10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL, U.S, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D.C. INTERVIEW OF: CASSIDY HUTCHINSON Monday, June 20, 2022 Washington, D.C. The interview in the above matter was held in Room HT-64A/8, The Capitol, commencing at 1:04 p.m. Present: Representative Cheney.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v Appearances: For the SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE ‘THE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL: TR SEN108 Ivesticarive COUNSEL For CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: JOSEPH "JODY" H. HUNT Alston & Bird The Atlantic Building 950 F Street NW Washington, D.C. 20004-140410 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 Hight. Good afternoon. it's June 20th, and this is a transcribed interview of Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson, conducted by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol pursuant to House Resolution 503. Ms. Hutchinson, | know we've met before, but if you don't mind introducing yourself for today. Ms. Hutchinson. Cassidy Jacqueline Hutchinson, H-u-t-c-h-i-n MR Tak you very much. And, Counsel, if you could introduce yourself today? Mr. Hunt. Thank you, yes. Jody Hunt, J-o-d-y, H-u-n-t. Officially and formally Joseph but known as "Jody," so ~ HR) thank you, Mr. Hunt. And my name {s II I'm a senior investigative counsel for the select committee. And with me today is Representative Liz Cheney, who's vice chair for the select committee. We have met a number of times before -- in February, March, and May ~ and the ground rules today are going to be the same as they were then. But, just to briefly go over them, I'll remind you that there's an official reporter transcribing the record of the interview. So please do wait until each question is complete before you start your answer, and we'll let you answer before we start our question. The stenographer can't take down nonverbal responses, so please use audible and verbal responses rather than things like shaking your head And we do ask that you could provide complete answers based on your best10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 recollection. And if there's anything that's not clear, feel free to ask us for clarification. And, finally, | do want to remind you that it's unlawful to deliberately provide false information to Congress. Do you have any questions about that? Ms. Hutchinson. No. Hight. very good. EXAMINATION Le Q_ We do have some additional questions for you today, and it will be a combination of me and Ms. Cheney asking those questions. But | wanted to start about the President and his desire to go to the Capitol on January the 6th. In one of our prior sessions, we did ask you about his desire to go to the Capitol on the 6th, as well as his conversation with Bobby Engel from the Secret Service as they walked to the limo after his Ellipse speech. Did you talk to anybody about what happened in the Presidential limo with the President as they returned to the White House from the Ellipse? A As| returned to the White House and walked into the West Wing, | went into Mr. Ornato's office, who was the deputy chief of staff, and | had a conversation with him and Bobby Engel, who was the special agent in charge of Mr. Trump's Secret Service detail. Q And about how long after you returned to the White House did that, conversation happen? ‘A We returned to the White House, and about 2 to 3 minutes later | walked into the West Wing and immediately walked into Mr. Ornato's office. So, best estimate, 5 minutes after everybody had arrived back at the White House.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 Q Okay. And other than Mr. Ornato and Mr. Engel, was anybody else in that office? A There's a possibility that Beau Harrison was in Mr. Ornato's office when that conversation happened. | don't recall specifically if he was there when the conversation started, but him and Mr. Ornato shared an office space. Q Allright. So, when you went into that office, what was the conversation like with Mr. Ornato and Mr. Engel? A So, when | walked up into the West Wing -- and I'm walking towards the chief of staff's office, and I see Tony standing kind of outside of the chief of staff suite looking around, and he waved me down. I went into his office, and he shut the door. We turned the corner, and I saw Mr. Engel ~ | saw Bobby sitting on the chair, and he was looking down, kind of looking a little lost and kind of discombobulated. Tony said something to the effect of, "Did you hear what Fiing happened?" And | said, "No. | just got back from the rally." And | looked at Bobby, and | said, "What's going on? What happened?" And Tony again said something to the effect of "This day is F'ing crazy" and looked at Bobby, | think expecting him to elaborate. And when Bobby hadn't said anything else, Tony had retold the story, | guess, as Bobby had relayed it to him, of what happened in the Beast, which was something along the lines of: When the President got into the Beast after the rally, he was under the impression that the OTR movement to the Capitol was still possible ~- the off-the-record movement to the Capitol was still possible. And when Bobby told him, no, that we were going back to the White House, the President kept pushing to go to the Capitol, saying, "I'm the F'ing President. You're10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 going to listen to what I'm telling you to do. We're going to the Capitol." And Bobby kept reiterating, "It's not safe, sir. We're bringing you back to the White House. That's final." When the car started moving, I'm under the impression, from the story as Tony had retold it, it just made Mr. Trump irate, and he lunged forward into what I believe is the — would be called the cab of the Presidential limo and went to grab at the steering wheel. And Bobby had said, "Sir, 'm going to need you to take your hand off. We're going back to the White House. That's final." Mr. Trump again was extremely angry at that response and used his free hand, to my understanding, to then lunge at Bobby Engel. Obviously he went back to the West Wing after that, so didn't make the movement to the Capitol. I don't know any conversations after that happened between Bobby and Mr. Trump in the car, but | know that Mr. Trump was still not happy, upon arriving back at the West Wing, that the movement didn't happen Q Okay. And what you just told us, Mr. Ornato said that, correct? A That's correct. Q__Didhe say that in front of Bobby Engel? He did. Q Did Bobby Engel ever correct Mr. Ornato, say that any of that did not happen? A Not to my recollection. He might have chimed in at a point and made a comment about it, but | don't remember him ever counteracting what Tony had told me. Q Okay. So Bobby Engel didn't say anything to cast doubt on anything that -- A No. Q = Mr. Ornato said.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 A No. Not to my recollection, no. Q Okay. Did Mr. Engel or Mr. Ornato ever, after that, come to you and say that what Mr. Ornato had told you was not true? A He did not. Ms. Cheney. Did they explain, Cassidy, given how the Beast -- the layout of the Beast, the distance that it would be, you know, for the President to have to get to lunge at the steering wheel? Did they just ~ Ms. Hutchinson, He didn't — Ms. Cheney. -- explain any specifics? Ms. Hutchinson. | know that Mr. Trump would typically sit towards the front of the limo, because he would have conversations with the special agent in charge. He would do that with Tony when Tony had the same position that Bobby was in. So, from my ~ I've never been in the Beast, but from what I understand, it's a relatively short distance at least to have the conversation, Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh. Ms. Hutchinson, | don't know the actual distance, if he would've been able to grab the wheel or if he was just trying to lunge at it, but [Phone vibrating.] Mr. Hunt. Idon't think that's me. Itisme. I'm sorry, Hs cute al right Mr. Hunt, Sorry. had put the ringer off. I'll put it down there. Maybe it, won't -- Q Was it your understanding that — well, let me ask it this way: Do you know who was driving?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 A don't. Somebody ~ this is vague, but somebody in the Transportation Services Division of the Secret Service, but I don’t know the identity of the driver that day. Q You mentioned OTR, and | think you also explained that's an off-the-record movement. You produced text messages to the committee that references the President wanting to do an OTR to the Capitol. That's the same OTR you mentioned in the prior session we had? A That's correct. Q Allright. And you said, when the President got back to the White House he was not happy. What makes you say that? A So, prior to leaving the rally site, when he got off the stage and everybody was making the movement back to the motorcade, | overheard Mr. Meadows say to him then, as | had prior to Mr. Trump taking the stage that morning, that he was still working on getting an off-the-record movement to the Capitol. So, when Mr. Trump took the stage, he was under the impression via Mr. Meadows that it was still possible. So, when he got off the stage, | had relayed to Mr. Meadows that | had another conversation with Tony; the movement was still not possible. Mr. Meadows said, "Okay." And then, as they proceeded to go to the motorcade, Mr. Meadows had reiterated, "We're going to work on it, sir. Talk to Bobby. Bobby has more information." Mark got into his vehicle. To my understanding, Trump got into the Beast. And after we had all arrived back at the White House later in the day, it had been relayed to me via Mark that the President wasn't happy that Bobby didn't pull it off for him and that Mark didn't work hard enough to get the movement on the books.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 Ms. Cheney. And how did you -- so you were in Mr. Ornato's office with this conversation. How did you leave things when you left the office? Ms. Hutchinson. | asked him if he had yet notified Mark of this, and he said, no, he ~ Mark's door was shut ~ he didn't know if he should interrupt, and he didn't know if he was in with anybody. I was like, "I think this is something that he should know." And he said, "All right. Well, let me know if he has a minute." So then | left and gone back to my office. Mark's door was still shut. | know at some point that afternoon Tony had relayed it to him. To my understanding, he told me that he was going to relay it to him, and they did have a private conversation. I was not present for the private conversation, and I never confirmed with Tony afterwards whether he actually told Mark that. But he looked at me afterwards and said something along the lines of, "All good." So, to me, that was an indication that he had informed Mr. Meadows of what happened in the Beast. But | didn't circle back to reconfirm that with him. be Q_— Doyou know why Mr, Ornato told you? A Mr. Ornato would frequently relay messages to me that he wanted to get to Mark. | don't know if that was the intention at that point or if it was more he was shocked. He was somebody that we both -- we both had confided in each other and talked about many different things throughout my tenure working in the White House, and we had a relationship established in trust. So I'm not sure if he told me to relay it to Mark or if it was more just him expressing how unbelievable and unprecedented that event was. Q__ Did you ever talk to Mr. Engel later that day?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 10 A Not about that. | think Bobby and I had a conversation later in the day. When | was in the Eisenhower Building, | believe | saw him, But we never personally spoke about that incident again. Q__ Did this issue about the President wanting to go to the Capitol come back up again that day? A Notto my recollection. | believe, once we were back at the White House, from everything | understood at the time, he knew it wasn't going to be possible. He was just angry it wasn't going to be possible. Q Did Mr. Meadows say anything else to you that afternoon about the President wanting to go to the Capitol? A Not that afternoon, Q Okay, A Other than, you know, that he was angry that the movement didn't happen and he felt that Mr. Trump was angry at him. But nothing about potentially re-raising it later in the day. Q_— And Mr, Trump being angry at him because he felt that Mr. Meadows hadn't done enough to make it happen? A Yes, and that he had misled him. Q "He," Mr. Meadows ~ A Sorry. Q_—~ misled the President? A Yes. Correct, | apologize for not being clear. Mr. Trump felt that Mr. Meadows had also misled him in Mr. Meadows relaying that an off-the-record movement would potentially and likely be possible. Q Okay.