago?” I asked….

p.198

January 4

We flew to Georgia with the president for a rally to support Republican senators Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue in their runoff elections against Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. Trump invited Marjorie Taylor Greene, the newly elected congresswoman from Georgia’s Fourteenth District, to come on stage with him.

I didn’t think having a QAnon supporter onstage with the president was such a great idea, and told Mark as much. “We don’t need her,” I said. He pushed back. ‘The boss wants her, so we’re inviting her.”

Every decision seemed intended to avoid conflict with the president.

Not only was Marjorie invited on stage, but she flew back to Washington with us on Air Force One. She took out her phone and started showing everyone, including the president, photos of her constituents wearing shirts with the letter Q on them. “There are my people,” she said. “They’re all coming to the rally. It’s going to be a great day!”

After a while Mark went to his office, and I sat on a couch outside it. The president came out and stood in the doorway of Mark’s office. I overheard them talking. “Do you think we’re going to pull it off?” Trump asked him.

“In case things don’t go as we hope, we’re going to have a plan in place, sir.” Mark said.

“There’s always the chance that we didn’t win,” Trump replied. But I think the 6th is going to go well. Do you think it’s going to go well, Chief?”

Mark said, “Yes, sir, I think it’s going to go well.”

P.199

January 5

….A few days before, the president had proposed to convene an Oval Office meeting with Rudy and company and several of the most outspoken House members. Mark was tight-lipped about it when I mentioned it to him, dismissing the subject: “I’ll talk to the president about that.” I don’t know if he dissuaded the president from meeting them in the White House or if he tried to. I do know that they held the meeting somewhere else, probably on the Hill. I did not learn whether the president phoned into it or not.

The president asked Mark to speak with Roger Stone and Mike Flynn, who would be staying in the Willard InterContinental that night. Also at the request of the president, Mark had already tried to make plans to meet with Rudy and Bernie Kerik at the Willard, where they had set up a “war room” to monitor efforts the next day to delay Congress’s certification of the electoral college results.

For days, I had kept Mark apprised of the Secret Service’s heightened security protocols around January 4 to 6, and I did not welcome adding that I felt the meeting was a waste of his time. More concerning was the likelihood that reporters would spot him there. “That’s not a smart idea, Mark,” I argued….

He [Mark] stayed at the white House late that night, watching the disappointing Georgia runoff returns in the dining room with the president. He dialed into the Willard meeting from the car on his way home.

Peter Navarro stopped by our office to deliver more materials proving election fraud. Peter was a master at using PowerPoints to describe conspiracy theories. I usually took any items from Peter and, after thanking him, gave them directly to Mark, who ignored them. Peter was more demanding this time. “This stuff is important, Cassidy,” he insisted. There was a note of frustration in his voice. “And you should be paying attention. I need to meet with the chief and the president about it.”

“Is this from your QAnon friends, Peter?” I asked. 

“Have you looked into it yet? I think they point out a lot of good ideas. You really need to read this. Make sure the chief sees it.”

“Oh, I will,” I told  Peter, with no expectation to share the document with Mark.

I struggled to fall asleep that night, unable to turn off my brain. In less than twenty-four hours, the antics of the past several months would finally end–the false hopes, the wild schemes, the futile efforts to keep the president in office after the voters had rendered their verdict. We were finally coming to the end. Until then, we were supposed to act as if the president was going to serve a second term….

Chapter 16: January 6

p.203-217

Driving to work with Liz Horning:

We flash our badges at the first security checkpoint, and the police cars and military vans unblock the entrance, allowing us to pass,

“Life is going to suck once we lose these on the twentieth,” Liz says….

“We wouldn’t need them today if the boss had any shred of dignity left.”

“Fact.” Liz rolls her eyes.

….Trump supporters are everywhere. Thousands, I estimate. They’re all walking toward the Washington Monument, like soldiers marching to battle….

“Cassidy, stop!” Liz slaps my shoulder and braces her right hand on the roof of the car. I slam to a halt, inches away from plowing through a group of around thirty men dressed in military fatigues or wrapped in Trump 2020 flags. They don’t appear to notice, or if they did, they are unfazed. But I’m frozen as the group continues to pass. What the hell is going on?

“Liz, this is not antifa,” I caution, slowly easing my foot back on the gas pedal after they pass. For days, our colleagues were preemptively blaming antifa for violence that could break out today. A few days ago Mark told me the president agreed.

“Well, no shit, Cassidy. They’re our people.”

….”Are you going with the boss to the rally?”

“I am.” I can’t bring myself to make eye contact with her.

“Cassidy,” she says sternly. “Do not go to the rally. Bad. Bad idea. No!”

….”Morning, T.” I flop onto Tony’s couch with my second triple espresso latte. I love spending time with Tony in his office…. 

“Hey, kid.” Tony places his phones on his desk and sinks into a chair. “Have you seen the chief yet?”

His expression is more stoic than usual. The only time I saw Tony stressed was when the president tested positive for COVID. He has the greatest poker face I’ve ever seen.

“No, I just got here, and his office door was shut. I was hoping you’d already seen him and could fill me in on how his mood seems.” I’m only half kidding.

He smiles and shakes his head. “This day is fucking nuts already. My phones have been blowing up since four o’clock this morning. This rally is going to be crazy.”

Crazy?  “I’ve seen the email chain with speech edits. I haven’t gone through the rest of my emails yet, though. What’s going on?”

Tony reaches behind his shoulder , fumbling for his phones. “Listen to this shit.”

He reads correspondence, which I assume is from the Secret Service or local law enforcement agencies, about the crowd. More people than expected.  Road closures.  Enhances security measures requested.  People climbing trees.  Issues at the magnetometers. Weapons.

“Wait, weapons?” I’m confused.

Tony lists weapons found on rally-goers.  Knives. Bear spray. Military-style body armor. Flagpoles, some sharpened. At first I’m not sure if he is saying that these were confiscated at the magnetometers or that law enforcement had reported seeing them on people.

“One of these motherfuckers fastened a spear to the end of a flagpole. It’s fucking nuts.”

I know he’s being serious, but I don’t know how to react. Shouldn’t we do something?

“Does the boss know?” I ask. Maybe the president knows. Maybe that’s why he’s still in the residence. He’s giving us time to figure out how to manage the crowd.

“Big guy knows.”  I assume he means the president. Okay, good. Progress. “Want to see if the chief is free?”

We find Mark’s office door propped open, but he doesn’t seem to notice when we loiter in the doorway….

“Morning, Mark,” I say….Tony and I sit in the armchairs across from him. The room is hot. Flames roar from his fireplace. He doesn’t respond or look up at us.

“Chief, just a few updates.” Tony recites the same information we’d just discussed in his office.

I’m fixated on Mark. I know him so well. Tony speaks, and Mark’s bloodshot eyes flick between his personal and work phones as he sends a message on one before turning his attention to the other. His face is splotchy. His suit jacket is covered in white flecks and strands of silver hair. His eyeglasses have slid down to the tip of his nose, the lenses smudged with his fingertips. He’s stressed–really stressed.

The room falls silent. Without turning my head , I make eye contact with Tony. My gut twists. Please say something, Mark. Tell us what to do. Say something.

“Alright. Anything else?” he says dryly, eyes still locked on his phone screen. What the hell?

Tony clears his throat. “No, sir. Unless you have questions, we’ll get out of here.”

Silence.

I lose my patience. “Mark, Tony was filling you in about what’s happening at the Ellipse.”

“Yeah.” His eyes snap up. Holy shit. I’ve never seen his eyes this bloodshot. “Does the president know?”

“Yes, sir. He’s been made aware.” Tony’s tone is firm. Good.

“Alright, good. Thanks, guys.” Mark’s eyes return to his phones….

….The West Wing had erupted in chaos when the president had delayed the rally for an hour. I want to escape it. I’d made a final plea to Tony to come to the Ellipse, which he had refused. I ask for someone from the White House counsel’s office to come and am rebuffed again. But one of the lawyers urges me to make certain Mark knows that there will be grave legal consequences if Trump goes to the Capitol. “Just make sure we don’t go to the Capitol. Don’t let that happen,” I’m warned….

I make a last minute decision to ride in the staff van to the rally, hoping to catch bits of information from chatty colleagues who had just been in the Oval Office with the president….Stephen Miller scratched edits to the speech. Eric Herschmann mumbles something about the vice president….

“Guys, Look! This is so amazing!” Kayleigh McEnany gawks at the crowd. “There’s no way Joe Biden won. Look at all our people!”

At the rally:

I’m two feet behind Mark, trying to get his attention. I can hear the president roaring, “Take the fucking mags [magnetometers] down.” He swings his arm toward the TV monitors. “Look at all those people in the trees.” He points into the park. “They want to come in. Let them. Let my people in. Take the fucking mags away. They’re not here to hurt me.”

I’ve seen him angry before, but this experience is almost surreal….

I hear Mark assure the president offstage, as “God Bless the U.S.A.” starts to play, that he’s still working on scheduling an off-the-record movement to the Capitol. Dumbfounded, I’m still staring at Mark. No you’re not. The president nods and takes the stage.

Mark shuffles over to me.

“Where’s Rudy?”

“Mark, we’re not going to the Capitol.”

No reply. He turns toward the TV and watches the president before turning back to me. “Do you think you and I can go?”

“Mark, no!”

His eyes are on the TV again. “Where’s Rudy?”

I turn away without another word. My senses are hyperfocused, but my emotions are in turmoil. I experience anger, bewilderment, and a creeping sense of dread that something really horrible is going to happen. And my patience with Mark is near exhaustion. 

I find Rudy in the back of the tent with, among others, John Eastman. The corners of his mouth split into a Cheshire cat smile. Waving a stack of documents, he moves toward me….

“We have the evidence. It’s all here. We’re going to pull this off.” Rudy wraps one arm around my body, closing the space that was separating us….Filled with rage, I storm through the tent, on yet another quest for Mark.

He’s at the base of the stage, watching the president, a familiar image. I scan the crowd. They are cheering and screaming for Trump. They sincerely believe that he won the election. This, too, is a familiar scene, with the people at the rally appearing as his rally-goers have always appeared. But this isn’t the same. There’s something else going on, something I’m not clear about but feel a dread of. I look again at Mark. There’s something he’s not telling me….

…A Secret Service agent rushes toward me, breathless…

“Mogul [Trump] just announced he’s going to the Capitol…”

No. My heart drums in my chest. What do I do?. Act. I have to act. I look around the tent. The White House advance staff are gone….

“We’ve talked about this. It’s not happening. Tell everyone to stand down.”  The confidence in my voice is gone….

…Kevin McCarthy calls me….He’s yelling at me. He never yells at me.

“Are you guys coming up to the Capitol? You can’t come up here.” I assure him we’re not. He thinks I’m misleading him. “Figure it out,” he barks, and hangs up the phone. I don’t hear from him for the rest of the day….

