Cassidy Hutchinson’s Fans Come to Her Defense Amid Reports of a Possible Indictment

The young White House aide earned fame and a lucrative book deal with made up stories about President Trump’s conduct on January 6. Now a grand jury is examining her conduct before Congress in 2022.

The Congressional-style mockumentary about the events of January 6—performed on live television in 2021 and 2022 by political actors sitting on the January 6 Select Committee—long ago faded into the public’s collective memory except for one episode: the bombshell testimony of low-level White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

Hutchinson, who worked for then chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 6, shocked the world with her account of an alleged incident inside the presidential SUV that fateful afternoon. Prompted by questions from ex-Representative Liz Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the committee at the time, Hutchinson melodramatically recounted an alleged conversation she had had with a fellow staffer after the president returned to the White House against his will following his speech at the Ellipse:

The purpose of that moment was clear: to paint the former president as a deranged maniac who assaulted his own security detail on January 6 over his refusal to take Trump to the Capitol to help the “insurrectionists” overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Without questioning the outlandish nature of her testimony, Democrats and NeverTrump “conservatives” went gaga over the telegenic witness. National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, who frequently dives head-first into any anti-Trump charade concocted by the Left only to later find himself apologizing for being duped, called Hutchinson’s testimony “spellbinding,” “compelling,” “stunning,” “riveting,” and “devastating” to President Trump. In a column that helped him eventually earn a coveted spot on the New York Times opinion page, David French called Hutchinson’s performance “the most extraordinary congressional testimony I’ve ever seen.”

Few people, however, were as glowing in their praise for Hutchinson than podcaster Tim Miller. “This afternoon a 26-year-old former assistant showed more courage and integrity than an entire administration full of grown-ass adults who were purportedly working in service to the American people, but had long ago decided to serve only their ambition and grievance,” Miller blogged following her June 2022 testimony. “Cassidy Hutchinson did so at risk to her safety. Her social circle. Her career. And she overcame all of the self-serving rationalizations that prevented the powerful, whose manhoods she held in her palm, from stepping to the plate.”

Leave Our J6 Queen Alone!

Which could explain Miller’s outburst at reports that the Department of Justice is looking to indict Hutchinson for lying to Congress; the Civil Rights division presented evidence to a grand jury last week, according to Punchbowl News. “This is deranged,” Miller bleated on X.

Miller is not alone in his private hell while thinking about his onetime heroine potentially posing for a mugshot soon. Fellow Bulwarker Sarah Matthews called Hutchinson “an American hero” and claimed “she has shown more courage, patriotism, and integrity than the Republican politicians who had far more power, far less to lose, and still chose to remain silent.”

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who joined Cheney at the Congressional unemployment line following his participation on the committee, posted “You don’t hate this administration enough” in response to an article on Hutchinson’s possible indictment. There is no evidence that he cried while writing that post, like he did during the first J6 Committee performance:

Of course, the major difference between Hutchinson and her ardent defenders, Cheney and Kinzinger, is that the latter two received full pardons from Joe Biden before he left office. So, too, did her fellow perjurious committee witnesses, the so-called J6 celebrity cops. Hutchinson, however, is not so lucky.

After Retaining a Cheney-Backed Attorney, Hutchinson Changed Her Story

Which is why—assuming a D.C. grand jury can forego partisan activism for a moment—Hutchinson faces real legal liability over her sworn public testimony, which still fits within the five-year statute of limitations. As I explained in my investigative report here, none of the White House officials named by Hutchinson as having been involved in the encounter or any post-incident discussion corroborated her testimony. In fact, they all directly refuted her account of what happened.

She also might be in hot water for her closed-door transcribed interviews with the committee; Hutchinson’s story dramatically changed after she fired her Trump-paid lawyer, Stefan Passantino, and hired a new attorney at Cheney’s suggestion. Hutchinson’s new attorneys filed a 15-page “errata” sheet shortly thereafter that added the explosive new allegations.

Not only did her revised testimony include the alleged incident in the “Beast,” she suddenly recalled references to dangerous weapons, including guns, carried by protesters near the Capitol that day. For example, Hutchinson was asked during her February 2022 interview with the committee whether she had heard about the presence of “firearms” at the rally; she responded, “not that I can recall specifically.” But in her fourth interview—and accompanied by her Cheney-referred lawyers—with the committee, Hutchinson suddenly remembered “reports of firearms at the rally site.”

Hutchinson continued to contradict her own earlier testimony, conveniently recalling chants of “Hang Mike Pence,” which she had denied hearing before, and oddly took ownership of a note that represented dictation of the president’s proposed tweet about the protest:

In reality, the author of the note was Eric Hershmann, one of President Trump’s lawyers. It is baffling why Hutchinson claimed to have written the note when she did not.

Perhaps that is one of many head-scratching aspects of the entire Hutchinson drama that a federal grand jury is examining. But no matter how compelling the evidence against her or how damaging her public testimony was to the president and those around him—especially Passantino, who was fired and faced misconduct complaints filed by Cheney stooges before both the D.C. and Georgia bar associations—Hutchinson will always have her deluded cheerleading section behind her.