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 1 TR: you have anything else on that? Ms. Cheney. Anything else on that, Cassidy, you want to share with us? Ms. Hutchinson. No. as Q One of the things that we raised with you as well in the prior session is the President's reaction to the crowd and crowd placement at the Ellipse on January the 6th. Did the President make any statements about the nature of the crowd that had gathered outside the magnetometers, outside of kind of the formal rally space, on the 6th? A Hedid. Q_ Tellus about that. A When we were in the off-stage announce area tent behind the stage, he was very concerned about the shot, meaning the photograph that we would get, because the rally space wasn't full One of the reasons, which I have previously stated, was because he wanted it to be full and for people to not feel excluded because they had come far to watch him at the rally, and he felt the mags were at fault for not letting everybody in, But another leading reason and likely the primary reason is because he wanted it full, and he was angry that we weren't letting people through the mags with weapons -- what the Secret Service deems as weapons and are - are weapons. He, at the White House, had conversations, that Mr. Ornato had relayed to me, in the Oval Office that he wanted the mags taken away to get everybody in. But when we were in the off-stage announce tent, | was part of a conversation was in the vicinity of a conversation where | overheard the President say something to the effect of, "You know, | don't F'ing care that they have weapons. They're not here to10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 2 hurt me. Take the Fling mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol fromhere, Let the people in. Take the F'ing mags away." And the advance team on the ground had again relayed to him, as Tony had earlier that morning, that we can't; it's Secret Service protocol. And he said something to the effect of, you know, "F the Secret Service. I'mthe President. Take the F'ing mags away. They're not here to hurt me." QI want to go, | guess, back in time and unpack some of what you just said. You said the first time that the President mentioned wanting the mags to be taken away was in the White House, in the Oval Office. How did you know that? Were you in the Oval with them? A Iwas not. Mr. Ornato, | believe, either at one point had stepped into the Oval Office and had the conversation with him or he had the conversation with him on. the phone that morning. But, when | arrived at the White House that day, Mr. Ornato and | had several conversations, some of them with Mark, some of them privately. But he had relayed to me that the President was fired up about the mag situation. And the mags -- magnometers (sic) -- | can never pronounce that word ~- they had been an issue for us throughout the entire campaign, so it wasn't necessarily something that was a surprise. He was always flustered and angry at mags because we would always have to have overflow sections and he always blamed the mags for that, but it was just because of the capacity of our arenas. In this particular instance, it wasn't the capacity of our space; it was the mags and the people that didn't want to come through. And that's what Tony had been trying to relay to him that morning: You know, "It's not the issue that we encountered on the campaign. We have enough space, sir. They don't want to come in right now. They10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 13 have weapons that they don't want confiscated by the Secret Service. And they're fine on The Mall. They can see you on The Mall. And they want to march straight to the Capitol from The Mall." And the President had continued throughout the morning to express his frustrations about the mags to Mr. Orato. Before | left the White House, | had tried to convince Mr. Ornato to come down to the rally site with us in case the issue got raised again, and he said that he couldn't. He was going to stay back at the White House in case anything happened. But the advance team on the ground ~ he had relayed to the advance team what he had relayed to the President, so everybody was on the same message with that. | don't know if the message necessarily resonated with Trump, what Tony had said to him, and he thought that he could convince somebody on the ground once we got down there to change their minds and to try to bypass Tony's guidance, or if it was just an issue he wouldn't let go. You know, it could've gone either way. I'm not sure what the intentions were behind him continuing to press the issue as we got down to the tent, Q Do you know where Mr. Ornato was getting information about people having weapons at the Ellipse? A It's my understanding that he was in contact with -and, no, I'm not using the proper terminology, because | didn't work advance operations, but -- the advance leads for the Secret Service and the advance leads for the White House. You know, | know that they also are in communication with other law enforcement agencies and other Secret Service personnel on the ground. So | don't know the specific individuals, but it was his job to kind of facilitate all that conversation and make sure it was streamlined at the deputy-chief-of staff level. QI think the last time we talked you mentioned that some of the weapons that10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 14 people had at the rally included flagpoles, oversized sticks or flagpoles, bear spray. Is. there anything else that you recall hearing about that the people who had gathered on the Ellipse had? A {recall Tony and | having a conversation with Mark, probably around 10:00 a.m., 10:15 a.m., where | remember Tony mentioning knives, guns in the form of pistols and rifles, bear spray, body armor, spears, and flagpoles. Spears were one item, flagpoles were one item, but then Tony had relayed to me something to the effect of, "And these F'ing people are fastening spears onto the ends of flagpoles." Q And did Mr. Ornato or is it your understanding that Mr. Ornato told the President that people with weapons who didn't want to go through the mags were also there to march to the Capitol that afternoon? A Could you repeat your question? Q Yes. Absolutely. Is it your understanding that Mr. Ornato or somebody else told the President that the people who did not want to come through the mags, potentially because they had weapons, also wanted to march to the Capitol on January 6th? A It's my understanding -- | don't know if he explicitly said, "They have weapons, and they want to use these weapons to march to the Capitol." But it's my understanding that it was just more of a consensus that it was widely known that the people were going to march to the Capitol, and that's how Tony had relayed it to the. President, if that makes sense ~ Q Okay. A ~that, you know, the people both in the rally and outside on the National Mall or -- yeah, by the Washington Monument on The Mall were going to march to the10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 15, Capitol. But I don't - | just -- I'm trying to be careful because | don't want to attribute the weapons necessarily. Just that people had weapons and there were also people out there that were going to march to the Capitol. Q Sure. Ms. Cheney. And I think, just to go back to what you described a minute ago, Cassidy, that, in the backstage discussion -- Ms. Hutchinson. Uh-huh. Ms. Cheney. So, in the backstage discussion, do you remember who was in that discussion? Ms. Hutchinson. | remember the President's back was standing to ~ his back would've been to the stage if the tent hadn't been there, and Mr. Meadows was standing to the President's right. | believe Ivanka Trump was standing next to Mr. Meadows, Scavino was off to the back side, somewhat in the conversation but not really adding or contributing anything to it. And | believe Eric Herschmann and Don Jr. were also in that circle, | was standing next to Mr. Meadows' security detail, probably 2 to 3 feet behind Mr. Meadows. Ms. Cheney. And, just to be clear: So he was told again in that conversation -- or was he told again in that conversation that people couldn't come through the mags because they had weapons? Ms. Hutchinson. Correct. Ms. Cheney. And his response was to say they can march to the Capitol from the Ellipse? Ms. Hutchinson, Something to the effect of, "Take the F'ing mags away.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 16 They're not here to hurt me. Let them in. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol after the rally is over. They can march from ~ they can march from the Ellipse. Take the F'ing mags away. Then they can march to the Capitol." Ms. Cheney. Thank you bn Q Was he told, no, that couldn't happen, the mags had to say? A He was. Atone point - and it was one of the advance leads on the ground. Max Miller and Bobby Peede were the advance leads on the ground that day. | believe it was Max Miller that had continued to reiterate to him that, "We can't take them away, sir, It's Secret Service protocol." You know, he kept pressing it, and I think eventually he let it go. You know, he took the stage, and the mags stayed, but ~ Q — Doyou remember the President's reaction when Mr. Miller or someone else told him that the mags needed to stay? A He was angry still. don't recall him dropping the issue. To be honest, | was kind of tuning in and out of the conversation too. I don't remember how quickly they switched gears and what topic was next, so if it kind of just naturally led into something else or if he just said, "Okay," and brushed it off. But the last that I had heard about it was, he still was sort of pressing for it, and then he just kept going on something else a few minutes later. Q We have a photo that we obtained from the Archives that shows the President in the off-stage announce area looking at a TV of what was happening at the rally. Do you remember that? A [Nonverbal response.]10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 7 Q Yes? A Sorry. Yes. Q Okay. A I recall him watching a TV Q Okay. A ~and watching what was happening outside. Q Was he commenting on the crowd or the crowd size when he was watching the TV, do you recall? A Not that | personally heard. Q So this would've been a separate conversation, not when he was watching the TV? A Correct I remember seeing him looking at the TV. At this point, | was standing more towards the back of the tent, and | believe | was standing with Julia Radford, who was Ivanka's chief of staff at the time. And in between this, too, Mark was kind of walking around. He had sent me out to look for Rudy Giuliani at one point, So, like, I recall standing in the back of the tent to try to see if, you know, things were a little calmer in there and if it was an appropriate time for me to approach Mr. Meadows, but | wasn't around to hear any of his remarks. Q Okay. Ms. Cheney. Can you go back for just a minute, Cassidy, to this discussion around 10:00 or 10:15 with Tony and Mark? What was Mark's reaction, Mr. Meadows’ reaction, to this list of weapons that people had in the crowd? Ms. Hutchinson. I'm trying to find my ~~10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 18 Ms. Cheney. Take your time. Ms. Hutchinson. -- section on this. There was a point in one of my depositions where we had a discussion about this, and | was asked a question along the lines of, "Did Mr. Meadows express concern?" And the issue | took with the question was that Mr. Meadows didn't necessarily express concern, but he, rather, seemed sort of disconnected and aloof at it. When Tony and I went in to talk to Mark that morning, Mark was sitting on his couch and on his phone, which was something typical. And, you know, if you're popping in between meetings, he was just catching up on stuff. And I remember Tony just got right into it and was like, “Sir, I just want to let you know" and informed him, like, "This is how many people we have outside the mags right now, these are the weapons that we're known to have" - it's possible he listed more weapons off that | just don't recall -- and gave him a brief but inconcise explanation, but also fairly thorough And | remember distinctly Mark not looking up from his phone. | remember Tony finishing his explanation and it taking a few seconds for Mark to say something, to the point where I almost said, "Mark, did you hear him?" And then Mark chimed in and was like, “All right. Anything else?", still looking down at his phone. And Tony looked at me, and | looked at Tony, and Tony said, "No, Do you have any questions?” It's like, what are you hearing? And I looked at Tony. And | was like, "Sir, he just told you about what was happening down at the rally," and he's like, "Yeah, yeah, | know." And then he looked up and said, "Have you talked to the President?” And Tony said, "Yes, sir, he is aware too." And he said, "All right. Good."10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 19 And then he changed the subject to something else that was completely unrelated, | think it had to do with a potential Texas trip that we were going to take ina few days that wasn't planned yet, and he asked Tony if his team had been working on it. And Tony said, "We're still tracking it, sir." And then Mark said, “All right. Very good." And then we just kind of took that as our cue to leave. Ms. Cheney. So he asked Tony if Tony had informed the President. Ms. Hutchinson. Yes. Ms. Cheney. And Tony said, yes, he had. Ms. Hutchinson. And he said, "All right," and then changed the subject. But he ~ I know Mark well -- knew Mark well. There wasn't a point in that conversation that | had perceived him to understand or interpret anything as a concern, It was more as a "thank you for letting me know and doing your job" type of reaction, not a "we should be doing something; what would you" -- not looking for advice or guidance on how we should approach the situation. Ms. Cheney. Did he seem surprised? Ms. Hutchinson. | wouldn't say he seemed surprised Ms. Cheney. Anything else in that conversation with Tony? Did he talk to you afterwards as you left Mr. Meadows’ office? Ms. Hutchinson, No, | believe at that point we had both walked out, and we might've said, you know, just a few words to each other, like, "All right," like, "Keep in touch," sort of ending that conversation on our end, and then he went back to his office. We talked one more time before | went out to West Exec to wait for the motorcade, but it was just me reconfirming with Tony that he wasn't going to come down, Because | had Meadows' vehicles manifested in the motorcade, so | told Tony that he could ride down in Meadows' limos with me if he wanted to, and he had just10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 20 reconfirmed he was going to stay up at the White House. But ~- and, to the best of my recollection, those are the conversations | had with Tony prior to leaving for the Ellipse. Ms. Cheney. And did he give you any reason why he wasn't going to the Ellipse? Ms. Hutchinson. He had relayed to me something along the lines of, "I'm going back to the Secret Service in afew weeks, | don't need to be seen down there. I'll get myself into some trouble." | don't know if he had conversations with the Director or whoever would be his new supervisor when he returned to the Service after January 20th, but, from the end of December throughout the month of January, Tony tried to take a step back and not be involved in the optics with Trump as much as he had been in the previous months. Ln Q What did you understand him to mean, when he said he might --it could get himself into trouble ~ or he could get himself into trouble by going down there? A Tony was always hypersensitive to the fact that a lot of people in the Secret Service have seen his detail from the Secret Service to an employee of the White House as something that was highly controversial, as it'd never been done before. And people, for a long time, in the Secret Service had attributed him to being a Trump guy and a Trump loyalist. So remember, during this period after we had lost, you know, Tony was aware that he would have to go back, and | think that he didn't want to create further controversy by being a leading voice or being perceived by the Secret Service as a leading voice or somebody that was making decisions as we were trying to ~ as individuals in the White House were trying to fight the results of the election. Q Could we go back to the tent really quickly?