Hutchinson addressing Mark Meadows:

“The president said we’re going to the Capitol. My phone is blowing up. Secret Service needs you to make a call. I’ve been trying to get your attention.”

He looks at me absently and asks, “How much time does the president have in his speech?”

I glare at him, exasperated. “Mark, we’re not going to the Capitol.” I feel the beat of “YMCA” vibrating on the ground. The president has started his exit routine….

Staffers and family flood back into the tent to greet Trump when he steps off the stage. He emerges with Bobby Engel trailing close behind. He doesn’t look tired. He looks energized. I can tell he wants to keep going, keep playing to his crowd.

Mark walks the president to the motorcade and Bobby trails close behind. I follow them for as long as I can before I turn toward the staff van. “Talk to Bobby. Bobby has more information,” Mark says to Trump….

The motorcade idles for five minutes and then slowly pulls off the Ellipse. We turn toward the White House. Thank God. 

Tony [Ornato] motions me into his office when I get back to the West Wing and shuts the door. Bobby is slumped in the same chair Tony sat in this morning. I decide to stay standing. I glance at Bobby. He won’t look up. 

Tony, wide-eyed with surprise, asks me, “Have you heard what happened in the fucking Beast [Trump’s car]?”  

“No, I just got back.”

He proceeds to describe an “irate” Trump demanding to be taken to the Capitol, and losing all self-control when Bobby repeatedly rebuffs him with “Mr. President, we’re returning to the West Wing.”

I feel my breath go shallow as Tony describes Trump grabbing for the steering wheel and then for Bobby’s neck. I don’t know what to do.

“Does Mark know?” I ask.

“I don’t think so. His door was shut,” Tony replies. Why is Mark letting this happen?

….Mark’s office door is closed when I bring him lunch. I open it and find him in his usual pose, on his couch, scrolling through his phones….

“Hey, Chief, are you watching the TV?” I make my voice purposefully saccharine to mask my anguish.

“Yeah.” He returns his attention to his cell phones.

I open and close my mouth several times. “The rioters are getting close, Mark. Have you talked to the president?”

“No. He wants to be alone right now.” His voice is flat, indifferent.

My mind reels. I’m trying to figure out a way to get him to pay attention, to care.  Jim. He’ll care about Jim Jordan. “Mark, do you know where Jim is?”

His eyes dart from me to the television and back to his cell phones. ”Jim?”

“Yeah, he was speaking on the House floor a little while ago. Did you watch?” I’m desperate to keep his attention.

“Yeah, it was real good. Did you like it?”

“Yeah, it was. Do you know where he’s at right now?”

“No,” he mutters. “I haven’t talked to him.”

“You might want to check in with him,” I say, extending my arm toward the television. “The rioters are getting close. They might get into the Capitol.”

“Alright, I’ll give him a call.”….

Back at my desk I hear the news break. The first rioters have breached the Capitol. They’re inside. I’m registering the development as Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin barrel past me and barge into Mark (Meadows)’s office.

“The rioters are in the Capitol, Mark. We need to go down and see the president–now.” Cipollone insists.

Mark is a statue on his couch.  “He doesn’t want to do anything, Pat.”

Pat calmly gives Mark direction. “Mark, something needs to be done. People are going to die, and the blood is going to be on your hands. This is getting out of hand. I’m going down there.”

My eyes are locked on Mark. Get up. Go with Pat.

He slowly stands, leaning against the arm of the couch, and walks slowly to my desk. He’s clutching his eyeglasses in his fist–his knuckles are white. He sets his phone on my desk. “Let me know if Jim calls.”

Jim Jordan calls minutes later. I feel a pang of hope. “One sec, I’ll go get him.” I go to the dining room. “Is Mark in there?” I ask the valet. He nods. I look through the peephole and see the back of his suit. I open the door to get his attention. The group is having a heated conversation about the rioters. Mark sees me and I point at the phone screen, where Jim’s caller I.D. is visible. He comes over to take the phone, propping the door open with his body as he talks to Jim.

….The T.V. in the Oval dining room is blaring, and the president is yelling. What’s he saying?…I hear him say “hang” repeatedly. Hang? Hang? What’s that about? Mark hands the phone back to me, the cue for me to return to my desk. Shit.

Back in my office, my phone notifies me of a Trump tweet: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

I’m struggling to process what’s happening as Mark, Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, and Eric Hershmann stumble back into the office. I overhear their conversation, and suddenly everything makes sense.

They’re calling for the vice president to be hanged.

The president is okay with it.

He doesn’t want to do anything.

He doesn’t think they are doing anything wrong.

He thinks Mike is a traitor.

This is crazy. We need to be doing something more.

My phone is pinging nonstop with emails, texts, Signal messages, and unanswered calls. Mark’s phones are too. I’m devoid of emotion as I consider what I should do. And then, letting what I just heard sink in, I’m gripped with anger and hurt. I snatch my coat and run out of my office to go to the Eisenhower Building. I need to check in with Mark’s Secret Service detail. We need to have a plan in case the worst happens. In case this is the beginning of a coup.

….Back at my desk, I feel bile burning the back of my throat. Mark emerges from his office with the lawyers. 

“Cass,” he says, shoving a blank chief of staff note card and one of his pens in my hand, “write this down for me. We’re drafting a tweet for the boss.”

Hands shaking, I scratch the pen across the note card as Mark begins: “Anyone who entered the Capitol illegally–”

“Add ‘and without proper authority,’” Erik Hershmann says. “–should leave immediately,” Mark continues.

Mark plucks the note card from my hands almost before I finish writing, and the group rushes to the Oval dining room. He and the lawyers are still in the dining room when I receive another Twitter notification. The president has tweeted: “No violence! Remember, WE are the party of Law and Order–respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”

Mark returns, this time on his own, and tosses the note card on my desk. I notice that “illegally” is crossed out.

“No action necessary,” he informs me. His tone hints at defeat. He retreats to his office and shuts the door. Every fifteen minutes or so he heads to the Oval dining room and then comes back. People are in and out of his office. I check in with Mark’s detail leader, to make sure he’s always where Mark is. 

Mark’s phones are on my desk. Members are frantically trying to reach him to get him to put a stop to this madness. Mark returns to his office when the president moves to the Rose Garden to record a video statement, and I beg him to return some of the calls.

The general consensus throughout the West Wing, the White House complex, the entire executive branch, is that the president needs to tell people to stop and go home. The president tweets a two-minute video statement telling the protesters that they are special, and that he loves them, but that it’s time to go home.

At her desk behind me, Eliza is watching TV. “There’s no way these are our people. This is definitely antifa.”

I slowly turn around in my chair. “Are you kidding me?”

“No,” she responds flatly. “Our people are peaceful.”

Chapter 17: The End 

pp. 223-224

January 7, 2021

….[Treasury] Secretary [Steven] Mnuchin was leaning on my desk, thumbing through a newspaper. Mark’s office door was shut.

“Hey, sir, good morning. Are you waiting to see Mark?”

“Yeah,” he said curtly. “The Twenty-Fifth.” He was referring to calls to use the Twenty-fifth Amendment against Trump to remove him from power. He didn’t look up from the newspaper. 

….I looked through the peephole in Mark’s door and saw him on the couch, clutching both of his cell phones. Without checking his schedule or announcing the secretary’s presence, I opened the door for Mnuchin….

Mnuchin emerged from Mark’s office, offering a “thanks” over his shoulder as he left without making eye contact.

Eventually I gathered the strength to think about entering Mark’s office. Until January 20, I had a job to do. I had made a promise to stay to the end. I pushed his door open with my shoulder and walked in, arms crossed.

“Morning Chief,” I snapped. “Is Mnuchin quitting?” 

“Nah, I don’t think so.” He was still looking at his phones. “What are you hearing?”

“The Twenty-fifth Amendment. Impeachment. Stuff like that.”

“Yeah,” he said, turning his attention to Fox News. “I think yesterday was antifa.”

I tried to ignore the remark. “I’m hearing from some members.  Are you?”

“Yeah, some members.”  His eyes shifted and met mine. “Do you think yesterday was antifa?”

“No.” My eyes narrowed. “I don’t think yesterday was antifa.”  The clock mounted above his door ticked in response.

p.226

Less than a week after January 6, the House of Representatives moved swiftly to introduce, without holding a public hearing, a single article of impeachment. Unlike the first impeachment inquiry, I was resigned to this one. I didn’t have the will to fight an action I believed was justified. Kevin called me periodically to relay updates for the president and the chief, neither of whom wanted to speak with him. After the article was passed by the House, Mark asked me to make a chart with headshots of the ten Republican members who had voted in favor of impeachment. Mark gave the hit list to the president, who kept it on the Resolute Desk.

Chapter 18: Life After the White House

p.239-240

A Republican member of Congress, Sam, whom I befriended during my tenure at the White House, a member who did not serve on the January 6th Committee, checked on me the week following President Biden’s inauguration. He could tell something wasn’t right with me…

At one point, Sam started pressing me about January 6. Why didn’t POTUS do anything? What was Mark [Meadows] doing?  I recited the rationale I had heard Mark and other colleagues make, except for their ludicrous attempts to blame the riot on antifa. In that moment, I detested myself, and I could not bring myself to look Sam in the eye. 

….He asked if I wanted to talk about anything that had happened. I shook my head, but the question had released something in me. “It was bad. Really bad. None of it makes sense to me. I can’t make sense of it.” I kept repeating that last line.

p.242-245

The country was tearing itself in two as Trump continued pushing the election fraud nonsense. Constant contradictory thoughts pulled me one way and another, anxiety and grief coming in waves. Sometimes I felt the need to unburden myself of what I knew about January 6th–to someone in authority. But who? Even if there was someone I trusted to share the information I knew, I wasn’t sure whether I had the strength to share it. I worried that I would be compromising my integrity. If I broke my word now, who would ever trust me again? I thought of Tony Ornato, a man I believed had supreme integrity. He volunteered to put his life on the line for presidents of both parties. We trusted each other.

….I decided to text Tony. He was the only person who knew how I felt about January 6th who wouldn’t chastise or belittle me.

We spoke on the phone while I was driving, and it was great to hear his voice. I started talking to him about January 6th. I asked if he thought we could have done more in the days leading up to the 6th, and on the 6th. He chuckled and asked if I had been overthinking again. I paused to consider his question, but I knew I wasn’t.

“Cass, we did everything we could,” he assured me. “You have nothing to worry about. You have no reason to bear any of the blame for this. It’s mob mentality. This would have happened whether we had the rally, whether we didn’t have the rally.”

But we helped plan the rally that brought all those people to DC. We organized it. We had to bear some of the blame. “I don’t know,” I said cautiously.

….Alright, kid. Chin up. It could be worse.”

I laughed. “How’s that?”

“Well, the president could have tried to strangle you on January 6th.”

I laughed again. “That’s true. “At least the president didn’t try to do that.”

He said, “Touch base with me in a few days. We’ll chat again.”

