The New York Times reports that since she testified before the January 6 House Select Committee on on June 28, former Trump administration aide Cassidy Hutchinson has been forced to go into hiding for her own safety.
Now unemployed and sequestered with family and a security detail, Ms. Hutchinson, 26, has developed an unlikely bond with Ms. Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and onetime aide to former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during the George W. Bush administration — a crisis environment of another era when she learned to work among competing male egos. More recently, as someone ostracized by her party and stripped of her leadership post for her denunciations of Mr. Trump, Ms. Cheney admires the younger woman’s willingness to risk her alliances and professional standing by recounting what she saw in the final days of the Trump White House, friends say.
That revelation is part of a deeper look at Hutchinson’s life, including her fast rise through the ranks of Trump administration where she eventually became one of former White House Chief Of Staff Mark Meadows’ most trusted staffers.
After receiving a subpoena from the Jan. 6 panel, Hutchinson secured the services of attorney Stefan Passantino, a former Trump White House ethics lawyer who was paid by Trump’s Save America PAC.
However, it soon became clear to Hutchinson that Passantino was trying to protect Trump, not her, so she dumped him and found a better counselor:
Jody Hunt, the former head of the Justice Department’s civil division under Jeff Sessions — Mr. Trump’s former attorney general and another pariah in Mr. Trump’s world — offered to represent her pro bono. Mr. Hunt accompanied Ms. Hutchinson to her fourth deposition in late June, when she felt more comfortable talking about Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6. Everyone agreed it was time to speed up her public testimony.
Though it remains unclear if Hutchinson will provide further testimony, what she has told the Jan. 6 committee so far is considered essential to the overall case the panel is building against Trump and others who took part in the Capitol insurrection that left five people dead.
Cassidy Hutchinson is a true American hero. She deserves the praise she has already received for her testimony.