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 21 Was there anybody else in the tent? _ | think you mentioned Mr. Herschmann was there, Mr, Scavino was there. Did anybody have any reaction to the discussion about weapons being found or the President wanting magnetometers taken away? A — Not that Ican recall. It's very poss-~I wasn't in every conversation. The only reason | overheard him talking about the magnometers (sic) when | did ~- the mags when | did is because | had just gotten back from looking for Rudy, because Mark asked me to go try to find Rudy. So | had walked back in through the entrance that I knew that Mark was standing close to, and | kind of just got caught in the crossfires of that conversation. The only other commentary that | had really heard was from the advance side of the operations, though, where they had said, Sir, like, we can't, and this is why. It's possible that the conversation had been a couple minutes ~ had been happening for a couple minutes before | had arrived. But, in my presence, that was the extent of the pushback that | listened to, Q Okay. Ms. Cheney. And did you -- so Mark asked to you go find Rudy. Did you find Rudy? Ms. Hutchinson. Ididn't. | found a campaign staffer on the ground who | loosely knew was in charge of VIP operations, just because they were standing towards the front and that's typically where the VIP guests would be placed. Sol remember saying to them ~ and I don't remember who it was, but | said, "If you see Rudy Giuliani, can you send him back to the tent?" And they said, "Okay." And it was after Trump took the stage, is when Rudy came back to the tent. Ms. Cheney. And do you know why Mr. Meadows wanted you to find Rudy? Ms. Hutchinson, Idon't. Ididn’t ask him. |, you know -- my best guess |10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 2 know you don't want me to guess, but, knowing what | know, knowing what I knew at the time, Mr, Meadows and Trump wanted to have a conversation with him. I'm not sure about what, but -- you know. Le Q Probably election-related, | assume? A {don't think they were talking about post-election plans. Post-January 6th, | guess I should say. Q Do you remember anything that Mr. Giuliani said when he went to the tent? A The first thing | remember him saying to me was something to the effect of ~ he had a stack of papers with him. He said, "More evidence. We're going to pull this off. More evidence, Cassidy. Look. | told you. | told you this whole time." 1 said, "Sir, you keep pushing it." He walked away, and he said, "Where's Mark?" | think at that point Mark was still towards the front of the tent, and | said, "Up there." They had a brief conversation. It could've been a few minutes after Rudy had got to him in the tent, in case Mr, Meadows was wrapped up in a different one at the time. So they talked for a little bit. And then Mark went to the control vehicle, took a number of calls. Rudy hung back, stil, in the tent for the rest of ~ for the remainder of the rally, which was pretty much the whole thing. | remember he got back to the tent maybe 5 minutes after the President took the stage. Q_—Atthat point, Mr. Giuliani had spoken at the rally. And one of the things that he said -- don't quote me, but it was something to the effect of, "We're going to have trial by combat." Do you remember any discussions in the backstage area about the comments that10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 23 Mr. Giuliani made at the rally on the Ellipse? A {don't remember the comments specific to Mr. Giuliani, But I remember, at one point, not hearing Mr. Trump say this -- somebody had relayed to me that he had just said this; | believe it was Eric Herschmann — that Mr. Trump had continued to press. the idea that he wanted to include lines in the speech, "We're going to fight like hell," “fight for Trump" -- more of the combative language that | understood Rudy to have used that morning. | didn't understand it, though, to be connected and inspired by Rudy's speech that morning, though. Q__ Did Mr. Herschmann say that he had been advocating one position or another -- include that language, don't include that language - to Mr. Trump? A Erichad been very vocal to me about how we would be F'ing idiots if we were to include language like that and it's not something that we should do. And he was fighting to keep it out of the President's speech that morning, Q Did he say why? A Hedidn't. | also just kind of -- | didn't ask, and | sort of just inferred that it was a bad idea because it was a dangerous idea. Q Okay. HR :ything further on that? a One of the things we discussed last time was the President's reaction to the rioters chanting, "Hang Mike Pence. I'm hoping you can walk us through again as you were in the chief of staff's office and Mr, Meadows came back to talk to you about that. So what do you remember Mr. Meadows coming back and saying? And who was10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 24 with him? A If you all don't mind, | think it's best to put this a little bit in a timeline, just for clarity purposes, and if you have ~ Ms. Cheney. Go ahead, Ms. Hutchinson. -- further questions, it's totally fine to answer them that way. Ls Ms. Hutchinson. Sol remember Mark being alone in his office for quite some time. And, you know, | know we've spoken about Ben Williamson going in at one point, and | don't personally remember Ben going in. | don't doubt that he had gone in. But | remember him being alone in his office for most of the afternoon. Around 2 o'clock to 2:05 ~ | believe is where | had pinpointed it — around 2 o'clock to 2:05, you know, we were watching the TV, and I could see that the rioters were getting closer and closer to the Capitol. Mark still hadn't popped out of his office or said anything about it So that's when | went into his office. | saw that he was sitting on his couch on his cell phone, same as the morning, where he was just kind of scrolling and typing. had said, "Hey, are you watching the TV, Chief?" Because his TV was small, and you can see it, but | didn't know if he was really paying attention. | said, "Are you watching the TV, Chief?" ‘And he's like, "Yeah?" | said, "The rioters are getting really close. Have you talked to the President?" And he said, "No. He wants to be alone right now," still looking at his phone. So | started to get frustrated, because, you know, | sort of felt like | was watching a~ this is not a great comparison, but --a bad car accident that was about to happen, where you can't stop it but you want to be able to do something.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 25, And | just remember ~ I remember thinking in that moment, Mark needs to snap out of this, and I don't know how to snap him out of this, but he needs to care. And | just remember, | blurted out, | said, "Mark, do you know where Jim's at right now?" And he looked up at me at that point and said, "Jim?" And | said, "Mark, he was on the floor a little while ago giving a floor speech. Did you listen?" He said, "Yeah. It was real good. Did you like it?" And I said, "Yeah. Do you know where he's at right now?" He said, "Well, no, | haven't heard from him." And | said, "You might want to check in with him, Mark," and | remember pointing at the TV, and I said, "The rioters are getting close. They might get in.” ‘And he looked at me and said something to the effect of, "All right, I'll give him a call." And | said, "Okay," and | walked out. And | just was like, | can't do anything else right now. | did what | could A couple minutes later - from what | now understand from your timeline, the rioters broke into the Capitol 2:11, 2:12. No more than a minute, minute and a half later, | see Pat Cipollone barreling down the hallway towards our office. ‘And he rushed right in, looked at me, said, "Is Mark in his office?" And | said, "Yes." And on a normal day he would've said, "Can | pop in," or, "Is he talking to anyone," or, "Is it an appropriate time for me to go chat with him," and myself or Eliza would go let him in or tell him no. But after | had said yes, he just looked at me and started shaking his head and10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 26 went over, opened Mark's office door, stood there with the door propped open, and said something to the -- Mark was still sitting on his phone. | remember, like, glancing in, He was stil sitting on his phone. And | remember Pat saying to him something to the effect of, "The rioters have gotten to the Capitol, Mark. We need to go down and see the President now." And Mark looked up at him and said, "He doesn't want to do anything, Pat." And Pat said something to the effect of - and very clearly said this to Mark -- something to the effect of, "Mark, something needs to be done, or people are going to die and the blood's gonna be on your F'ing hands. This is getting out of control. I'm going down there.” And, at that point, Mark stood up from his couch, both of his phones in his hand. He had glasses on still. He walked out with Pat. He put both of his phones on my desk and said, "Let me know if Jim calls." And they walked out and went down to the dining room A couple minutes later, so likely around between 2:15 and 2:25 -- | know the tweet went out at 2:24, I don't remember if | was there when the tweet went out or if it happened right afterwards, but Jim had called. | answered the phone, said, "One second." He knew it was -- | guess he knew it was ~ I didn't introduce myself, but | ~ I don't remember if he called my cell phone or if he had called one of Mark's. But | answered the phone and said, "One sec. Mark's down the hall. I'm gonna go hand the phone to him." And he said, "Okay." Sol went down, asked a valet if Mark was in the dining room. The valet said, "Yes." | opened the door to the dining room, briefly stepped in to get Mark's attention, showed him the phone, like, flipped the phone his way so he could see it said10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 7 “Jim Jordan.” He had stepped to where | was standing there holding the door open, took the phone, talking to Jim with the door still propped open. So | took a few steps back. So! probably was 2 feet from Mark. He was standing in the doorway going to the Oval Office dining room. They had a brief conversation, and, in the crossfires, you know, | had heard briefly, like, what they were talking about. But, in the background, | had heard conversations in the Oval dining room at that point talking about the "Hang Mike Pence" chants. I'm not sure if this was at 2:23 or 2:25 or at 2:24, right as the tweet went out, but it was somewhere in that timeframe. And | remember hearing conversations about it, but | don't remember hearing personally the President taking a side on it. It wasn't until Mark hung up the phone, handed it back to me, | went back to my desk. Acouple minutes later, him and Pat came back, possibly Eric Herschmann too. I'm pretty sure Eric Herschmann was there, but I'm ~ I'm confident it was Pat that was there. | remember Pat saying something to the effect of, "Mark, we need to do something more. They're literally calling for the Vice President to be F'ing hung.” ‘And Mark had responded something to the effect of, "You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it, He doesn’t think they're doing anything wrong.” To which Pat said something, "This is Fiing crazy. We need to be doing something more," briefly stepped into Mark's office. ‘And when Mark had said something -- when Mark had said something to the effect of, "He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong," knowing what | had heard briefly in the dining room, coupled with Pat discussing the "Hang Mike Pence" chants in the lobby of our office and then Mark's response, | understood "they're" to be the rioters10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 28 in the Capitol that were chanting for the Vice President to be hung. Ms. Cheney. And did you hear ~- so Pat's response to that sequence you just walked through was to say, "We have to do something." Did they then go into Mark's office, or - Ms. Hutchinson. Briefly. And | had trouble trying to pinpoint how long they were in there, They ~ my memory is sharp, and | wish it was a camera ~ a recorder. But | don't know if they were in there when the 2:38 tweet went out. They Ms. Cheney. Meaning in the dining room, or in — Ms. Hutchinson. Correct. Ms. Cheney. -- Mark's office? Ms. Hutchinson. Because, from what | understand, the Vice President was moved to the secure location around 2:25, 2:26. Right before Mark and Pat had come back, Tony had popped his head in the office and let me know that Pence was just moved toa secure location. And then Tony was gone right when they got back. So it was right around that timeframe is when they had returned to our office, in my best estimate, I'm not sure if Tony told me the moment that Pence was secure or if he told me 2 minutes afterwards. So just for that timeframe. But they only were in Mark's office for a few moments, and then they went back down to the dining room. Ms. Cheney. And did they shut the door when they went into ~~ Ms. Hutchinson. They did. Ms. Cheney. -- Mark's office? Ms. Hutchinson. And Mark's door would automatically shut, too, unless you propped it open. So he ~- they just went in and let it swing shut. Ms. Cheney. And who ~ you said Eric Herschmann might have been with them then?