Kevin [McCarthy] and I continued to check in with each other frequently. I had been disappointed when, after calling the former president “responsible” for January 6th, Kevin went to Mar-a-Lago in late January to pay his respects. If Republicans won the majority in 2022, Kevin needed Trump on his side to become Speaker of the House. The second impeachment failed to reach a two-thirds majority to convict in the Senate. No one was doing the right thing, including me. No one was being held accountable except hundreds of protesters who had done what Trump had told them to do.

At times it seemed as if only one person, one Republican, anyway, was determined to hold the parties responsible for January 6th accountable. As the tensions with Liz Cheney grew among House Republicans, Kevin would sometimes ask how I felt about her possible removal from leadership. He complained about how vocal she was, and said that he wished she would just stop talking, because she was putting him in a tough position.

I made it pretty clear that I thought ousting her was a poor political calculation. I said that she was a serious politician, not some fringe character. It would be a dangerous precedent for the party, especially in the first months after the Trump Administration. I didn’t argue vociferously or push him when he resisted. Part of me understood his logic–her job as chair of the Republican Conference was to amplify messages that a majority of House Republicans agreed with, not voice her views on Trump, which were, sadly, antithetical to the views of many House Republicans. I was disheartened at how political expediency took precedence over accountability and principles.

On May 12, House Republicans stripped Liz of her chairmanship of the Republican Conference, replacing her with Elise Stefanik two days later. I told Kevin I was disappointed and felt bad for Liz. I started to sense a significant shift in Kevin, in the kind of politician and leader he was.

Later that week he told me to reach out to Elise about a job working at Conference. I was still annoyed with him over what had happened with Liz. But I admit that I was intrigued by what a job at Conference would be like, and I liked Elise. In my mind, she wasn’t “full-blown MAGA” yet, and I thought she had a bright future in GOP politics. Member services jobs in Conference are highly coveted….

I sent Elise and her chief of staff my resume. She was enthusiastic and said to follow up the next week. I never did, instead letting the opportunity pass. I don’t know if it was because of my feelings about Liz’s ouster or my frustration about January 6th, but something about the prospect of it repelled me. 

That was the last time I spoke with either Kevin or Elise….

I felt the first stirrings of hope at the end of June 2021. Congress approved the formation of the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6th Attack. I was disappointed when Kevin withdrew his Republican nominees to serve on the committee. But Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger stepped up to put country before party (see Appendix for contrasting accounts of why Kevin McCarthy withdrew the Republican nominees for the January 6th Committee.) 

Chapter 19: Served

pp.251-252

The same night the committee announced my subpoena, I reached out to Liz Horning, Pat Philbin, and Mike Purpura. Like Liz and Pat, Mike had worked in the White House counsel’s office. I regretted burdening them with my problem, but they were the only attorneys I knew. I expected to be brushed off, but I was touched when they all took time to explain how the process was likely to play out and gave me contact information for enough lawyers to fill a slim Rolodex.

At the end of each call, I asked for contact information for two or three other attorneys who might be willing to represent me. My network expanded quickly, and my days started to be made up of back-to-back calls. But I kept running into a roadblock–no one would work pro bono or for reduced fees or even accept a long-term payment plan….

Chapter 20: Pulled Back In

pp.269-270

I continued networking with attorneys once I returned to Washington, but I knew that was a fruitless effort. I had already resigned myself to reaching out to my contacts in Trump World and filling out applications for legal assistance. There was now a paper trail of my personal financial circumstances and begging for help…

…[W]hen Eric Herschmann said that someone would be in touch with me soon, I knew I had been assigned an attorney–I would not get to choose. A few days later a man I did not know named Alex Cannon called, introducing himself as a former Trump Organization and campaign attorney. He was tasked with finalizing details and assured me that I’d hear from someone shortly….

The following Monday, February 7, I received a call from an unknown number. I answered. “Hi, this is Stefan Passantino,” the caller said. “I’m your new attorney.”

And just like that, I was back in the Family.

Chapter 21: Depositions

pp.272-280

At her first meeting with her attorney:

I started to walk Stefan through the relevant dates, beginning with Mark’s and my return to the White House after we had recovered from COVID. At one point I asked Stefan if we could print out a calendar.

“What do you need a calendar for?” he asked.

“To make sure I’m getting the dates right with these things,” I replied.

“No, no no,” he said. “We want to get you in and get you out.” 

We were to downplay my role, he explained, as strictly administrative. I was an assistant, nothing more….I should not emphasize my access or volunteer anything I was not directly asked, nor should I try to refresh my memory. “The less you remember, the better,” he advised, and added, “Is there anything you’re worried they’ll ask you?”

“Yes,” I answered, “that’s why I asked for a calendar.” But I relented, and resumed trying to reconstruct events from memory, describing incidents I thought the committee might ask me about, including the president wanting the magnetometers down on January 6, even though people were armed, and Toby telling me about the incident in the Beast.

“No, no, no. We do not want to talk about that,” Stefan insisted.

“But what if they ask me about it?” I asked.

“They won’t. They have no way of knowing that. Have you ever told anyone about that?”

I assured him I had not. He doubted Tony had, either. “That’s one of those stories that’s just going to give the committee a headline,” he explained. “It’s not important to anything that actually happened that day.” He went on to argue that since I had heard the story secondhand, it was not my responsibility to share it with the committee….

Stefan never told me to lie to the committee. “I don’t want you to perjure yourself,” he insisted. “But ‘I don’t recall’ isn’t perjury.”

“The goal is to get you in and out,” he repeated. “Keep your answers short, sweet, and simple, seven words or less. The less the committee thinks you know, the quicker it’s going to go.

….He assured me that the committee wouldn’t know what I could and couldn’t recall. If I did not have a complete memory of something, it wasn’t perjury to plead that I had no recollection. If I remembered something very clearly, I should give as short an answer as possible….

Maybe Stefan was right. I thought….Maybe Trump lunging at Bobby was just a headline, not a crime. Did I need to talk about something I’d only heard about that wasn’t even criminal? Maybe I’m overthinking the whole thing. Maybe they really are looking out for me.

Before we parted, I’d asked Stefan if there was anything I could do to prepare for my deposition, which was scheduled for the following week. He told me to “get a good night’s sleep,” and then repeated something he’d said earlier–not to read anything that might jog my memory.

That weekend, I became more and more nervous, still uncertain how to be responsive to the committee without setting off alarms in Trump World. Meanwhile, a quiet voice in my head warned me that I wasn’t overthinking. I drove to Staples in Alexandria and printed more than a dozen transcripts of witness depositions from the Russia investigation. I took them home and read all of them, highlighting passages that could serve as models of diplomatic responses, trying to pick up the rhythm of the exchanges.

Stefan and I met at a cafe for breakfast the morning of Wednesday, February 23.

“You’re nervous,” he noted.

“Yeah.”

….”Cassidy, you’re a good person,” he said. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to bear the weight of responsibility for other people. It’s not fair to you…It’s not fair that Mark  [Meadows] put you in this position [by refusing to cooperate with the committee]. 

We just want to protect the president. We all know you’re loyal. 

Let’s just get you in and out of this. It’s going to be easy, I promise.

….Several months later, I would tell Liz Cheney that I had felt that day as if Donald Trump were looking over my shoulder. Stefan had planted the seeds of old allegiances with his reference to my loyalty: We know you’re loyal. We know you’re on Team Trump. We know you’re going to do the right thing. We’re going to take care of you. Phrases I’d heard throughout my tenure in the White House, phrases I had spent a year trying to separate myself from. And now here I was back in their grip, taking care to protect the president, with a lawyer from Trump World. 

Was I nervous? Yes, I was nervous. Extremely. And my nervousness wasn’t helped by the sense that I was drifting on currents beyond my control back to a port that I could never leave again.

We went back to the law office and settled in a conference room for the meeting with the committee….

I was asked to describe my role in the White House, and to provide context about my background. Then we moved into more substantive questions about events leading up to January 6.

My objective was to be honest and helpful, but I felt like my objective clashed with that of my counsel, which I understood was to say as little as possible. I tried to balance saying “I don’t know” responses while giving the committee threads to tug on that might help them in their investigation. I wanted the truth to come out.

Not long into the interview the questions turned to discussions I was privy to about the president’s desire to go to the Capitol that day. Members wanted to know who had told the president he couldn’t go. After trying to talk around it, I said that it had been Bobby Engel who had told the president no in the presidential limo, as directed by Mark.

Liz Cheney zeroed in on how I knew what had been said in the Beast: “So who relayed to you the conversation that happened in the Beast?”  I froze. I thought that for certain she had heard that something eventful had happened, and she suspected I knew what it was. I dodged it. I told her I had heard Bobby tell Trump that they would discuss it during the car ride back, which was true, but incomplete. And I had confirmed with Tony later that Bobby and the president had talked, which was sort of true, and really incomplete.

Liz wasn’t deterred easily. She rephrased the question several times before turning to my conversations with Mark about whether he and I could go to the Capitol. Then she bore into my knowledge of White House counsel’s objections to the president’s going to the Hill. I acknowledged that they had concerns, and had raised them with Mark, but then she pressed me to describe those concerns, I responded in the most general terms. They were worried about the “legal implications,” I said. Eventually Sterfan suggested it was time for a break.

With the microphone muted and the camera off, I said to Stefan, “I’m fucked.”

“Don’t freak out, you’re fine.”

“No, Stefan…I just lied to them.”

“You didn’t lie. They don’t know what you can and can’t recall. You didn’t lie.”

….There were only three people in the car: Trump, Bobby, and the driver. There was no way Tony or Bobby had talked. The driver, to my knowledge, had not been interviewed, but it was possible he had told someone else about the incident, and that person had shared it with the committee. I had never told a soul. But any number of White House staffers could have seen me go into Tony’s office right after the rally and come out looking shocked.

My testimony lasted from ten in the morning to nearly six that evening. Many of my answers were longer than seven words, but otherwise, I mostly followed Stefan’s instructions. For the record, I said “I don’t know” eighty-five times, “I don’t recall” seventy times, “I’m not sure” thirty-nine times, “I don’t remember” twenty-one times, “I can’t recall” twelve times, “not that I recall” eight times, “I’m trying to recall” twice, and “I don’t specifically recall” twice; and I used a dozen other phrases denying knowledge that I possessed….

I didn’t feel good about it. Deep down, I knew my loyalties should have been to the country, to the truth, and not to the former president, who had made himself a threat to both. 

I tried to repress that realization with rationalizations and with assurances others offered me and I would tell myself, This isn’t my problem. Others will expose it. I’m getting through this the best I can. But it was always there, not far below the surface of my reasoning: This is wrong.

At the end, the committee requested that I testify a second day. My heart dropped….

….[Stefan] couldn’t decide whether to brief two of his law partners (Alex Cannon and Justin Clark), Mark’s lawyers (John Moran and George Terwilliger), and Eric Herschmann. He decided that he would call everyone in a few days and tell them that my interview was scheduled for March 7, believing they would assume it was my only interview. “If they know you went in twice, I don’t think it will make Mark happy.”

