Cassidy Hutchinson, Trump White House aide, now in spotlight

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This article was published 27/06/2022 (913 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Just two years out of college, Cassidy Hutchinson watched as a valet mopped up the president’s lunch after he smashed his plate against the wall. Donald Trump was in a rage because his attorney general had refuted his claims that the election he lost had been stolen.

The 25-year-old Hutchinson, who was an aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, made several shocking revelations about Trump and Meadows in nationally televised testimony before a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

An obscure aide prior to Tuesday’s hearing, Hutchinson showed detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the Trump White House, including in the critical days that Trump and his advisers plotted to reverse President Joe Biden’s election victory.

The events in her testimony — explained in new and vivid detail for the first time publicly — are of potentially vital interest to both the committee and the Justice Department.

She described how Meadows kept scrolling his phone in apparent detachment as a security official warned that many Jan. 6 rallygoers waiting to hear the president were armed with guns and other weapons, including spears attached to the end of flagpoles.

She said she was close enough to Trump at one point to hear him demand that attendees not be screened, saying, “I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.”

And she alleged Trump became so irate at being driven back to the White House after his speech — when he exhorted rallygoers to “fight like hell” — rather than the Capitol that he even tried to grab the steering wheel of the presidential limousine away from a Secret Service agent who was driving.

“I’m the effing president,” Hutchinson said she was told Trump had said.

She showed her proximity and familiarity with key Trump figures, referring at times to Meadows, security official Tony Ornato, and national security adviser Robert O’Brien by their first names. Meadows, in turn, called her “Cass,” in her retelling of one story.

Hutchinson has previously described meetings with the White House counsel’s office in which participants discussed the legality of substituting electors for states that went for Biden, then the president-elect, with false “alternate electors” who would select Trump. The former president and his allies tried in vain to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was overseeing the certification of electors on Jan. 6.

There was no widespread election fraud. Trump lost more than 60 court cases attempting to prove wrongdoing, and even his own attorney general, William Barr, said his claims were meritless.

At one December meeting, Hutchinson has testified, lawyers for Trump advised lawmakers that the plan to replace electors was not “legally sound.” She told the committee that at least five Republican members of Congress involved in plans to substitute electors sought pardons from Trump.

She also testified about Meadows’ surprise trip to Georgia weeks after the election to observe an audit of the vote and meet with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

And she has said Meadows knew of reports through a Secret Service agent warning of violence on Jan. 6.

There’s relatively little known about Hutchinson. Although the White House is perhaps the world’s most prestigious office building, much of the staff is young, sometimes even fresh out of college like Hutchinson. They often previously worked on the president’s campaign or the national party, and they’re distinguished by their ambition and willingness to work long hours for little pay.

They’re also critical to any administration’s machinery. They help with the logistics of media coverage, prepare for public events and answer the phones. Because they’re often within earshot as the country’s most powerful people gossip and plan, discretion is expected. Trump’s personal assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, was fired after imprudent comments at an off-the-record dinner with reporters.

“The White House is fueled by young restless energy that works all days, hours, nights to keep the operation running,” said Johanna Maska, the CEO of consulting firm Global Situation Room who served in the White House under former President Barack Obama. “Though most assistants wouldn’t be in a decision-making role, they have eyes on sensitive information including schedules, notes, documents, private conversations.”

One sign of Hutchinson’s possible willingness to cooperate with investigations is her choice of lawyers. She recently switched from a former Trump White House official to a veteran former Justice Department official who served as chief of staff to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and who emerged as a key witness for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Jody Hunt, the new lawyer, recounted for Mueller’s team the extent to which Trump berated Sessions over his recusal from the Russia investigation and the pressure he sought to exert on the department over the probe.

In a 2018 profile published by her undergraduate alma mater, Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, Hutchinson recalled being “brought to tears” when she received an email telling her she’d been accepted to a White House internship program.

“As a first-generation college student, being selected to serve as an intern alongside some of the most intelligent and driven students from across the nation – many of whom attend top universities – was an honor and a tremendous growing experience,” she is quoted as saying.

She says in the article that she attended numerous events hosted by Trump and often watched out her window as Marine One would depart the White House’s south lawn.

“My small contribution to the quest to maintain American prosperity and excellence is a memory I will hold as one of the honors of my life,” she said in the piece.

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Associated Press writer Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.