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 29 Ms. Hutchinson. | think | remember Eric walking in, but going right into Mark's office, Because when Mark had left his office, he didn't prop the door open, so he walked out and the door swung shut. I'm almost certain that | remember Eric walking in and just going directly to Mark's office, so the door would've shut by itself But he went in and out of the office so often that afternoon that | - I'm confident he was there, but | --just for the purposes of the record and you all's investigation process, | don't want to say definitively whether he was. Ms. Cheney. And ivanka? | think you mentioned that she came in at a ~ Ms. Hutchinson. Ivanka was in and out that afternoon too, Again, | don't recall her being there in this timeframe, though. Mr. Hunt. Can you--excuse me. Can we specify? In and out of where? Ms. Hutchinson. I'm sorry, In and out of the chief of staff's office So there's a -- I'm trying to draw the distinction. There's the chief of staff's office suite, which is the main, like, bullpen area when you first walk in. And then there's Mark's office, which would be ~ well, now Mr. Klain's office -- right off to the side of the main office suite there. Mr. Hunt. | just want to make sure we're talking about that, as opposed to the jing room. Because we've talked about both — Ms, Hutchinson. Got it. Yeah. Mr. Hunt, so | just wanted to ~~ Ms. Cheney. Okay. Ms. Hutchinson. Ivanka was back and forth between the dining room and our office several times throughout that afternoon. | don't think that she was there for the portion about -- for the portion of the conversation where Mark and Pat had discussed the chants and the President not wanting to react to the chants.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 30 Ms. Cheney. In terms of the time, Cassidy, do you recall, are there other markers in terms of when you saw Mr, Meadows go back and forth throughout the course of the afternoon? Ms. Hutchinson, So the first time that | recall him going down to the dining room was with Pat after the rioters had broken into the Capitol. He had returned to our office, again, around 2:25, probably closer to 2:30, spent a few moments in our office, then -- and then everybody retreated back to the dining room. There is a point around 2:40, just by watching what was unfolding and kind of understanding where things could be headed that afternoon, that | went over to the Eisenhower Building to meet with our detail. Around 2:40, | believe, is my best estimate of when | walked over to the Eisenhower Building. On a typical day, if | was going to go over there and brief them or talk to them. about plans for the day, | would spend 25 to 30 minutes with them. lunderstood ~ at the moment, | didn't know it was 2:44 — but, afterwards, | understood that Ashli Babbitt had been shot off the House part (ph), | believe 2:44, close to 2:44, According to my texts, Tony had texted me at 2:49 p.m. saying that the White House was in condition yellow, which ~l immediately went back to the West Wing at that point with somebody on Mark's detail, because they have to stay with him at that point. So, around 2:52, | had returned to the West Wing, When | had arrived back in the West Wing, Mark had walked into our office almost immediately after, because ~ and I don't remember which guy on the detail it was that was going to stay with him for that shift, but -- or that portion of the shift, but they were walking down to the dining room, and then they caught him in the hallway and came into the office with him. So probably around between 2:52 and 2:55.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 31 And Mark spent a little bit of time in the office then — my best estimate would be 7 to 10 minutes -- and then went back down to the dining room. Ms. Cheney. And when you -- when you -- well, let me stay on the timeline. So, 7 to 10 minutes in the office, and then he went to the dining room. Ms. Hutchinson. Right. And, sorry, | should've said it - Ms. Cheney. It's okay. Ms. Hutchinson, -- alittle bit more clear. Then Trump's tweet went out at 3:13 Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh. Ms. Hutchinson. To the best of my recollection, Mark was in the dining room with him when that tweet went out. Because | remember him coming back a couple minutes after that tweet went out and having a conversation in the office, And | believe he stayed in the office for a little bit - and, again, maybe 5, 10 minutes ~- and then went back to the dining room But every time Mark -- so there was about a roughly 15-minute period where | wasn't in the office, so I don't know if he came and went then. But throughout the afternoon, as he was back and forth, there would be points, too, where he was still in the di jing room and others that were in the dining room with him, such as Ivanka Trump or Eric Herschmann, would leave the Oval dining room and come back and just use Mark's personal office in the chief of staff's office suite just for a couple minutes. | don't know if it was for a breather or to have a conversation away from the dining room. So Mark wasn't always with the people that were coming back and forth in the office. Ms. Cheney. Could | go back for just a second to the Jim Jordan phone call? Ms. Hutchinson, Uh-huh.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 32 Ms. Cheney. So, when you went in and you handed the phone to Mr. Meadows, do you know anything about what Jim Jordan said to him? Ms. Hutchinson. No. | took --1 understood that call to be more of a followup to me urging Mark to reach out to him, out of my concern that Mark wasn't concerned -- Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh. Ms. Hutchinson. — for what was going on. And Jim is the one person that, | and | knew Mark well. If there's anybody that Mark really truly cares about, it's Jim Jordan. So I, in that moment, knew —- you know, felt kind of bad doing it at the time, but ~ to invoke his name to try to get Mark to snap out of it and show him that, you know, this is something that he should be concerned about. | don't remember hearing anything in that conversation that raised an eyebrow. To the best of my recollection, it was, "I just wanted to check, buddy, are you doing okay? Everything okay up there? Allright. Well, keep me posted. Shoot me a text or give Cassa call if you need anything. All right. Bye." So, you know, | didn’t hear anything that related to what was going on in the West Wing. It was maybe a 30- to 45-second phone call, maybe a minute, but it was very quick. Ms. Cheney. And when you went and gave Mr. Meadows the phone, you mentioned that you'd heard discussions about the chants. Anything else that you ~ Ms. Hutchinson. No. No. Ms. Cheney. -- heard that — Ms. Hutchinson. Other than, again, | -- you could hear the TV; I could hear Mark's conversation. And just, like, as a personal rule at the time, | tried to tune out a lot of the conversation | would hear, just because of the proximity that | had, and | didn't ever want people to feel | was eavesdropping or trying to insert myself into the10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 33 conversation or into a moment. But I remember hearing the "Hang Mike Pence," and I ~ | don't remember if | had seen a tweet about the chants or if somebody had told me about the chants, but | was aware of the chants prior to going down there. So, once | had heard "Hang Mike Pence," in the dining room, that's what piqued my interest, and | remember trying to listen a little closer. But, at that point, Mark was wrapping up his call. | didn't want to be glancing over his shoulder, because it's a narrow entryway to the dining room, so it would've been obvious if | was trying to listen a little closer. And then he just handed me the phone back and closed the door. But | just remember hearing that being said a couple times before the door getting shut. | didn't really hear much more. Ms. Cheney. So was it said, like, the television, it was broadcast, or people ~ Ms. Hutchinson. No. It was people --it was people in the room. Ms. Cheney. And do you know who else was in the room at that point? Ms. Hutchinson. I don't. | couldn't see past Mark's shoulders. Ms. Cheney. Okay. Ms. Hutchinson. | understood Pat Cipollone to be in the room because he had gone down there with Mark, and, you know, I've since learned who else was in there. But, in that moment, I didn't see ~ I didn't physically see anybody with my own eyes that was in there, Ms. Cheney. Okay. | | Q Have you since learned that Mr. Scavino was in there? A Inthat exact moment? Q Ifyou know.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 34 A No. I mean, that exact moment, I'm not sure, When Dan would go in there, too, there - sometimes he would stand to ~ there's 2 hallway that connects the Oval Office to the Oval dining room, and sometimes he would stand in the doorway right there. So you wouldn't have ~ you couldn't see him from where | was standing. And | don't remember Mark or Pat coming back and saying, Dan overheard this, or Dan ~- you know, he participated in the conversation. Q Okay. A It's likely that he was. When the President was in the dining room, more often than not Dan was with him. But I just -- I can't confirm whether he was in that exact moment that | was standing there. Q You mentioned being able to hear the TV. Do you remember whether it was live coverage of what was happening at the Capitol, as opposed to a replay of the President's speech, or something else altogether? A don't. | just remember hearing the muffles of the TV. And that was just contributing to the drowning out of different noise and conversations that | couldn't fully hear. It was obstructing my hearing from full accuracy. Q Could you hear the President at all, even if just, kind of, tone of voice? A Iremember hearing him say "hang." And that might sound sort of ridiculous, but he has a very distinct voice. And | remember him ~-I remember hearing him say "hang" one or two times. But | don't remember —- again, | don't remember really, like -- because that was what had, like, piqued my interest, And then I had heard somebody else in the room -- | know that there was other men in the room, because Mark was on the phone, and the other people | heard wasn't Trump. | couldn't distinguish if it was Pat Cipollone or if it was potentially Scavino,10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 35, Eric Herschmann, But | remember hearing, like, the "Hang Mike Pence," again, one or two other times when | was standing there. Q You mentioned that when Mr. Meadows, Mr. Cipollone, and possibly Mr. Herschmann came back to the chief of staff suite, that Pat Cipollone said that they needed to do something, do something more. Do you remember ever learning what it was, or did Mr. Cipollone say what they needed to be doing? A Inthat moment, no. | don't recall Pat saying - you know, when he said, “We need to do something more," | don't recall him saying, you know, we need to put out a different statement, we need to put out a tweet, he needs to film a video, he needs to go live on TV. Those were all ideas that | know later were entertained, but, in that moment, | only recall him saying something to the effect of: We need to be doing something more, that this wasn't enough; they're literally calling for the Vice President to be hung And that's when Mark, again, had said something to the effect of -- and he sounded quite exasperated ~ | know my tone won't transfer to you lovely employees down there. But he had said something to the effect of, you know, "You heard him, Pat. He doesn't want to do anything more. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong.” So it was more of the how he was saying it. And, you know, just, with what Pat had said before, | don't know if it was necessarily Mark disagreeing, but -~ Ms. Cheney. You described for us, sort of, three different camps inside the White House. And, as | recall, you described sort of a group of people who said, "Well, let's blame antifa," and then another group of people who said, basically, "Let's not do anything," sort of the neutral position, and then a third group who were saying, "We have to tell them to stop. We have to tell them to go home.”36 And, you know, as you described, sort of, Pat and Mark's interactions here, can you give us any more information about, sort of, who might have been in those three groups or where you would say ~| think you said to us before that the President ultimately ended up neutral But, you know, would you say Mr. Cipollone -- could you put him in one of those groups?