“And let’s get started on looking for a job for you,” he said. “The committee is dragging this out. It’s not fair. We want to make sure that we get you financially set up and taken care of as quickly as possible. Let’s chat in a few days.”

[Meadows aide] Ben Williamson called on March 6, and I was immediately suspicious of the timing. At first Ben and I just shot the breeze. Soon enough, he got around to the point.”Hey, by the way, Mark told me you have your deposition tomorrow.”

“Yeah, it’s tomorrow,” I answered, intentionally vague about it being my second interview. He reminded me how his deposition had been straightforward and that he could not recall answers to many of the committee’s questions. 

Ben was my friend, but for months, I had felt like I was under a microscope with him. I worried that if I appeared disloyal, Ben would tell Mark.  So when Ben relayed that Mark was sending prayers and was confident in my loyalty to himself and the president–and that we were a family–I worried that my fear of having a target on my back was coming to fruition.

I did not think Ben was sending veiled threats, nor did I believe that what he said amounted to witness tampering. I felt like I was being watched–closely.

The questions in my second Zoom deposition covered more ground. The committee members asked about the planning for the January 6th rally….Liz Cheney asked about the John Eastman scheme, and which House members were involved in the ploy to use fake electors in the states that Trump lost….

….This time around I didn’t overuse “I don’t know” and “I don’t recall.” I was trying to walk the balance beam–protecting myself from Trump World retaliation while dropping bread crumbs the committee could follow up on in depositions with other people. I wasn’t being helpful, but I didn’t want to mislead either….

Stefan congratulated me when I finished. “You did what you had to do,” Stefan said. “It’s done. You’re good.”

“It’s funny. I feel like it’s not over, “ I countered.

“Dan George said they don’t need to talk to you again.” He repeated, “You did what you had to do.”….

Chapter 22: The Woman in the Mirror

pp.281-300

I struggled for several weeks, but my feelings of guilt over not telling the committee the whole truth eventually began to subside. Stefan was right. It wasn’t my responsibility to volunteer information. No sooner had I begun to move on than my name was broadcast on the news networks the evening of Friday, April 22. I received a news alert that the committee had filed a motion for summary judgment against Mark Meadows for refusing to comply with a subpoena. The filing included excerpts from my February and March transcripts. 

I opened the link to the news article and started reading the filing. When the first page of my transcript appeared, my heart stopped. I don’t want to relive this. What exactly did I say? What exactly was I helping cover up?  I…went for a walk. I went in circles around the Navy Yard and finally sat on a bench on New Jersey Avenue that had a view of the Capitol.

I know I’m going to have to read this, and once I do, I know I’m going to be disappointed in myself. I did what I had to do, though.

I gazed at the Capitol for a long time, hoping that the view would reassure me. When that didn’t work, I retreated to my apartment. I guess it’s time to read it.

I read through the pages from the beginning, once, twice, and again. I opened my blinds for the first time in months and looked at my partial view of the Capitol, not much more than a bit of the top of the Statue of Freedom on the dome. 

I felt overcome by the thought that I had become someone I didn’t expect or want to be. There’s more to the story than what’s contained in these pages. I withheld information from the committee. I protected principals, not my principles. Is it too late to fix it?

I called Sam, who, as usual, offered sound advice. I asked if he had read my transcript. He hadn’t. I told him that I thought I had put myself in a position I didn’t want to be in.

“You have a decision to make,” he told me. “Go look in the mirror right now. I mean it, I’ll hold, go look in the mirror right now. Do you like what you’re looking at?…Do you respect the person you’re looking at. Because you’re going to have to look at that person for the rest of your life. The only person you have to live with, Cassidy, is yourself….”

I exhaled. “I’m scared.”

“You have every right to be scared. I’d be scared too. But are you more scared to live with that person, that person you’re looking at, or are you more scared to ask for a second chance?”

….The details reported from my transcripts didn’t tell the whole story, and I knew it. But they were covered as if they were breaking news anyway.

I pressed Stefan to acknowledge that my concerns about the depositions were valid, as was my guilt about my testimony. Stefan reassured me by text that no one in Trump World was mad at me, including the president.

My emotional dam was crumbling, but in my heart, I knew what I had to do.

Hutchinson pays a visit to Alyssa Farah, a former colleague in the White House who had earlier broken with Trump and the “Trump World”: 

She asked if I wanted a new lawyer. I told her I needed to do this in a way that wouldn’t alert Trump World to what I was up to. I couldn’t fire Stefan without tripping alarms at Mar-a-Lago.

….We talked over my options, and she agreed to contact Liz Cheney on my behalf about scheduling another interview. I cautioned her that there would likely be aggressive resistance from Stefan. I would probably need a subpoena or he would reject the request. I had every intention of complying fully. I told her, but without another subpoena, Stefan would encourage me not to cooperate.

Alyssa nodded and said, “Liz will probably ask for a few things you wanted to talk about before she agrees to do another interview.” I knew she was right, but I couldn’t proffer information already covered in my earlier depositions. That would tip Stefan off. 

“The committee never asked if I went to the Oval dining room on January 6, or whether I heard about Trump’s reaction to the rioters chanting ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ According to Mark, Trump said, ‘He deserves it.’”

Alyssa closed her eyes to my revelation about the vice president, her former boss. I wanted to comfort her but hesitated. For too long, and often alone, Alyssa had warned the public about the dangers of Donald Trump, a duty I now recognized as a badge of courage and endurance–of survival. While she refused to surrender, I had been complicit.

“Cassidy, if we do this, you must promise me you’ll be forthcoming. If Liz agrees, this will be your only shot at a second chance.”

….I knew what I was about to do would require a level of double-dealing I wasn’t sure I was capable of, and I feared getting caught by Trump World–by my own attorney, even. I wasn’t sure I had the fortitude to see it through.

Filled with anxious energy, I sped to New Jersey to Mom and Paul’s house. I needed a guide, a moral compass, to remind me what was at stake. I picked up my phone, ignoring safe driving conventions, and tapped “Watergate” into the Google search bar, looking for someone who had a role similar to mine in the Nixon White House.

That’s when I discovered Alex Butterfield, deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff H.R. Haldeman. I didn’t know it then, but the person whose name I had just seen for the first time would alter the course of my life.

This guy must have written a book. I searched. He hadn’t. Nor could I easily find a transcript of his Watergate committee interview, or any interview. I instantly had a good impression of him. I did find a book that had been written about him, by famed Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward: The Last of the President’s Men….I immediately ordered two copies. When the books arrived to New Jersey the next day, I tore open the packager as I ran upstairs to my bedroom

I read the book three times that night….I kept thinking, Oh my God, Alex Butterfield is me. The position he held essentially as chief of staff to the chief of staff, the way he viewed his role and operated behind the scenes, and how he valued his relationship with the president were all nearly aligned with my experience….He had information that he didn’t want to voluntarily disclose because of his loyalty to Nixon, and he valued his anonymity. But his fidelity was to the Constitution, to the country he swore an oath to protect, and to the public who demanded his trust….

[T]he final pages offered a revelation that would change the course of my journey. When asked if he were given the chance to turn back time, Alex declared he would not: “No regrets. If I had to do it over again, I figure I’d do the very same thing.”

In that moment, I recognized how fear had restrained me from making the decision I knew in my heart was right. For the first time, I felt empowered to make a difficult choice to correct course and found the strength to see it through. I had rediscovered my moral compass.

….Alex Butterfield would be my guide out of the morass of suspicions and misplaced loyalties that had kept me in a near-permanent state of anxiety.

…Stefan called the next day to relay the committee’s unprecedented request for a third interview, in person.

“What the hell, Stefan, why?” I moaned, I hoped convincingly. “You said we were done. What could they possibly want to talk to me about?”

He had no idea, he said….Stefan’s preference was to have me appear extremely resistant to the idea of a third interview. He thought that the committee might back off if we made enough of a fuss. “But,” he added, “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,” Stefan said, “if you don’t have a second subpoena.”

I was scared that Stefan would see through me. The news had gotten out that the committee wanted another round with me, and it was making Trump World nervous. 

Stefan seemed to become a little distant right about then….He did encourage me to call Alex Cannon and another Trump lawyer, Justin Clark, about a job opportunity, assuring me that everyone was aware that the committee was treating me unfairly, and that everyone was working hard to find a good job for me. I heard from other Trump associates as well, with other job ideas.

Alex set up an interview for me with Red Curve Solutions, a political fundraising and financial services company run by Bradley Crate, the treasurer for Trump’s super PACS. “Brad has a really good job for you,” Alex promised. “It’s going to pay a great salary. We know you’re on our team. We know you’re going to do the right thing,”

Alex added, “Not to get too personal, Cassidy, but do you need anything else? Are you okay financially? I’m so sorry you’re in this position. Whatever you need, just tell us. We’ll make sure you have it.”

I interviewed with Red Curve Solutions on May 10. Their pitch was by now a familiar one: they’d heard great things about me and wanted to hire me, and were working on finding the right position. They’d be back in touch in a few weeks, which I took to mean after my next deposition, if I still had value to them. They wouldn’t have long to wait. I received my second subpoena that same day.

May 17, the day I hoped to gain a second chance, ideally with my intentions undetected, had arrived. I thought I was ready, but I panicked when I entered the small, claustrophobic room in the Cannon [House Office] building where Liz Cheney and Dan George, senior investigative counsel for the committee, were waiting for my arrival. Large cameras pointed to where I would sit, on a small sofa with Stefan seated next to me. I dropped my purse and left the room.

I may have left had I not been able to collect myself in the restroom. Was I making the right decision? When I returned to the room I perched uncomfortably on the edge of the sofa cushion. Stefan looked at me with concern. While he had tried to limit the questions in the new subpoena, the committee insisted that the conditions were the same as with the first, which meant that they could ask me anything.

“Okay to get started?” Dan asked. He ran through the preliminaries. Then Liz took over. “The committee has been involved in collecting information in a number of ways, she said. “And additional information has come to light since we talked to you…I am going to ask you some questions about both what you may have heard and also what others may have told you that they heard.”

….I expected her to ask a few easy warm-up questions to put me at ease before she dropped any bombshells. Instead, she zeroed in, calmly asking: “Did you see or hear President Trump say anything on January 6th after he returned from the Ellipse?…Because we have information that the president said, ‘Mike Pence deserves to be hung.’”

She sat back and watched, unblinking, as I mustered my response. If she had wanted me to seem shocked for Stefan’s benefit, it worked. I was. Stefan knew that story, and he had probably breathed a sigh of relief that it hadn’t come up in my first two depositions. But it was plausible that someone else had told the committee that story, and now they needed me to corroborate it.