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 37 [2:05 p.m.] Ms. Hutchinson. |-- again, I'm hesitant to -- people might categorize themselves differently than how | would. But from what | had heard and understood at the time, you know, | think there might be some discrepancy where some people would please Mark. | personally, knowing Mark, knowing what | overheard in conversations that | had had with him that afternoon and overheard him have without White House counsel, | believe that he would — he took the more neutral stance. You know, there were points that he wanted to take the blame about more privately, but | think he knew that that wasn't -in the back of his mind, | think that he knew that that wasn't a really viable option; it was more of his personal opinion. White House Counsel's Office wanted there to be a strong statement out to condemn the rioters. I'm confident in that. I'm confident that Ivanka Trump wanted there to be a strong statement to condemn the rioters. | don't know the private conversations she had with Mr. Trump, but | remember when she came to the office one time with White House Counsel's Office -- when she came through the chief of staff's, office with White House Counsel's Office, she was talking about the speech later that day and trying to get her dad on board with saying something that was more direct than he had wanted to at the time and throughout the afternoon. ‘Again, and | personally would say that Mr. Trump ended up taking the more neutral route. | don't know if that helps answer your question. Ms. Cheney. Yeah, it does. And we can we can come back to that as well Q Just to clarify something, you just mentioned that Ivanka Trump wanted the10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 38 President to be more direct. What do you mean by that? Direct in what? A From what | understood, and, again, this is just from hearing, it was ~ | know I've said this and I don't want to sound like a broken record. But it was a chaotic afternoon, There were a lot of people back and forth, And I'm — my memory isn't entirely perfect on, you know, how conversations progressed through the afternoon. But I remember her saying at various points, you know, she wants him ~ she wanted her dad to send them home. She wanted her dad to tell them to go home peacefully, and she wanted to include language that he necessarily wasn't on board with at the time. Again, I'm not sure what was happening in the dining room. | wasn't in the dining room participating in these discussions. So this is me just picking up on what people were saying as they were back and forth You know, it's possible that she was privately advocating for something different. But in — when she was in my presence, she had sided more with White House counsel, which was, you know, like, let's try to get him to call this off completely. This has gotten out of control. Q And White House counsel being Pat Cipollone? A Correct Q — Doyou remember any other conversations that people had when they came back from the Oval dining room or Oval Office and went into the chief of staff's suite? A I'msorry to ask you this. Could you be a little more specific, if possible? Q Sure. Yeah. I think you mentioned ~- I don't want to mischaracterize what you said, but | think you mentioned that some people were using the chief of staff's suite as a place to come and rest or just take a break. A Yeah.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 39 Q And as they did that, do you remember anybody talking about what was going on in the Oval Office or what the President's reaction to what was happening? A Right now, nothing more than what I've already said. I'm sorry, I'm trying to remember. I'm going to make a note of that. Q Okay. A And I'll come back to it in case anything sparks my memory. A lot of it was about the statement that he was putting out and whether or not a video was going to be filmed, what the video would say. | know that there was conversations about just what was happening. | remember at one point Eric Herschmann was leaning up against my desk, watching the TV, just being like this is un-fuck -- un-F'ing believable. But -- pardon me. Q No, that's quite all right. If that's what he said, that's okay. A But outside of just general commentary and discussions about statements and the President reacting on social media, | don't recall anything in this moment. But I've made a note in case | remember something else. Q_ Okay. Thank you for doing that I think, just to follow up on Ms. Cheney's questioning about there being, you know, three camps that you described, one being call it off announce it right now camp, the other more neutral, and then the final camp of those who wanted to blame it on. groups that were not Trump supporters. Who do you remember being in that last camp, the people who wanted to blame it on groups that weren't Trump supporters? ‘A | remember there was one point -- and this would've been a little bit later in the afternoon, after the 3:13 tweet went out, the 3:13 tweet, which was the, I'm asking for everybody at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence. Remember we are10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 40 a party of law and order. Respect the law and our great men and women in blue. Thank you. Shortly after that tweet went out, | remember Mark coming back to the office and standing in the main office area, and he was alone this time, and he was watching the TV and had said to the room, it wasn't necessarily directed at one person, although he had turned around and looked at me and sort of passing looked at Eliza first who was behind me, said, did you see the President's tweet? And Eliza was, like, Yes, | don't think he should have said that. Mark was like, What didn't you like about it? And she said something to the effect of, | think it needs to be said that this is, antifa, and he needs to say that this isn't ~ these aren't our people, because these aren't our people. And herein Mark said, | agree but other people don't agree with me. And they kept the conversation going for a few minutes. And I remember looking behind me, catty-corner, diagonal from me was Michael Haidet, who was the President's scheduler at the time. And | remember looking at Michael and kind of giving him a look like, is this a real conversation right now? And | tried to bite my tongue, and then at one point | just — interjecting, | was like, Do you guys actually think this is antifa? And Eliza was like, These aren't our people. And | looked at Mark and | looked at her, and | remember saying something to the effect of, can't believe you guys are already blaming this on antifa. That's F'ing ridiculous. | don't know why you guys think that's helpful. Look at what's happening in there right now. It doesn't matter who this is. What matters is that it's happening, And she had kind of came back and said, Well, we shouldn't blame our people.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 a Like, our people are peaceful. Our people are this. ‘And Mark was, like, Yes, you know, our people aren't violent, Our people would never do something like this And there's sort of a heated argument in that moment to which | then removed myself from. Ms. Cheney. A heated argument between you and Eliza and Mr. Meadows? Ms. Hutchinson. Yes. And then at one point Michael Haidet had also chimed in and said, Look, until we know it's antifa, we probably shouldn't say it's antifa. And, you know, | think at that point he was trying to simmer things a little bit. Neither Michael nor | like conflict, but | was also just in a place where | just didn't - it was unbelievable that that conversation was happening in this moment and I couldn't stop, myself from saying anything about it. So at that point, | mean, | had just removed myself from the conversation because, obviously, at that point the President hadn't put anything out that was antifa, And | didn't want to be present for any conversation that would further complicate things in case there was a conversation about trying to convince him to put something out about antifa. learned the next morning that, you know, Jason Miller - Mark had told me that Jason Miller had sent him things overnight about calling antifa. And Mark had told me that he had heard from Members of Congress that night and that morning that it was definitely antifa and they have proof of it. He asked me what | had thought about it. | just remember shaking his head and saying, | don't want to have this conversation with you, Mark. And he said, Well, do you think the President should say something about antifa? It could have been rhetorical. He might have been looking for my advice, but |10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 42 gave him my opinion and I said no. Ms. Cheney. That was the morning of the 7th. Ms. Hutchinson. That was the morning of the 7th, yeah. Q That moming, after Mr. Meadows relayed the Members of Congress had suggested that, did he say which ones he spoke to? A No, he didn’t, He didn't tell me, and | didn't ask which ones he spoke, which ones had discussed antifa. Imean,| had an idea. But he didn't say Congressman X,¥, and Z. He said I'm hearing from Members. Q__ Did anything that Mr. Meadows say to you suggest that he wanted to have the President issue any kind of statement about antifa or blaming it on somebody else other than his supporters? A In my conversations with Mark that day -- on the 7th or the 6th? Q Correct. The 7th? A Onthe 7th. In my conversations with Mark that day, | don't recall him saying what he thought the President should do, | understood my conversations with him to be were his personal opinions were and how he would potentially handle the situation if he was ~-not if he was the President but if he was in charge of being the person to respond to that. But at no point did | ask him, you know, is this what you're going to advise the President? Is this how you would advise the President? It was more like, this is what im hearing. What are your thoughts on this? | think that ~ again, from knowing Mark, | think that he in the back of his mind knew, if he were to raise that with the President, there would be enough pushback to where he would be overruled. And he didn't -- he was very reluctant to ever put him in10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 43 a situation — put himself in a situation with the President where people would overrule him, because he wanted the President to perceive him as, you know, the guy kind of in charge of everything and that had the final word. And he didn't want the President to understand that he could be ~ his decisions could be swayed by staff. Ms. Cheney. So Mark was concerned he would be overruled by another member of his staff, not by the President? Ms. Hutchinson. That's ~ throughout his tenure, he sort of adopted that. | hope I'm being clear. He — even though he might have one personal opinion, and if he did and was ~ felt very strongly about it, he would personally and privately advise the President on it, absent other input. But in a situation like this and in ones that, you know, he had ~ they happened frequently where he'd just have discussions about what route to take on policy issues or reacting to events like January 6th. | think that he knew, if he were to walk into that Oval Office with the President and White House counsel, if Mark were to say, | think we should put out a statement about antifa, or however he would've phrased it, | think that he was cognizant enough at that time to know that enough voices would talk him out ~ talk the President out of it. And Mark didn't want to look weak. Does that help clarify? Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh. HR y:hing further on this? Ms. Cheney. I don't think so. On Mr. Cipollone, are there other moments throughout the day that you recall interactions with Pat? Ms. Hutchinson, | remember that morning — Mr. Hunt, Which morning?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 44 Ms. Hutchinson. I'm sorry. Ms. Cheney. I should have said of the 6th. Ms. Hutchinson. No. Thank you, Jody. | remember the morning of the 6th, | don't recall if it was Pat Cipollone or Pat Philbin. But it was -- | ran into one of them when | was downstairs, about to walk on to West Exec to wait for the motorcade. And it was a conversation about the Capitol movement, and they had said something to me along the lines of make sure it doesn't happen. And | had said, you know, I had the conversation with Tony. We know it's not going tohappen. | said something like it's -- that would be a nightmare. That would be a disaster if we did it And then I think it was Pat Cipollone, because he could be a little sarcastic sometimes, and Pat said, We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we were to go up to the Capitol. We can't ~ we can't do something like that, And | just kind of laughed it off and, I'll make sure to the best of my abilities. Ms. Cheney. Did he indicate any more, like, which crimes? Ms. Hutchinson. In the days before January 6th, pethaps January 3rd, January 3rd or January 4th, Pat and | had a conversation because Tony and | - Tony and I were having conversations that we knew were not going to progress into anything, but having con -- we were having conversations about potentially a potential scheduled movement to the Capitol where it would have been on the President's schedule. We knew that wasn't going to be possible. We had a conversa --| had a conversation with Pat. I don't know if he had one privately with Tony as well. But | remember having a private conversation with Pat late in the afternoon of the 3rd or 4th that Pat was concerned it would look like we were10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 45 obstructing justice or obstructing the electoral college count and | apologize for probably not being be very thorough with my legal terms here ~ but that it would look like we were obstructing what's happening on Capitol Hill. And he was also worried that it would look like we were inciting a riot or encouraging a riot to erupt on the Capitol, at the Capitol. Ms. Cheney. And can you give us any more details about that? When he — his concern about inciting a riot, did he go into any more details on either one of those points? Ms. Hutchinson. Not really. I tried to keep my conversations with Pat fairly brief, and they normally just happened after he left a meeting with Mark and sometimes we would just chat at my desk or I'd walk upstairs with him. The conversation I'm thinking of, he knew that I had been talking to Tony about a potentially scheduled movement. And | know that Pat was also aware at the time that we weren't going to be able to do it. But it was | understood it more as Pat, approaching me, saying, If Mark raises this with you, it's ano. This is why | think it's a no. Feel free to reiterate this to him. | think Mark knows this. But | just want to make sure that, you know, things don't progress more about me having insight on it. And | —so he kept it fairly brief and | didn't, you know, | didn't push or press for more details, | understood what he was getting at and didn't really think there was much more clarity that | needed on my own end, Ms. Cheney. And when you say, Cassidy, that you guys were planning for a scheduled movement or you were -- maybe just explain that to us alittle bit, This wasn't an OTR at that point, but -- Ms. Hutchinson. | don't remember the specific date, and I've tried to fine-tune my dates more. This is one that | can't --I can't pin down exactly.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 46 But as the rally planning had reached ~- progressed and reached the later stages, and the President goes on, the President wanted to go up to the Capitol. So perhaps December 30th, December 31st, Mark had raised with me, talk to Tony. See if we can get on the schedule to go to the Capitol. We do for the State of the Unions. Talk to him and see what we normally do. So | had ~- Tony wasn't back at the White House yet. He was still off on Christmas break. So | remember calling Tony, talking to him briefly about this. And | had said to him, | don't think this is a good idea. At this point, | didn't — wasn't aware of how large the rally was going to be and | wasn't aware of all the details that had already been planned, you know. I just ~~ wasn't --I didn't know at the time. It was later stages of planning where permits had already been granted but not to where it had been elevated to my level as much as it was in the coming days. But Tony had just commented back and said, you know, we can't do that. This will be nearly impossible. The State of the Union is entirely different than bringing him to the Capitol Building after a rally. I said, |know. | know we probably can't do it, but I'm just telling you what Mark wanted me to relay to you. And he said, All right. I'll handle it with chief. A couple of days later, Mark had asked me if | had talked to Tony. Isaid yeah. Why don't we get a call or something? He'll be back in a few days. | don't think we're going to be able to do it. And Mark had asked why, And I just sort of explained to him and, you know, just said no. Allright. Well, let's keep trying. So then when -- I don't know when him and Tony had the conversation that we10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 a7 can't do a scheduled movement where it would have been on the schedule and planned for the day. | don't believe Tony ever told Mark that it was possible as an off-the-record movement. Mark knew what off-the-record movements were, which is you can ~ they're a little bit more sporadic. You can plan them with -- Secret Service would like at least an hour heads-up but they can make it happen sooner than that. ‘And Mark was aware of the protocol behind scheduling an off-the-record movement and how quickly you could get something together. So that was something more that he had took on his own, And Tony and | knew privately that that also wasn't going to be possible. Ms. Cheney. When you were talking about a scheduled movement, did anyone say what the President wanted to do when he got here? Ms. Hutchinson. No. Not that | can specifically remember. | remember ~-I remember hearing a few different ideas discussed with ~ between Mark and Scott Perry, I don't know which conversations were elevated to the Mark and Rudy Giuliani. President. | don't know what he personally wanted to do when he went up to the Capitol that day. You know, | know that there were discussions about him hal ig another speech outside of the Capitol before going in. | know that there was a conversation about him going into the House Chamber at one point. And | remember the day of the Sth, when Mark had raised with me, if we couldn't go to the Capitol as an off-the-record ~if the President couldn't go to the Capitol as an off-the-record movement, and if it'd be possible if he could, was there a place to meet with the Vice President, | don't know if the President wanted to meet with the Vice President or if Mark wanted to meet with the Vice President.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 48 So | just - | remember hearing different ideas thrown around, but | don't know which ones were actively being pursued. Ms. Cheney. And so do you remember, in terms of Mark's conversations with Representative Perry, any specifics there about -- Ms. Hutchinson. From what I remember in their conversations and what Scott had -- what Mr. Perry had told me afterwards is that he thought it'd be a good idea if the President made brief remarks at the Capitol. When he had a meeting with Mark, he ~1 believe it was December 29th. They discussed that there were rally permits for outside the Capitol. | remember Mr. Perry saying that he thought it'd be a great idea if the President left the Ellipse, drove up to the Capitol, made remarks there before going into the Capitol. Again, I don't know the intentions, | just know that he thought it'd look great for the President if he used both sites. Le What about the conversation with Mr. Giuliani? Do you remember what that conversation was like between Mr. Meadows and Mr. Giuliani about going to the Capitol? A Nothing with ~ I'll make a note of that, but nothing really specific. I remember Rudy, after they had a ~- Rudy was meeting with Mark the night of January 2nd. And | remember, once Rudy left, he came up behind my desk and Mark's door was shut. He walked out with his group. He was, like, Are you going walk us out? I want to chat with you. | can walk out with you guys. | got my coat, Walked out with them. And he was asking, Are you excited about the 6th? It's going be a great day.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 49 I'm excited. I'm going to be there. Are you going be there? We're going to go to the Capitol, Cass. I'm curious. | said, What are we going to go to the Capitol for, Rudy? He said, The boss is going to go. It's going to be great. He's going to look powerful. He's going to be - he’s going to be with all the Congressmen and all the Senators. He's like, it's a good idea. Talk to the chief about it. Talk to the chief about it, So then | went back into the office, after they had left, and made sure that they all made it into their vehicles, they pulled off safely. I went into Mark's office, and he was still on his phone. He left shortly after they left. I said to Mark, Rudy said these things to me. What's going on here? Anything | should know about? This was ~- he was, like, looking at his phone. He was like, Oh, it's all about the rally on Wednesday. Isn't that what he was talking to you about? Isaid, Yeah. Yeah, sounds like we're going to the Capitol. He said, Yeah. Are you talking with Tony? I'm having a conversation, sir. He said ~ still looking at his phone. I remember he was scrolling. He was like, Yeah. You know, things might get real, real bad on the 6th. And | remember saying to him, What do you mean? He was like, I don't know. There's just going to be a lot of people here, and there's a lot of different ideas right now. _ I'm not really sure of everything that's going on. Let's just make sure we keep tabs on it. And at that point | decided it was time to remove myself from the conversation and | left his personal office and just went back to my desk,10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 50 Q__ Did he explain at all what he meant by things can get really bad? A No. And Idid not ask further questions. Q__ Did Rudy Giuliani say why the boss is going to go, need to look powerful? A He didn't. And I didn't ask Rudy why he thought the President should go or why the President wanted to go. | just kind of left it. You know, anything | had to say was probably not going to flatter their personal opinions about the matter. Q The conversation ~ HB 1s0rry. Go ahead. Ms. Cheney. No, no, go ahead. Le Q The conversation you had with Pat on or about January the 3rd, was that Pat Cipollone or Pat Philbin? A Cip, Pat Cipollone. Q_It'sounds like Mr. Cipollone at that point was already aware of the President's desire to go to the Capitol on the 6th, as the context for this conversation. Is that fair? ‘A That's where | want to be careful. He knew that there were conversations about bringing the President to the Capitol. I'm not certain if he knew that the President wanted to go to the Capitol, Q Ise. A Does that distinct --| just - Q Hadn't heard it directly from the President -- A Correct. = but knew of the conversation. A Pat had never relayed to me, | know the President wants to go the Capitol.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 51 It was my conversations were more he had talked to Mark about a movement to the Capitol. So I just -- I want to just ~~ I know it's ~ Q Yeah, that's fair. A Butl— Q No, no. That's completely fair. Are you aware of any desire to keep the President's movement to the Capitol off the record as opposed to just it's not possible to do a scheduled movement but wanted to keep it secret? A Yeah. So that's what that OTR movement would have been. | mean, it wouldn't have always stayed a secret, obviously. Q Yeah. A Typically, with off-the-record movements, they're not publicized until the movernent actually happens. So about - we'd had them in the past. | hope ~if this doesn't answer your question ~ Q Uh-huh, A ~please let me know. But with off-the-record movement in the past, normally the White House press corps gets a 15, 20-minute heads-up to load into vans. They don't know where they're going, and they'll proceed to the location. But the White House and Secret Service has plans. So but the off-the-record movement that day, it's my understanding that it would have happened directly from ~ it -- Mr. Meadows wanted the movement to happen directly from the Ellipse. Instead of going back to the White House, off-loading everybody, and then having us notify the press corps that they had to load back into the van, it just would have been one swift movement from the Ellipse to the Capitol. So nobody would have been notified officially until we had arrived at the Capitol.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 52 Q Got A And they hadn't gone back to the White House, if that helps ~ Q_Itdoes help. A ~clarify. Ms. Cheney. When you say nobody would have been notified officially, | mean, the press would have just been with you — Ms. Hutchinson. Correct. And most staff too ~ Ms. Cheney. | got it. Mss, Hutchinson, — unless staff were around in the vicinity of the conversation or had heard from the vans that there was going to be an off-the-record movement. But in other trips that we had done where we had made off-the-record stops at various local businesses in, like, places we were campaigning, there would be several people in the motorcade that were traveling with us that thought we were going directly back to the airport but we actually stopped at a local grocery store, So not everybody ~ just because you're in the motorcade doesn't mean that you're aware of - Ms. Cheney. You're aware. Ms. Hutchinson, Yeah, if that's ~ and I'm not trying to be too detailed with you guys. I'mjust ~ Q No, that's very helpful. Are you aware of any desire to ~ let me start over and give you some context. During the speech on the Ellipse, the President said that he would meet with the people who were there in going to the Capitol with them Were you aware that the President intended to ask for that or call for that ahead10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 53 of time? A Iwas aware that the President wanted that line or a line similar to that embedded in his speech. | don't know who talked him off of it or how much he fought against putting it in the speech. | knew he wanted to say it when he took the stage. | was under the impression that it was not included in the version of the speech that was going to be on the teleprompters. | don't know if it was added halfway through the speech or if he just said it, But, you know, from being down there and understanding what was happening that morning, he — whether it was going to be embedded in the speech as a specific quote or not, there was a highlight of it that he was going to say it anyway, Q Are you aware of any desire to keep the President's — let me start over. I'm sorry, Do you know whether the President wanted to keep that request of his, to send people to the Capitol, go with him to the Capitol, that part of it a secret before he actually said to do it during the speech at the Ellipse? That may not have been a great question. ‘AI just want to make sure I'm understanding, that he -- that he wanted to keep it a secret that he also was going to go to the Capitol? Q No, that he was going call for the rally attendees to go to the Capitol. A No. It's to the best of my understanding and recollection, he had been advocating for a couple of days for people to march to the Capitol. Q Okay. A I believe he put out a few tweets about it too. I don't ~ | only have the tweets from the 6th in front of me, but Q Okay. That's perfectly fine.