I replied carefully that I’d heard it “secondhand from Mr. Meadows…I don’t know if that was the exact quote, but it was something along those lines.”  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Stefan looking at me as I talked. How couldn’t he know?  He opened his briefcase and took out a legal pad. He hadn’t taken many notes in my previous depositions; now he began to scribble furiously. He wouldn’t stop for five hours.

Liz….raised all kinds of new and well-informed inquiries, which I haltingly answered. In response to direct questions, I divulged information about Mark speaking to General Flynn, on January 5, 2021, about his meeting in the Willard Continental, about burning documents in his office fireplace and taking home red folders with classified documents. I described the meeting in  the Cabinet Room, on December 21, where the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were discussed, and the “find me the votes” phone call with Georgia election officials, on January 2, I told the committee that Trump had known that rally goers had brought sharpened flag poles and other weapons with them, and that he had still wanted to get them into the rally on the Ellipse.  I confirmed that the Outer Oval had stopped keeping a log of the president’s meetings and phone calls….I gave Liz the names of members of Congress and other officials who had wanted blanket or preemptive pardons, including Mark.

We took a few breaks, and Stefan and I walked down the hall to confer privately. Each time he asked, “How do they know this stuff? Who’s talking?”

“I don’t know who’s talking,” I said with faux outrage. “But this is insane.”

When the five hour deposition wrapped up, Dan brought up the possibility of another interview to dig deeper into the classified documents issue. Stefan wasn’t happy about it, and neither was I….

….Dan, Stefan, and I walked out of the Cannon Office Building. I had a split second with Dan to say goodbye. We shook hands, and I said quietly, “I’m about to get nuked.”

He nodded slightly. “I’m so sorry.” …

When we reached the street Stefan seemed perplexed. “I don’t even know what to do first,” he announced…Let’s get something to eat,” he suggested. “We should eat.” No. I just want to go home. I was drained and every moment I spent with Stefan came with a risk that I would reveal myself.  But I didn’t think I could refuse his offer without doing just that, so I agreed.

He hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address of Hank’s Oyster Bar at the Wharf. As soon as we took off, Stefan’s phone started ringing. I assumed it was Eric Herschmann or Alex Cannon, but was surprised when I learned it was a reporter calling.

“Stefan, did you tell the reporter that we were meeting with the committee today?” I asked.

“No, no, but I should probably answer to see if they know, right? I should answer,” he responded.

“Stefan, no. I don’t think you should answer that call. They probably want to know if we met with the committee today.”

“Cass, I’m just going to answer it. It will be just two seconds.” He answered the call.

….Yeah, yeah, we did just leave her third interview. You can put it out, but 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.”…

…”Stefan, I don’t want this out there.”

“Don’t worry, the reporter is friendly to us. We’ll be fine.” he said, but that did not really matter to me. What did matter to me was maintaining my composure–and cover–which would become more difficult when the public, and Trump World, learned that I had sat for a third interview.

…Stefan didn’t order anything. “I really need to call John Moran and George Terwilliger about this,” he said, referring to Mark’s legal team.

“Stefan, I respectfully disagree….I don’t think they should know anything of what we just discussed with the committee”….

Stefan argued the contrary. If we don’t tell them and the story leaks, ‘it’s going to look like you’re working against Mark,” he contended, “and then there’s a target on your back.”  There will be a target on my back either way, I thought….

Stefan’s phone lit up: John Moran.

“Stefan–” I started to plead.

“Just trust me,” Stefan interjected. “I’m going to take this.” I sat at our table alone as Stefan walked out of Hank’s to speak with Mark’s legal team.

“All good” he announced when he returned….”Don’t worry, they know everything. They’re not mad at you. They know it’s the committee’s fault you were asked those questions.” ….

Liz and Dan had made clear that they would likely request a fourth interview with me in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) because of classified documents that we would discuss. Stefan wasn’t in a hurry to give the committee another crack at me. “I made you out to be unwilling,” he said…

One week after my third deposition, I received an email from Red Curve, notifying me that they did not have a job for me….

Stefan continued to be elusive about a fourth interview and the possibility that the committee would want me to testify in a live hearing. I continued to press him for insights into his conversations with the committee. Despite multiple news reports that my name was on the committee’s short list of live-hearing witnesses, he denied having any conversation on that subject. Stefan told me that in his last conversation with Dan, he had emphasized that I would be an unhelpful live witness and would make it clear that I was testifying against my will. While I did not want to testify live, I was not planning to be unhelpful, nor would I accuse the committee of forcing me to testify against my will.

I was determined to uphold the oath I swore to tell the truth about what happened on January 6 and fulfill my civic obligation if I were called upon to do so. But with each passing minute, it was becoming increasingly difficult to dance around the Trump World land mines. I prayed the committee would entrust that duty to someone else. 

On Monday, June 6, I woke up to the text message that I had prepared myself for but dreaded receiving. Over the weekend, the Department of Justice had declined to indict Mark and Dan Scavino for being held in contempt of Congress. In light of this decision, Stefan suggested that it was in my best interest to stop cooperating with the committee. “There is a small element of risk  to refusing to cooperate, but I think it’s the best move for you. Do you agree?” Stefan texted.

I did not agree. I tried to set aside what I thought was my lawyer suggesting that a federal offense –which carried the possibility of serving time in prison–was a “small element of risk.” But beyond that, my reputation and livelihood would suffer severe damage if I was criminally referred for contempt of Congress. That might be the best move for someone else, but it was difficult to see how that was the best move for me.

….”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.”…

….For weeks, I had thought about how I would react if this exact predicament were to arise….I could accept Stefan’s counsel and run the “small risk” of a contempt charge. Or continue trying to convince him I could comply with the committee’s requests and still balance Trump World interests, or admit to him that a crisis of conscience had compelled me to back-channel the committee to arrange my third interview. With each came risk.

But I knew in my heart that choice was a luxury I did not have. There was only one option–to fulfill my moral and civic obligations. To honor the oath I swore to defend, I had to free myself from Trump World. All I had to do was figure out a way to free myself without doing anything that would draw their attention and arouse suspicion.

Time, too, was a luxury I did not have. I estimated I had twenty-four hours–forty-eight, if I was lucky–before the pressure campaign intensified for me to agree with risking contempt. 

Hutchinson calls Liz Cheney:

I offered a brief synopsis of the predicament I found myself in with my current counsel….[I]f the committee was interested in continuing discussions, I was not comfortable moving forward with Stefan and would likely represent myself. Her voice grew more serious, which I didn’t think was possible, and she suggested that I explore other options before serving as my own counsel. 

I briefly explained how very unsuccessful my attorney search had been from November to January and told her that I had only turned to Trump World for an attorney because of personal financial constraints. Since then my finances had continued to suffer, and I had nothing to offer a new attorney. I asked if she or any of the members or committee staff might know an attorney who would be willing to put me on a payment plan….

The next day, she called and provided me with contact information for multiple attorneys at various firms…

Hutchinson retains attorneys Bill Jordan and Jody Hunt, who offer to represent her for free:

….Bill and Jody had met when they worked together at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. When Bill’s tenure at Justice had ended, he had returned to private practice…. He remained active in Republican politics…. 

Jody had served in senior career positions at Justice for more than twenty years before he was asked to be chief of staff for Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He’d been selected for the job because of his outstanding credentials as a non-partisan attorney who knew the intricacies of the department….He became a key witness during the Mueller investigation.

Both Bill and Jody were lifelong Republicans and unaffiliated with Trump World, and in my mind they checked every box….

Hutchinson’s last conversation with Stefan:

p.300

I was soaking up the last few minutes of the day’s sun in my parents’ backyard [in New Jersey] before I drove back to Washington when my phone vibrated with a call from Stefan….I lay in the grass and stared into the cloudless sky as he droned on about how not cooperating with the committee was the best for everyone.

“Everyone” did not include the tens of millions of Americans who had been lied to about the results of a free, fair, and democratic election; it did not include the families of law enforcement officers who had lost their lives defending the Capitol from the mob Trump had called to Washington. “Everyone” did not include the lawmakers, staff, and journalists who feared for their lives as rioters bludgeoned their way into the building. It did not include the investigators who were being stonewalled by former colleagues of mine who dismissed the investigation as a politically motivated witch hunt.

“Everyone” who would benefit from my ceasing to cooperate with the January 6th Committee was limited to people in Trump World whose personal interests could be affected by my testimony. In less than twenty-four hours, they would all find out that I was no longer protecting “everyone.” I had found my way out.

I asked Stefan if I could have a little more time to think my decision over. He agreed but repeated, “This needs to end at some point, and I think it just needs to end now.”

Chapter 23: Second Chance

pp.301-302

….I had learned over the last several years that I thrived when I had someone or something bigger than myself to fight for. I had always wanted to be a bulldog for the truth, or what I believed to be the truth. I realized now that what I wanted most was to hold accountable people who had selfishly risked the country’s welfare. They needed to answer for what they had done and what they had failed to do. But to fight for that truth meant that I would be up against the president and chief of staff I had dutifully served, the friends and colleagues I had once fought alongside, and my own fears and uncertainties.

….I hoped Stefan wasn’t upset and wouldn’t take my decision personally. I wrestled with feelings of mercy and compassion for him. I truly believed that he wished he could have done more for me. Stefan was in a hole that he had dug for himself. But Trump had handed him the shovel. They owned Stefan–he had no way out. That could have been me.

It almost was. I did not find the path to my newfound freedom. I bushwacked my way, and was now free to empower my patriotism again and, as Alex Butterfield had, to reveal the truth rather than be a bystander.

pp.304-307

….I remembered far more than I had testified to in my three interviews before the committee, and I could indeed recall the details I had previously denied knowledge of. Jody explained that my record was incomplete and in some instances inaccurate.

His sole focus was protecting me. For him to protect me, I had to clarify, and in some cases correct, my previous testimony. Without that opportunity, I was at risk of perjury for any future testimony I would give to the January 6th Committee, the Department of Justice, or other investigative bodies. “You have a subpoena. You are under oath,” Jody admonished me. “You have no claim of privilege to assert. And so you have one job, and one job only—to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, no matter who the truth may help or hurt.”

He was right, and he had to figure out how to convince the committee to allow me to return for a fourth interview.

I spent the weekend combing through every word of each transcript to identify places we needed to expand upon my previous testimony. I put together Excel spreadsheets with dates and key events, reconstructed my calendar, chronologized any correspondence I had to fit the timelines, and wrote detailed synopses of each day.

In the law office with Jody:

….Having gone through the previous transcripts, we dug in to cross-compare what we were working with and were meticulous with every single detail. There was too much at stake for our work to be less than perfect.

Once we began to grasp the degree of information in our possession, Jody reached out to the January 6th Committee and suggested that we schedule a proffer session. Our hope was to convince the committee that a fourth interview, in which I could “correct, clarify, and elaborate on” my previous responses, was in everyone’s best interests. The committee agreed to entertain a proffer.

Later that week, Jody and Stephan [colleagues] trekked to Capitol Hill for the proffer session….

[A]fter [Jody] and Stephan had explained the situation to the committee and had gone over some additions to the record that I was prepared to describe, the members had quickly agreed that a fourth interview was necessary….

I had my well-organized binder in hand when we arrived at the Capitol on the afternoon of June 20, filled with calendars, chronologies, and transcript notes. As we walked across the East Plaza, I stared up at the Capitol dome, and for the first time since January 6, I felt its magnetism and power. And next to my new counsel, I felt empowered. Together we would honor the place that symbolizes, more than any other monument, a free people’s faith in self-government.

Dan George escorted us to Liz’s hideaway office in the basement of the Capitol….

We fell into a quick rhythm as Liz and Dan began to question me, and over the next seven hours, I shared everything I had observed in the post-election period….I was able to provide greater context than before, and, often, excruciating detail….

While I had hesitated in previous interviews to share details about the president’s unhinged behavior, I now understood the gravity of those moments. Trump’s temperament wasn’t rational, but neither was it unfamiliar to me. His outbursts shed light on how his volcanic temper and egotism had lit the match that set his followers’ torches ablaze.

When we left the Capitol that night, I felt that I had finally fulfilled the obligations of my subpoena and the oath I had sworn to the country. The  only cloud on the horizon that evening was my lingering worry that the committee would call me as a witness in a future hearing….

Chapter 24: The Whole Truth

pp.308-309

I had adored the president. I’d been very close to Mark Meadows. I had loved working in the White House. I deeply cared for the people there. I believed sincerely that we were serving the interests of the American people. I regretted the belligerence and crudity of some of the president’s messaging, the inappropriate, unpresidential tweets. But you can become inured to it, and I did. I often laughed with colleagues at his communications, when I should have seen them for what they were–mean-spirited. Politics is a team sport, and I was a willing teammate.

Even Trump’s tantrums hadn’t made me angry. Whenever I witnessed or heard about him losing his temper, it hurt me to see him upset. My first thought was why had people let it go so far. Couldn’t we have done more–couldn’t I have done more–to serve him better, to avoid upsetting him.

My views of Trump would change as I witnessed his selfish recklessness threatening the country’s constitutional order. My resolve only strengthened when my loyalties to him and my former colleagues were put in direct conflict with my obligations to the country.

After my fourth deposition, Jody goes to New York for a few days….I’m frantically cleaning my apartment when my phone rings and Jody’s number appears. I know above the shadow of a doubt that he’s calling with news about a hearing.

“They want to do a live hearing,”  he tells me, “and it’s going to be next week.” 

….”Jody, I’m worried I’m not going to be a good live witness. I don’t want to let anybody down.”  By anybody I mean almost everyone: the committee, Jody and Bill, the American people….

….”Cassidy, you’re going to do just fine. I’ll make sure you’re prepared. The committee knows you recognize the importance of your testimony, and that’s what matters. You need to have faith.”….The hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday, and it looks like you’re going to be the only witness.”

pp.312-316

….I’m at Alston & Bird [Jody’s and Bill’s law firm] Monday when the news breaks that there will be a surprise hearing the next day with an unnamed witness. Reporters start calling, trying to discover the identity of the mystery witness. I get a text from Liz Horning: “Please tell me you’re not testifying tomorrow.”  I don’t respond. It’s the last time I’ll hear from her,,,,My friends are falling out of my life. I had hoped I could keep them, but I hadn’t really expected to.  I know I might lose every Republican friend I have, including Tony, a thought that makes me heartsick.

Jody comes to check on me and lets me know that Liz and Dan have decided to come to Alston & Bird for a final walkthrough rather than risk my exposure on the Hill.

….I can’t shake the feeling that I’m violating a code. I pride myself on my discretion and trustworthiness as much as my work ethic. I’m troubled by the feeling that I’m about to betray friends and former colleagues, because a higher loyalty to the country demands it. 

Tell me again why I need to testify live,” I say to Bill and Jody later. “Why can’t the committee use clips of my deposition?”  I know the answer, but I want them to remind me. I need the reassurance.

Jody looks at me sympathetically. “There’s a power that live testimony has that recordings don’t,” he says. “The country needs to see you, needs to see your courage. The country needs to hear the truth.”

I know he is right. I know the impact I could have, a White House staffer with extensive access testifying in open hearing to what amounted to, at a minimum, President Trump’s shocking dereliction of duty. I know it will expose how much he was prepared to hurt the country to assuage his own wounded pride. I know it will reveal him as a reckless, dangerous man. I see that plainly now. January 6 was a dark day–trraumatizing–a genuine threat to the health of the world’s greatest democracy.

Liz Cheney and Dan [Dan George, senior investigative counsel for the committee] join Cassidfy, Jody and Bill:

…We run through the format of the hearing, a list of questions, identifying the video clips from my interviews, and from others’ testimony that the committee will use….

Just so you know,” Dan says, “Eric Herschmann claimed he was the one who wrote the tweet draft on the chief of staff note card.”

“If you guys don’t want to talk to me about the note card, that’s fine, I don’t care,” I say with a shrug. “But I know for certain that’s my handwriting.”

And so, the notecard discussion stayed in.

Liz plays a clip from my most recent interview describing the president’s explosive tantrum in the Beast. I know there will be denials and recrimination from Trump World. Anyone who resents me for disclosing it won’t be assuaged by the fact that I had done it behind closed doors and sat there timidly watching the committee publicize it. I had urged the committee to find someone in the Secret Service to corroborate my account. That had yet to happen.

Liz asks if I prefer to use the clip rather than testify to it live. I draw a slow breath, closing my eyes while I consider.  I imagine myself alone at the witness table, listening to the recording of my account of the president’s rage, while I sit there silently–doing what? Nodding affirmatively? Staring into space? Looking like a coward?  I summon a little of Liz’s steel.

“Don’t use the clip. I’ll do this live.”

She smiles slightly and nods.

As Liz and Dan finish and we’re getting up to leave, I say to Liz, “I have a question my attorneys are going to kill me for asking.” She laughs as Jody and Bill roll their eyes.

“I’d  really like to know why you have faith in me, when I’m trying to find faith in myself,” I say.

“Cassidy, you’re doing right by the country,” she replies. “You’re upholding your oath. The country needs this. You can explain things like no one else can….You’re bringing people into the White House. It makes your testimony powerful. I’,m very proud of you, and you need to be proud of yourself.”

….”I just don’t want to put myself in the spotlight,” I explain. “That’s not me.”

“You’re not putting yourself in the spotlight,” she pushes back. “You’re being called by Congress to do it. It’s important that the country sees that. It’s important that the country sees you, that women and little girls see you doing the right thing.”

….At my apartment, I throw some clothes and makeup in a little bag. I text mom that I’m going to spend the night in a hotel….

I had moved into that apartment when I started working for Mark, and I had loved it. But the last six months had been a time of turmoil and struggle. I hadn’t been able to pay my rent in months, and my Wi-Fi had been cut off. My blinds were drawn and had been since the marshals had delivered my subpoena in January. It didn’t feel like home anymore. It felt like a prison, and I wanted to get out. Weeks later, Mom and Paul would collect my possessions and move me out. I never set foot in that apartment again.

That night, when I return to the hotel, the news breaks that I am tomorrow’s witness.

….I text Liz Cheney, “Can you call me?” She does, right away. We talk for a few minutes. Toward the end I say. “I really hope I don’t let you down tomorrow.”

“Cassidy, you could never let me down. I’m really proud of you.”

Her pride is enough encouragement for me to see this through….

I pass the time rereading passages I had marked in The Last of the President’s Men. The book had practically become my bible, and its subject my unmet friend. I drift off about three in the morning…

The Live Hearing:

pp.318-328

Chairman Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi, calls the hearing to order. I’m trying to listen, but my own thoughts are crowding my mind….

I’m still deep in  my own thoughts, but I tune in as Liz vouches for my access and influence in the White House. And my network of relationships with members of Congress….

Representative Thompson stresses my role in the White House and my work on the Hill, and flashes pictures on the video screen of me smiling with senior members of Congress. They know how Trump World is going to attack my credibility. So do I. I’ve participated in attacks like it, especially during the first impeachment. They will dismiss me as a nobody, a junior staffer no one took seriously or would ever confide in….I had been in effect “chief of staff to the president’s chief of staff.” Mark used to call me his “chief of stuff.”…

[Chairman Thompson asks her to explain her role in the legislative affairs office, and then the chief of staff’s office.]

Liz takes over, and she’ll guide me through each moment of the hearing. It’s just Liz and me having a conversation. We aren’t posturing or hiding or dreading anything. Her straightforwardness and steady cadence are comforting.

I trust her implicitly. She has asked me to do a difficult thing, and I will do it to the best of my ability. Liz is on the right side of history, and she welcomes me to join her.

She asks me about my conversation with Rudi Giuliani on January 2, when I first learned from him that the president might go to the Capitol on January 6, and Mark’s warning that things might get bad that day….She turns to clips from the video recordings of my depositions before we get to the issue of the president’s furor over the use of security magnetometers limiting the size of the crowd at the January 6th rally. [The size was limited by the fact that some people with weapons did not want to give them up in order to pass through the magnetometers.]  She lists the variety of weaponry confiscated from those who went through the mags, and plays clips of police radio reports of weapons possessed by the crowd on the Mall. They would march to the Capitol with everything they had brought with them.

….I’m listening to most recordings for the first time during the hearing, like the rest of the country. I hear police officers identifying people carrying AR-15s, handguns, and other weapons, their alarm unmistakable in the urgency of the reports. It brings me back to the trauma of that day, the dread and terror I felt as I learned of the multiple warnings of violence. I had felt the catastrophe coming, and witnessed the president of the United States not just failing to stop it but inflaming it.

….”Just to be clear, Ms, Hutchison, is it your understanding that the president wanted to take the mags away and said that the armed individuals were not there to hurt him?”

“That’s a fair assessment,” I answer.

I know we’ve reached the headline moments of my testimony, the president’s knowledge that his supporters are armed as they marched to the Capitol and that violence was likely. He didn’t care. “They aren’t here to hurt me,” he said, pushing back.

“I would characterize it as a lack of reaction,” I answer, when Liz asks me how Mark [Meadows] had responded to the news that the president had just announced at his rally that he would join the protesters on their march to the Capitol. I remember White House lawyers pleading with me that morning to get Mark to stop the president from going to the Hill. Not only had I failed to get him to intervene, I could barely get him to engage in a discussion of it. “Mark needs to snap out of this,” I testify to thinking. “He needs to care.”

….The portrait my answers paint of the president is damning: an unhinged chief executive, willing to overturn the will of the people and plunge the country into chaos and violence on the advice of crazy people. For what? To avoid the embarrassment of conceding an election he knew he had lost? That is who he is….

“Take the effing mags away,” I testify hearing him order. And: “Let my people in”–knowing they were armed. “They can march to the Capitol from here.”