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 54 Ms. Cheney. But somebody had taken — taken the line out of the speech? Ms. Hutchinson, It's my understanding, | wasn't part of the speechwriting process. But | remember having a conversation with Eric Herschmann in the tent of, you know, he's all fired up because we don't have everything in there that he wants. And | remember getting ~ at that morning | remember getting emails probably from 5 a.m. on with speech edits and different versions of the speech that were being passed around, and some were more widely approved than others. RR, Wo was approving for, other than Mr. Herschmann, making suggestions not to include certain information in the speech? Ms. Hutchinson. Eric was the only person that | had conversations with about the contents of the speech. Again, | wasn't involved in the speech or any process. But | remember getting several emails from Eric that morning that were blasted out just to everybody else that was on the listserv for the speech distribution. Eric kept sending, Somebody fact-check this. This isn't right. Don't put that theory in here. That's not a constitutional way of approaching. So he had a lot of commentary that morning, and at the White House him and | had a few conversations that morning. And specifically to the rhetoric of, you know, march to the Capitol, fight like hell, White House Counsel's Office, Eric Herschmann didn't want that in the speech. You can't control the President, what he does when he's up there. But, you know, there was definitely a strong effort to try to limit the chance of that actually happening. HE oo: Ms. Cheney. Do you remember anything else, Cassidy, that he ~-that Eric didn't want in the speech?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 55. Ms. Hutchinson. Not specifies. He didn't want violent rhetoric in the speech. He didn't want the Eastman theories tied into the speech. He didn’t want, you know, some of the stolen claim, stolen election ballot details in the speech, like the Italian satellites theory, the Dominion voting machines. He didn't want specifies, and that's -- those were the items that he had responded to emails with somebody needs to fact-check this and more things along those lines. I don't remember anything else specific to other than what was controversial the weeks leading up to January 6th and especially the days before January 6th. Ms. Cheney. Just to go back for one second, in terms of Pat Cipollone's legal concerns about what would happen if the President went to the Capitol, do you know if he conveyed those to Bobby Engel? Ms. Hutchinson. I'm very sorry. I was making a note to see if | remember anything else about Eric's opinions on the speech. Could you repeat your question, please? Ms. Cheney. So Pat Cipollone’s concerns about the legality of going to the Capitol, do you know if he would have conveyed his concerns to Bobby Engel? Ms. Hutchinson. From a ~- the way that the information flowed in the West Wing, | don't think that Pat would have approach Bobby Engel about it. He would have approached Tony Ornato about it. | don't know whether he had a conversation with Bobby or Tony, but it wouldn't have been a natural conversation for Pat to raise with Bobby just because he didn't frequently interact with Bobby. Bobby wouldn't go to senior staff meetings. Bobby wouldn't be in meetings with White House staff. He was in operations meetings, White House operation meetings with, you know, White House events, White House operations, and Secret Service, if that makes sense.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 56 Ms. Cheney. Okay. Yeah, it does. Mr. Hunt. If we're getting close to moving to another subject here, could we take a short break? Hes. | have one more followup here. Mr. Hunt. Yeah, go ahead, HR ut that's fine. be Q Did you ever learn, whether around the time of that January 3rd conversation or after, that Pat Cipollone had conveyed his legal concerns about a movement to the Capitol to the President? A 'mnot sure if he ~ I'm not sure if he personally relayed his legal concerns to the President around that time. | know that it had come up because | remember Mark and Pat coming back one night and talking about a conversation they had with the President, But | don't know at what stage the President was at, whether he thought it could still be scheduled or if he thought it could be off the record. So, | mean, | just don’t know the details. | wasn't physically present for a conversation Pat had with them Q When Mark and Pat came back together on this night that you just recalled, when was that, and what did they say? A Mybest estimate would be the 3rd. I'm going to think about that one, and I'm just trying to think. The 2nd, the President was up in the residence. And he was down in the Oval Office the night of the 3rd. And the night of the 4th we were in Georgia. So! think it was the 3rd. And, again, | don't recall many specifics other than, you know, Mark saying to me later let's see about maybe doing this off the record, and then hearing Pat later on10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 7 privately tell me, ike, you know, this ~ if we go up there, this is ~ there's going to be legal implications, something to that effect. Q _ Reiterating what he had already told you, Pat Cipollone? A Right. Right. We didn't I just want it to be clear to you, We didn’t have extensive and frequent conversations about this. The conversations we did, me and Pat personally had about this were brief, maybe two to three, You know, | was talking primarily with Ornato, and even my conversations with Ornato were fairly limited in scope just because we both were on the same page of we can't do this. So I'm sure that Pat had a more full-throated conversations with Mark, potentially with Tony, potentially with the President, but not that | was present for. It was more, you know, me working with Tony, knowing it wasn't going to happen, and Pat making comments to me about his personal concerns with it. I'm sorry. Point taken. Still something's going to happen. Appreciate it, though. RR 6° followup there? Ms. Cheney, Youwantto—no, We have some additional questions. But do you all want to take ~ Mr. Hunt, Sure, If we can take a quick break? Ms. Cheney. Yeah. Let me just see ~if you want to go in the room, Mr. Hunt, Yeah, | want to go to the restroom. That's one thing | want to do, but we can go off the record. [Recess.] TE 2). aright. Let's go back on the record. It's June 20th, and this is ~ we're resuming the interview of Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 58 Q__ In December of 2020, Attorney General Barr said the DOJ had found no widespread evidence of election fraud sufficient to change the outcome. | believe we briefly hit upon this at one point, But are you aware of the President's reaction to Attorney General Barr's statement? A The day that the attorney general's statement went out was December 1st, and the attorney general was already at the White House meeting with | believe White House Counsel's Office. When the President heard ~- or | shouldn't say heard. When the President saw on TV, as he was sitting in the dining room eating lunch, that the attorney general had put this statement out, he was not happy with what the attorney general said and that he hadn't received a heads-up about the interview beforehand, Q How did you learn about this? A initially learned about his reaction because Mark got called down to the dining room, and then he was down there fora couple of minutes. | went down to check on him. [EEE who was the valet that day, | believe. There's a slight chance it could have beer EM. | believe it was[fthat day. | went down, and [eave me a look of shock kind of. He said, Did you see what the attorney general said? And I said, Yes. Is the chief in the dining room? You don't want to go into the dining room right now. I said, Okay. I wasn't going to, | just wanted to see if he was in there. He said the President's really, really angry at him. And | said okay. | could hear the President yelling from where | was standing, He said, | just brought him lunch and he took the plate and threw it at the wall.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 59 | was like, Is that when Mark was in there? He goes, No, that's probably why the chief was called down there. And | remember just thinking, Oh, okay. And | just went back to my desk after that. And | know the attorney general was -- came down at one point and they had a conversation and -- Mr. Hunt. Can you clarify, when the attorney general came down, what are you referring to? Ms. Hutchinson. Came down I'm sorry. When the attorney general was meeting with Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin, | believe, in the White House Counsel's Office, which was one floor above the Oval Office and the dining room and the chief of staff's office. So he came downstairs to the floor that all of the Oval Office and Oval Office dining room were on and had a conversation with the President. | wasn't present for any of the conversations. And, you know, | had learned through the day, it's been widely reported since, how the conversations unraveled and, you know, how Mr. Barr stood firm in what he had said. The President still was very angry throughout the day, though, and the following couple of days. Le Q_— When you went down towards the Oval, you said you could hear the President yelling. Could you hear anything that he was saying? A No. I-- because | was talking tolfJtoo. | just | probably could've if | stood there and listened. | just -- | was talking. tolfend just kind of also wanted to get out of the crossfire of what was going on. Q Did Mr. Meadows tell you what his conversations were that afternoon with10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 60 the President related to the attorney general? A Nothing overly specific, just that the President wasn't happy, and that | learned later on what's now been reported about potentially firing Barr. You know, just I'm trying not to cloud my response with what was reported afterwards, because my conversations with Mark and White House counsel that they were fairly brief. Q_ Did you talk to anybody else in the White House about the attorney general and his statement, the President's reaction to it? A I mean, just general conversations with White House Counsel's Office, and not just Pat Cipollone; Pat Philbin. | remember at one point Liz Horning, who worked in White House Counsel's Office, | talked to Liz about it. Mostly it was just speculating what was going to happen with Barr and how it was going to play out. We both really liked the attorney general, So we didn't want anything to happen. We were hoping he was going to stay till the end, but -- Mr. Hunt, Can | inject here? _ I think it might be helpful to clarify a little bit of the timeframe, because | - when you mentioned that - where | sort of got off track there was when you mentioned that Barr came down and you said the White House Counsel's Office. Are we talking about the same time? Could you just sort of put this ina sort of a timeframe so we understand what you're saying? Ms. Hutchinson, So don't know when the attorney general got to the White House that day. But when the President had reacted to - and I'm not sure if the. President knew the attorney general was meeting with the White House Counsel's Office. But when the President had that reaction, it was because he was watching TV in the dining room as he was eating lunch. Had called Mark down. it's my understanding that Mark informed him that the attorney general was actually at the White House during that time, and that's when the attorney general had10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 61 come downstairs. | believe the President wasn't ready to see him yet. So Barr was going to hold in the Roosevelt Room briefly and then decided to hold again up in the White House Counsel's Office before the President was ready to see him. I'm not sure what was the whole delay with the President seeing him. I'm not sure if it was because they were cleaning the dining room up a little bit or if they were ~ if staff were trying to have a conversation with the President about not reacting super irrationally in that moment, hoping that the attorney general would stay till the end. | just — I'm not sure of that. Mr. Hunt, Yeah, | just ~sorry to inject here. | just wanted — that's helpful. 1 was trying to get an understanding of going from the incident you described and his reaction to when the attorney general was there meeting with him. Was it a different day? Wasit the same day? Was it the same time? _ | just thought that would be helpful. So that's all | wanted. HE ¥¢2, 0. Thank you for that be Q__ Did you ever learn what the President told Attorney General Barr when they did meet that day? A Notat the time. Afterwards, | heard and read. Q Did you learn about it from public reporting or did you learn from some source within the White House? A Mark had talked about it a little bit. | don't remember having a conversation with Mark or overhearing a conversation with Mark, That was Mark's sense of them ~-he's not going to get fired right now. But | didn't really put much more thought into it, to be honest with you. Q Do you know if Mr. Meadows was encouraging the President to keep10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 62 Attorney General Barr on rather than firing him, around that time? A I'mnot sure what he privately was counseling the President on. I know with White House Counsel's Office, he was encouraging the President to keep the attorney general in his position until the end, But there were points throughout this whole period. Just to back up a little bit, throughout Mr. Meadows’ tenure, he, in my opinion and from what | observed, was ~- would work closely with the White House Counsel's Office and other senior advisors that the President would often listen to. And, you know, although he wasn't always on the same page as them, he didn't necessarily work against them or privately push for something different than the message that they were relaying and in just general meetings. During this period, from what I -- what | was able to gather from my conversations with Mark and hearing what he would say to the President versus what he would say to White House counsel and to other senior aides often weren't all on the same page. So he might privately tell the President one thing or tell the White House counsel a different thing and the attorney general something entirely different. So he was working to the interests of others, ultimately to the President, which it's not my responsibility to make the determination whether that was the right or wrong thing for him to do. But, you know, | know that he had worked with White House Counsel's Office during this period to encourage Barr to stay. | know that he was having conversations with other people about potentially replacing him with Jeff Clark. So, you know, | don't know what he wanted as chief of staff ~ Q Okay. A his official capacity. Q Sure. So you only saw one aspect of it, and Mr. Meadows could have been10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 63 advising others differently. 