….By the time the president had left the rally stage, he knew that the protesters were armed, and that the police protecting the Capitol were outnumbered, and that those at the vanguard of the marching mob had already threatened to breach the security perimeter. In her level, matter-of-fact tone, absent theatrics, letting the facts indict her targets, [Liz] directs me to the scene in the Beast. “Let’s turn now to what happened in the president’s vehicle when the Secret Service told him he would not be going to the Capitol after his speech.”

“I’ve prepared for the question. I understand the effect my answer will have….I remember that when Tony was describing what had happened, that old rationalization excusing Trump’s bad behavior was playing out in the back of my mind.: Why had people let it go so far? Until I shared this information with the committee, I hadn’t told anyone else about it except for giving Mark and, later, Stefan an abbreviated version. It had taken me three or four attempts to tell Jody about it.

….I gather myself and begin recounting what Tony Ornato told me had happened, as Bobby Engel listened, “looking discombobulated and a little lost.” Bobby had done what Mark hadn’t the nerve to do: refuse the president’s command to take him to the Capitol. An “irate” Trump had fumed in response, “I’m the effing president, take me to the Capitol now.” When Bobby refused again, Trump grabbed at the steering wheel. Bobby grabbed Trump’s arm. “Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing.” And Trump used his free hand to lunge at Bobby.”

“Toward his clavicles,” I add, placing a hand on my own neck to imitate Tony’s pantomime of the act.

….I take a deep breath and feel relief wash over me. I think of the Capitol Police officers sitting in the back row. I had done right by them, the first victims of the catastrophe Trump had caused….

Drawing an even more vivid picture of Trump’s volatility, Liz asks me to describe his reaction on December 1 to Bill Barr’s statement to the Associated Press that the Department of Justice had found no evidence of widespread election fraud. I describe the loud noise coming from the Oval dining room, the ketchup dripping down the wall, helping his valet clean up the mess.

“Was this the only incident you’re aware of where the president threw dishes?” Liz asks.

“It’s not,” I acknowledge, adding that there had been several occasions when I was aware that the president was “throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth.”

….Chairman Thompson declares a ten-minute recess. I stand up. I’m dizzy…..I try to avoid eye contact with everyone….It’s eerily quiet, as if everyone in the room had been stunned into paralysis and silence, except for the photographers….It seems to take eternity to exit the room.  We’re ten feet from the holding room when the quiet is suddenly interrupted by applause from the police officers, who are then joined by others….

….The second part of the hearing goes by more quickly than the first. I testify to the difficulty Pat Cipollone, Eric Herschmann, and others had getting an adamant Trump to call off his supporters ransacking the Capitol and threatening the lives of members of Congress and the vice president. I acknowledge again how reluctant Mark was to confront the boss’s anger and get him to see reason. I recount overhearing him tell Pat that Trump “thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.” Liz briefly interjects to make sure everyone realizes what I had just attested to: the president of the United States had told his chief of staff and legal counsel that he was fine with an armed mob trying to kill the vice president of the United States.

She brings up the shameful tweet Trump had sent while would-be assailants hunted Mike Pence: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” 

“Ms Hutchinson.” Liz asks, “what was your reaction when you saw that tweet?”

…. I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie….Seeing that tweet come up and knowing what was happening on the Hill, and it’s something that I–it’s still–I still struggle to work through the emotions of that.”

I confirm how hard it had been to get the president to make a statement telling the rioters to go home, and how even when he relented, he still refused to state the obvious, that the election was over.

Emotionally, the lowest point of the hearing is the clip the committee plays of Rep. Mike Gallagher, a House Republican from Wisconsin and an exemplary public servant, imploring Trump to call off the mob. He pleads to the camera, targeting an audience of one, the president of the United States, “This is bigger than you…It’s about the United States of America, which is more important than any politician.”

It brings me back to how useless I felt that day as members and others frantically texted, begging for trump to call off the riot. I think of Trump, sitting down the hall from me, unmoved. He thought that the people begging him to intervene were pathetic and weak, and that they should have been fighting for him. He wanted this.

Afterward, at her lawyers’ offices:

…..Eric Herschmann texts me. I’m afraid to open the message. During the hearing, Liz had asked me about the note I had written on one of Mark’s chief of staff note cards, the one I had been forewarned Eric Herschmann claimed he had written. “Jody needs to call my lawyer right now,” he instructs me. I pass my phone to Jody, and he says, “I had a few calls from an unknown number….I guess it’s Eric’s lawyer. I’ll call him now.”

Jody went up to his office to return the call and it is indeed Eric’s lawyer, and Eric. They’re going wild about the disputed note card. In an animated tone, Eric says to Jody, “That’s my fucking hadwriting. Law enforcement is going to back me up. I’ve talked to Bill Barr about it. My family knows that’s my handwriting. She needs to put out a statement right now that says that’s my handwriting. She knows that’s my handwriting.” He repeats himself several times and then adds, “I’m sixty-one. and I’m a lawyer. Cassidy was a young staffer. If she doesn’t put out a statement, I’ll be forced to put out one myself.”

…Jody interjects. “Eric, with all due respect, I will talk to my client about this. But my client feels as strongly as you do that it’s her handwriting….

The joke of it all is that when Dan George showed me that card in my very first deposition, back in February, I had felt embarrassed about my atrocious handwriting.  I’ve never liked it. I’ve tried to make it neat and pretty, but it didn’t take. Because of how much I’ve hated my handwriting for my whole life, I knew it was mine.

Nevertheless, Eric’s demand produces the first stressful moment I experience after the hearing. I don’t want the controversy to undermine the committee’s work. 

Jody mentions the call to Dan George, who acknowledges that Eric called the committee about it, too. “Did he say something about law enforcement backing him up?” Dan asks. 

Jody answers, “Yeah, he did.”

Dan laughs. “What’s that mean?”

We’re about an hour into dinner when Peter Alexander of NBC News reports that sources in the Secret Service are prepared to dispute my account of the Beast incident. I had expected it, and it doesn’t upset me very much. On the contrary, I feel a surge of confidence. I’ve told the truth not about something I saw firsthand but about something that was told to me in confidence, with an eyewitness to the incident in the room. I had received texts from several friends in the Secret Service that day thanking me for my testimony. I suspect that contributed to my confidence.

Chapter 25: Adrift

pp. 330-337

It’s a strange four days, alternatively boring, fretful, and unreal. Quarantined in my hotel room. I feel disoriented….

…Bill, Jody, and I are of the same mind–that it isn’t safe for me, physically, emotionally, or politically, to be seen or heard in public or to risk going to my apartment. There have been security threats, theory warn, although I don’t know the specifics….

The scene is worse at my parents’ house. News vans are parked in front of their home, cameras positioned to catch a glimpse of someone inside. Mom and Paul are staying home from work. They feel safer that way. Mom opens the door out of habit when she hears a knock.

Ms. Hutchinson, I’m with the New York Post–”

She slams the door shut….Someone parks a car in the driveway and knocks on the door, They ignore it. He knocks again. And again. And again. “For twenty minutes, Mom says. She calls to Paul, “Just answer it.” He does, and a man in scruffy clothes introduces himself as an FBI agent who’s there to sweep the house. Paul asks to see identification. The man declines and tries to push his way in. Paul manages to shove him back out and shut the door.

I hate that I put them in that position. I wish that I could go home.

…The pushback from the Trump defenders is picking up speed, the attacks led by Trump himself, whose insults are getting cruder. I tried to mentally prepare for breaking with Trump World. I know how they curate vile attacks on their detractors. I was once part of that process.

Peter Alexander’s report about the Secret Service and Eric Herschmann’s insistence about his handwriting start gaining traction. Jody and Bill think it’s wise for them to release another statement the next day, and I agree. “Ms Hutchinson stands by all of the testimony she provided yesterday, under oath, to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.”

I don’t need to say anything more. I stand by everything.

Trump continues to hurl insults in my direction. I learn how it feels to be on the other side. But I know enough not to react. That’s what he wants me to do. He wants me to be defensive. He wants to know when he’s hurt someone or gotten a rise out of them; he wants to project his hurt onto the source of it. Trump doesn’t care if you dispute him or call him a liar. Only silence bothers him. Being ignored drives him mad. 

I recognize the handiwork of some friends and colleagues who are amplifying Trump’s attacks anonymously. They try to impeach my testimony by impugning my character. I’ve had my share of detractors among my White House colleagues who resented the authority Mark gave me. They derisively referred to me as “Chief Cassidy,” which finds its ebay into a Washington Post story. But it isn’t only my detractors who are busy. I know that people who have been my friends are trashing my reputation, too. I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I do. They were my friends….

I feel embraced by the outpouring of support I get from different corners. I receive hundreds of encouraging calls and messages from members of Congress. Some are friends; others I hadn’t known well at all….

I do hear from several colleagues who left the administration before, or as a result of, January 6. Sarah Matthews and Olivia Troye send encouraging messages and write tweets blasting my critics. Alyssa Farah calls constantly. She is leading my media defense, going head-to-head with Trump and his cronies. Alyssa is as courageous as she is patriotic, and her friendship grounds me. Mick Mulvaney, Mark’s predecessor, checks in and defends my testimony in the press.

Some time later, her attorneys Bill and Jody decide that Washington is not safe for her:

“We think it’s best to get you out of Washington,” Bill begins. “How do you feel about coming to Atlanta for a while?”

Jody chimes in. “I can work out of the Atlanta office, so Bill and I will both be close to you.”

Atlanta is far, unfamiliar. But so is Washington now. I can’t go to New Jersey and put my parents’ security more at risk. I have nowhere else to go.

A few days later:

Motorcades are unremarkable to me. I’ve been in hundreds before. But this one is strange. Because this time it’s me who needs protection. My life is in danger.

I learn that one of the officers in my car is assigned to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and another is from Liz Cheney’s detail. I learn, too, that I am the first non-elected official  under Capitol Police protection.

“I’m honored,” I stammer.

“The honor is ours,” one of the officers responds. We make eye contact through the rearview mirror. I know he’s referring to my testimony, but I can’t find the words I want to use. You’re the ones who suffered, because of us. Because of the president I worked for. You’re the heroes.

Epilogue

pp.353-355

….I had started my job with the belief that my colleagues and I were doing something important for the country. But when the president I had served wholeheartedly persuaded his supporters to reject the legitimacy of a free and fair election, I knew he was leading a dangerous assault on our political ideals and governing institutions for no other purpose than to soothe his injured pride. For a time, I resisted admitting that to myself, and I resisted being a part of efforts to hold him accountable for his actions.

Yet on January 6, 2021, President Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, and the proliferation of poisonous conspiracy theories he and some of my former colleagues amplified, exposed the fragility of American democracy. The republic would survive, and power would be transferred to the new, duly elected president. But the nation would sustain wounds that have yet to heal. In the wake of that tumultuous day, I could no longer ignore the dissonance between the principles I hold dear and their abuse by powerful people who claimed to share them but sacrificed them for their own selfish ends.

….I wish I could say that I promptly and easily made the decision to come forward. After a desperate hunt to find pro bono counsel, I ended up with Trump World-funded counsel. At times I provided less-than-complete testimony to congressional investigators to assuage the concerns of those keeping a watchful eye on me. But I was ashamed of being complicit, possibly even instrumental, in an insurrection. That shame drove me to look for a way to break free from the clutches of Trump World and seek redemption by rectifying my missteps. I needed to find my way back to the right side of history. I needed a second chance.

The fortuitous discovery of someone whose name I had never heard before–Alex Butterfield–made all the difference. He had come forward to testify honestly about the Nixon White House. I would find myself in a similar position fifty years later. The account of Alex’s integrity in Bob Woodward’s The Last of the President’s Men, inspired my moral reckoning. Alex had served President Nixon loyally, but not at the expense of his duty to the country.

….I followed in Alex’s footsteps, choosing to reveal the truth about what I knew about the attack on the US Capitol. I changed course, choosing to follow through on the promise I made when I swore the oath to protect and defend the UInited States.

I still consider myself a Republican. But I denounce the tribalism that produced the outlandish conspiracy theories and violence that some party leaders not only failed to condemn but even excused in their pursuit of power. If we do not restore responsible governing, respect for our democratic practices, and accountability for our leaders as core Republican values, I fear not only for the future of our party, but for our nation. 

Appendix

Contrasting Accounts of the Creation of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol 

The first account is from the 2022 Final Report of the Select Committee. The second is from the 2024 Interim Report on the Failures and Politicization of the January 6th Select Committee (prepared at the direction of Congressman Barry Loudermilk, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Committee on House Administration)

A.

From the January 6 Report:

pp.128-131

In the week after January 6th, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy initially supported legislation to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol, stating that “the President bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters” and calling for creation of a “fact-finding commission.”735 Leader McCarthy repeated his support for a bipartisan commission during a press conference on January 21st: “The only way you will be able to answer these questions is through a bipartisan commission.”736 

On February 15th, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a letter to the House Democratic Caucus her intent to establish the type of independent commission McCarthy had supported, to “investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attacks upon the United States Capitol Complex.”737 A few days thereafter, Leader McCarthy provided the Speaker a wish list that mirrored “suggestions from the Co-Chairs of the 9/11 Commission” that he and House Republicans hoped would be included in the House’s legislation to establish the Commission.738 

In particular, Leader McCarthy requested an equal ratio of Democratic and Republican nominations, equal subpoena power for the Democratic Chair and Republican Vice Chair of the Commission, and the exclusion of predetermined findings or outcomes that the Commission itself would produce. Closing his letter, Leader McCarthy quoted the 9/11 Commission Co-Chairs, writing that a “bipartisan independent investigation will earn credibility with the American public.”739 He again repeated his confidence in achieving that goal.740 In April 2021, Speaker Pelosi agreed to make the number of Republican and Democratic Members of the Commission equal, and to provide both parties with an equal say in subpoenas, as McCarthy had requested.741 

In May 2021, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson began to negotiate more of the details for the Commission with his Republican counterpart, Ranking Member John Katko.742 On May 14th, Chairman Thompson announced that he and Ranking Member Katko had reached an agreement on legislation to “form a bipartisan, independent Commission to investigate the January 6th domestic terrorism attack on the United States Capitol and recommend changes to further protect the Capitol, the citadel of our democracy.”743

On May 18th, the day before the House’s consideration of the Thompson-Katko agreement, Leader McCarthy released a statement in opposition to the legislation.744 Speaker Pelosi responded to that statement, saying: “Leader McCarthy won’t take yes for an answer.”745 The Speaker referred to Leader McCarthy’s February 22nd letter where “he made three requests to be addressed in Democrats’ discussion draft.”746 She noted that “every single one was granted by Democrats, yet he still says no.”747 

In the days that followed, Republican Ranking Member Katko defended the bipartisan nature of the bill to create the Commission:

As I have called for since the days just after the attack, an independent, 9/11-style review is critical for removing the politics around January 6 and focusing solely on the facts and circumstances of the security breach at the Capitol, as well as other instances of violence relevant to such a review. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Thompson and I know this is about facts. It’s not partisan politics. We would have never gotten to this point if it was about partisan politics.748

That evening, the House passed the legislation to establish a National Commission to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol Complex in a bipartisan fashion, with 35 Republicans joining 217 Democrats voting in favor and 175 Republicans voting against.749 In the days thereafter, however, only six Senate Republicans joined Senate Democrats in supporting the legislation, killing the bill in the Senate.750 

On June 24th, Speaker Pelosi announced her intent to create a House select committee to investigate the attack.751 On June 25th, Leader McCarthy met with DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was seriously injured on January 6th.752 Officer Fanone pressed Leader McCarthy “for a commitment not to put obstructionists and the wrong people in that position.”753 

On June 30th, the House voted on H. Res. 503 to establish a 13-Member Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United StatesCapitol by a vote of 222 Yeas and 190 Nays with just two Republicans supporting the measure: Representative Liz Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger.754 On July 1st, Speaker Pelosi named eight initial Members to the Select Committee, including one Republican: Representative Cheney.755 

On July 17th, Leader McCarthy proposed his selection of five members: 

Representative Jim Jordan, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee; Representative Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota; House Energy and Commerce Committee; Representative Troy Nehls, House Transportation & Infrastructure and Veterans’ Affairs Committees. 

Representative Jim Banks, Armed Services, Veterans’ Affairs and Education and Labor Committees; 

Representative Rodney Davis, Ranking Member of the Committee on House Administration.756

Jordan was personally involved in the acts and circumstances of January 6th, and would be one of the targets of the investigation. By that point, Banks had made public statements indicating that he had already reached his own conclusions and had no intention of cooperating in any objective investigation of January 6th, proclaiming, for example, that the Select Committee was created “. . . solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left’s authoritarian agenda.”757

On July 21st, Speaker Nancy Pelosi exercised her power under H. Res. 503 not to approve the appointments of Representatives Jordan or Banks, expressing “concern about statements made and actions taken by these Members” and “the impact their appointments may have on the integrity of the investigation.”758 However, she also stated that she had informed Leader McCarthy “. . . that I was prepared to appoint Representatives Rodney Davis, Kelly Armstrong and Troy Nehls, and requested that he recommend two other Members.”759

In response, Leader McCarthy elected to remove all five of his Republican appointments, refusing to allow Representatives Armstrong, Davis and Nehls to participate on the Select Committee.760 On July 26, 2021, Speaker Pelosi then appointed Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger.761 In resisting the Committee’s subpoenas, certain litigants attempted to argue that the Commission’s Select Committee’s composition violated House Rules or H. Res. 503, but those arguments failed in court.762

B.

From the 2nd J6 Report:

pp.9-11

ESTABLISHMENT OF PELOSI’S FLAWED SELECT COMMITTEE 

On June 30, 2021, the Democrat House majority passed House Resolution 503 establishing the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. 6 The Select Committee, with its more than eighteen million dollar budget, resulted in little more than Hollywood-produced political theater and wasted taxpayer dollars to create an error-filled narrative masquerading as a congressional report. 7 Throughout its nearly two years of work, the Select Committee presented uncorroborated, cherry-picked evidence to build its narrative. The sole purpose of the Select Committee was to prevent President Trump from seeking reelection to the White House. 

In contrast, Chairman Barry Loudermilk and the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight (“Subcommittee”) investigated the full array of security and intelligence breakdowns at the United States Capitol in the days leading up to, and on January 6, 2021. In the course of its investigation, the Subcommittee identified numerous inexcusable failures that should have been avoided, and must be addressed moving forward. 

The events of January 6, 2021, were preventable. The politicization of Capitol security directly contributed to the many structural and procedural failures witnessed that day. Through the Subcommittee’s robust oversight of the United States Capitol Police (“USCP”) and supporting entities, the Subcommittee remains committed to ensuring necessary reforms to USCP operations and the Capitol’s physical security.

Flawed Composition of the Select Committee 

The day after the House voted on House Resolution 503 to create the Select Committee, Speaker Pelosi named seven Democrats and one Republican—Liz Cheney—to represent the interests of the Democrats. 8 Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy proposed five Republicans to represent the minority,9 and in an outlandish and unprecedented move, Speaker Pelosi rejected the House minority leader’s nominations.10 Despite claiming to model the Select Committee after the Republican-led Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi—wherein then-Minority Leader Pelosi appointed five Democrat members of her choosing to sit on that committee11—Speaker Pelosi refused to extend the same courtesy to Minority Leader McCarthy. She justified this radical move with this blanket excuse: “The unprecedented nature of January 6th demands this unprecedented decision.” 12 Unfortunately for the American public, this excuse would be used by the Select Committee throughout the course of its existence to justify a multitude of untoward and unprecedented actions. 

Minority Leader McCarthy refused to play along with Speaker Pelosi’s clearly partisan Select Committee and withdrew all five of the Republican appointments.13 As a result, Speaker Pelosi named Representative Adam Kinzinger—the only Republican other than Representative Cheney to vote in favor of the creation of the Select Committee—14as the ninth and final member of the Select Committee. According to House Rule 10 Clause 5, the members of standing committees shall be elected “from nomination[s] submitted by the respective party caucus or conference,” 15 but Speaker Pelosi ignored this rule. Despite H. Res 503 dictating that the Select Committee consist of thirteen members, five of whom in consultation with the minority leader, Speaker Pelosi pushed ahead with the seven Democrats and two Republicans, selected by the majority, who had demonstrated their commitment to the destruction of President Trump. For example, Representatives Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff both served as impeachment managers against President Trump prior to their appointment to the Select Committee.16

The Select Committee’s unwritten purpose was to prevent President Trump from seeking reelection in 2024. It was no secret that, after Speaker Pelosi failed to secure a conviction in the Senate for the second time, the only way to guarantee that President Trump could not return to office would be if he was found to have “engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution of the United States in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. 17 This idea was published in major newspapers within days of January 6 and spoken about frequently in Leftwing circles. 18 Speaker Pelosi knew that the best pathway to stop President Trump from returning to the White House was if the Select Committee could craft a narrative compelling enough to convince the Department of Justice and the judicial system, along with the American public, that President Trump was an “insurrectionist.” 

House Resolution 503 mandated that the Select Committee investigate the “facts, circumstances, and causes” of January 6, and the “preparedness and response” of law enforcement. 19 Instead, as evidenced by the Select Committee’s Final Report, it deployed its vast resources to attempt to prevent President Trump from returning to the White House. H. Res. 503’s mandate does not mention an investigation of President Trump, but the Select Committee still managed to include President Trump’s name more than 1,900 times in its final report.

one police officer who defended the Capitol on January 6 died of a stroke the following day and four more committed suicide in the days and months that followed.