1s that fair? A Yes. Q Okay. A ifl'm understanding, Ms. Cheney. Well, | think she said actually that you saw him -- you saw multiple aspects of it. Ms. Hutchinson. Right. Like, | -- | hadn't heard what he had privately said to the President. So I'm not sure what those conversations were. | heard him having conversations with Scott Perry, for instance, of potentially looking at Jeff Clark to fulfill that role. I had heard him having conversations with the White House Counsel's Office about wanting how it would be beneficial for Barr to stay until the end. So that's why I'm just -- I'm not sure how he advised the President because | know that he was telling people different points of guidance. | Okay. And thank you for clarifying that. I'm sorry. | misstated Ms. Hutchinson. That's okay. HE 01 mentioned having heard Mr. Meadows talking to Scott Perry about replacing the attorney general, pushing Jeff Clark. Can you tell us about those conversations, what you remember him saying? Ms. Hutchinson. My insight was fairly limited to that. | remember Scott reaching out to me at one point and asked if | had heard if Meadows gave Jeff Clark any more thought or something along those lines. And | didn't know who Jeff Clark was and | raised it with Mark. And he said, | need to call Scott back about that. Do you know who Jeff Clark is? And | said to him along the lines of, No. Is he going to replace Barr?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 This is the first or second week of December. He said, Well, let me just give Scott a call back about that. He thinks it's a good idea. | should just hear him out. You know, | don't know how far those conversations progressed. I don't know how much Mark entertained them with Scott, but | know that he was having conversations with him about that as a possibility EE «2. Ms. Cheney. | think you mentioned before the topic of pardon, and one additional person that we wanted to ask about is Mr. Giuliani and any information you had about whether or not he requested a pardon or how that worked. Ms. Hutchinson. | remember Rudy asking for a pardon. To be honest, | don’t know who that was filtered through. I don't know how serious it was ever entertained. \ just remember Mark raising it. | remember overhearing conversations with, especially Mark and White House Counsel's Office, and | remember hearing Mark at one point talking to the White House Counsel's Office. He said something to the effect of, The boss keeps following up on this. What's the status? Are we going to do it? | wasn't involved in that necessarily, though. HR 0 you know if that was after January the 6th? Ms. Hutchinson. It was. When heard about it, it was after January 6th. I'm not sure if it was discussed prior to January 6th as well, but - ; I do want to show you something. This is something that you've recently provided to us. We'll mark it exhibit 44, It's a document on it appears to be White House letterhead, and several handwritten paragraphs. Tell us what that is. Ms. Hutchinson, This was a document that | found last week. Sorry.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 65. So | remember Mark handing this to me the evening of December 1st. And he had come back from the Oval Office. He handed it to me and said, Could you bring this up to White House Counsel's Office? See if they'llclear it. The President wants to put this out. ‘And | remember reading it. | remember he had made a misspell right here. And | remember this is December 1st because | remember it was the Barr day and | remember crossing off whatever it was that he had misspelled right here. And | remember reading this document and looking at him and saying, You want me to go give this to White House Counsel's Office? And | said, They're not going to want this to go out. He said, Well, the President wants it out. Can you go up there and see if they'll clear it? So | just said okay. | went up to the White House Counsel's Office. Went to give it to Liz Horning for her to give to Pat. Pat had walked out of his office. | handed it to Pat and said, Mark wants you to see this and to let Scavino know it's okay to push out. Pat looked at it. He said something to the effect of, God, no. came downto the office. Talked to Mark. One of them put it on my desk and it ~as far as | know, it just kind of was done after that. | don't know that they raised it again with the President or if they just never pushed it further, but -~ Ms. Cheney. And so this was on December 1st? Ms. Hutchinson. Uh-huh. Ms. Cheney. And is this Mark's handwriting? Ms. Hutchinson, Its. HR sorry if you said this. But did Mr. Meadows say that the President had dictated this to him or is this just something that he had worked up and the10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 66 President wanted to send out? Ms. Hutchinson. To the best of my recollection, he had come back from the Oval Office and had said something to the effect of, Can you bring this up to White House Counsel's Office? The President wants to push this out. So | don't know if the President dictated it to him verbatim or if they had worked ‘on it together in the Oval. | know it was, one, he came back from the Oval, but, two, it's not on the chief of staff's letterhead, which it would have been if he had drafted it in his office. So — Ms. Cheney. And did Mr. Cipollone elaborate? Ms. Hutchinson. No. | just -- it was an exasperated response and more of a! understood he was going to go down and talk to Mark about it. Ms. Cheney. And do you think he did? Ms. Hutchinson. He went into Mark's office and they had a conversation. | don't remember which one — they both left the office at the same time and walked down, to the Oval. | don't remember who put it on my desk, but one of them sat it on my desk and | just filed it after that. TR (0a this happen after the President found out about Attorney General Barr's statement -- Ms. Hutchinson. It did. TR — 12:24 to the election? Ms. Hutchinson. It did. That happened in the midafternoon. This is evening time, Ms. Cheney. So did you understand this to be a response that the President wanted to put out to the attorney general's press statement? Ms. Hutchinson, Yes.10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 o7 [3:10 p.m.] Ms. Cheney. Did you understand this to be a response that the President wanted to put out to the Attorney General's press statement? Ms. Hutchinson. Yes. Yes. Asa reaction ~ Ms. Cheney. A reaction? Ms. Hutchinson. -- to the Attorney General's statement, unless I'm misinterpreting your — he wasn't directing it at the — Ms. Cheney. Right. Ms. Hutchinson. -- Attorney General, but - Ms. Cheney. Uh-huh. a Q__Isthere anything else about this note or this draft message that you can recall? A Not--not right now. Q_ Was Mr, Meadows disappointed when he found out that this wouldn't be going out? A I'mafr (ph) you'd have to ask Mr. Meadows about that. | don't know if he was disappointed that it wasn't going to go out. He was disappointed in Mr. Barr's actions earlier that day. Was it something that Mr. Meadows said that makes you think that? A He had expressed to me that he was frustrated that he didn't have a heads-up from the Attorney General and that he had created problems for him that afternoon, Q__ Problems with the President?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 68. A From what | understood HR thing further there? Ms. Cheney. Nothing further on this, ME be QI believe we've briefly discussed the Willard Hotel and some of the President's outside advisors who were there in the days leading up to January 6th. Are you aware of any meetings that the President had with his advisors at the Willard? ‘A No. But there was -- the President, on January 5th, wanted to have a meeting at the White House with advisors that were at the Willard Hotel as well as several Members of Congress in the Oval Office on January Sth. Q Okay. Let me stop you there. Who were the people from the Willard that the President wanted to meet with at the White House on the Sth, if you recall? A Itwould've been the group that Rudy was with ~ Mr. Giuliani, Q And which Members of Congress did the President want to have in that meeting with them? A {don't recall all of them. | remember Paul Gosar's name, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Those are who | recall right now. Q Do you know why the President wanted to meet with Mr. Giuliani and his team as well as those Members of Congress? A Idon't know. I never asked. Q Did that meeting ever happen? A Itdid not. It's my understanding that the meeting, or a meeting of similar nature, happened on the Hill that day, at the Capitol that day. And the meeting that10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 69 happened at the Capitol would have been the same or a very similar meeting to what would've taken place in the Oval Office on the Sth, Ms. Cheney. Did the President participate in some way in the meeting at the Capitol? Ms. Hutchinson. I'm not sure. He may have dialed in, but I'm not sure. Ms. Cheney. Okay. Le Q Who hosted that meeting, if you know, at the Capitol? A don't know. Q Do you know who was involved? A | believe it was Mr. Waldron and Mr. Kerik that le I don't know if Rudy went. | remember Mark talking to me at one point on the 4th about going to the Capitol. And he said that Rudy invited him ~ or he said something to the effect of, Rudy invited him to a meeting at the Capitol. And I'd asked if it was the meeting that Mark wanted to have at the White House, and he was like, "Similar, yeah.” He was like, "Do you think we should go?" | said, "Idon’t know. What's this meeting about?" And he just sort of dropped it. | don't recall him really answering the question, And I didn't re-raise it with him afterwards. So he had mentioned it to me with Rudy's name involved. I'm just not sure if Rudy physically went to the meeting at the Capitol. Q But your understanding is that Mr. Waldron and Mr. Kerik ~~ A That's my understanding. Q__ Did you see any of the materials or know the message that Mr. Waldron or Mr. Kerik was going to convey in that meeting at the Capitol?10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 70 A Lunderstood it to be about January 6th and delaying the certification for the electoral college results. | recall there being a PowerPoint that | had received. | don't remember who sent ittome. But the PowerPoint was intended to be presented at either the White House or when it was at the Capitol. | wasn't at the Capitol meeting, so I'm not sure whether it was presented or not, but | remember the PowerPoint surfacing for that meeting. Q Okay. Ms. Cheney. And do you know ~ how do you know that the President wanted to meet with these people at the White House? Ms. Hutchinson. Because on January 2nd or 3rd --| believe it was January 2nd -- the President's scheduler was out for the day, | know it was a Saturday, so Michael didn't have to come in anyway, but he worked weekends frequently. But he sent me a list of questions that -- scheduling questions for the President that he wanted me to run by the chief, which normally he would do, but since he was out, he asked me to do it on his behalf, And | remember seeing "January Sth, Oval meeting with Members of Congress plus Rudy & Co” or something along those lines. Because | remember talking to Mark about that, and he said, "I'll talk to the President about that." And then next | heard from Michael was that they weren't doing it in the Oval Office and they were looking for a different location. Ms. Cheney. Do you know why they made that decision? Ms. Hutchinson. | don't. Ms. Cheney. Okay. HER y0u'l bear with me, i'm going to pull up a certain PowerPoint. |10 ul 2 3B 14 45 16 v 18 1s 20 24 22 23 24 25 1 want to see if you recognize it. Ms. Cheney. While fl is doing that, can | ask you, Cassidy, are you aware of -- I'm just going to sort of run through a list of names -- conversations that Mr. Meadows had with Steve Bannon? Ms. Hutchinson. [Nonverbal response.) Ms. Cheney. And can you tell us about those? Ms. Hutchinson. I'm sorry. Were you going to run through the conversations, or just ask if | sorry. Do | know conversations? Ms. Cheney. No. | was just going to ask just specifically — sorry -- for details about Ms. Hutchinson. Oh. Ms. Cheney. -- those conversations. Ms. Hutchinson. No. And — Mr. Hunt. Can we specify a timeframe that you're thinking about? Ms. Cheney. Yes. |'m talking about sort of December, January -- December 2020, January 2021. Ms. Hutchinson. | don't know specifics with his conversations with Mr. Bannon and -- well, I'll leave it there. | know that he had talked to him. Let me rephrase. | know that the President had asked Mark to speak with Steve Bannon, and | am aware that Mark told the President he would speak to Steve Bannon. | never asked Mark whether he spoke to Steve Bannon, and he never told me whether he did or not. But normally | interpret that as no followup or, "You don't need to remind me. | did it on my own." Ms. Cheney. Okay.