Cassidy Hutchinson Part 2
While the Capitol was under attack, Cassidy Hutchinson, assistant to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was inside the White House with Meadows and Trump, watching it all on TV. At 2:24 p.m., Trump tweeted that Pence didn’t have the courage to do what needed to be done which accelerated the violence and prompted the crowd to chant, “Hang Mike Pence!”
When the riot started, White House counsel Pat Cipollone ran into Mark Meadows’ office and told him that they needed to talk to Trump immediately. Meadows shrugged him off and said Trump isn’t interested. “He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.” Cipollone said that wouldn’t fly so they confronted Trump about putting an end to the madness. As they were talking to him, Jim Jordan called Mark Meadows (the two of them have been buddies ever since they served together in the House of Representatives — they were the two craziest members in the House). There were three different responses to the violence inside the White House — those who blamed Antifa, those who pretended like nothing was happening, and those who were panicked and wanted Trump to call everybody off. Mark Meadows was in the neutral group. Ivanka and Pat Cipollone were in the make it stop group. After it was all over, Jason Miller and some members of Congress would blame Antifa and said they had proof.
Before the attack at the Stop the Steal rally, Trump got mad because the “mags” (magnetometers or metal detectors that find concealed guns and other weapons) were in the way of his biggest fans being part of the crowd and he wanted them inside before his speech. They were outside of the designated event area because they didn’t want to get busted for being armed in DC. He yelled inside the tent on the side of the stage, “You know, I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me! Take the fucking mags away! Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in! Take the fucking mags away!” The Secret Service told him no and he said, “Fuck the Secret Service. I’m the president!”
In general, there were three different schools of thought both about the attack on democracy and the Trump presidency — there were the off-the-wall, QAnon weirdos driven by delusion and conspiracy theories, the scaredy cats who were too chicken or ambitious to do the right thing, and the very small number of people who had the guts to stand up to Trump. Heroes like Cassidy Hutchinson.
Insiders referred to the QAnon kooks as the “crazies”. The ones who weren’t privy to the crazy talk because they were either forbidden from entering the room where the crazy talk was going on or who wanted nothing to do with the crazies, were known as “team normal.” The third group were the fantasy camp kids who met at the war room at the Willard Hotel to plot taking their country back.
Mark Meadows burned documents in his office fireplace once or twice a week from December to mid-January. Cassidy noticed he did it after meetings, especially after meeting with Congressman Scott Perry. Devin Nunes, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence brought classified documents (that’s supposed to be read in a scif) into the White House before January 6. There were so many he wheeled them in on a dolly. There was stuff on Russia and Hunter Biden, and foreign election data specific to Venezuela and possibly 7 other countries. Mark took some home and even showed them to people in the private sector. Copies were made, and some were given to the White House Counsel’s Office. One set was to be given to Kevin McCarthy and another to Mitch McConnell, but neither one of them received their copies (McCarthy said he didn’t want them when he found out what they were doing). Other sets were given to John Solomon and Mollie Hemingway.
Mark Meadows took documents out of the White House after the insurrection until the time he left the White House. Cassidy didn’t have knowledge about what all he took, she just knew that he took stuff (or burned it).
The infamous call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to ask him to round up 11,000 votes was either Mark Meadows’ idea or he and Trump cooked it up together. They talked about the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and Q in the Oval Office. While on Air Force One, Marjorie Taylor Greene told Trump that those guys were her constituents. Scott Perry wanted Trump to change the attorney general. He, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, Mo Brooks, and Marjorie Taylor Greene all asked for pardons. Jim Jordan asked for pardons for members of Congress but Cassidy doesn’t know if he asked for one for himself. Other members of Congress wanted pardons too, but they didn’t ask her. It was known that the Trump kids wanted pardons. Staffers wanted preemptive pardons. Rudy wanted one. Mark Meadows told her that if Trump was giving out pardons then he’d want one too. He also said, “We need to think of our friends at the DoD and DHS, too.” Jared Kushner was part of fielding pardons even though he wasn’t supposed to.
Some cabinet secretaries spoke with Mark Meadows briefly about the 25th amendment but it wasn’t anything serious. Cassidy couldn’t recall if Mike Pence or any of his staff participated in those discussions. House leader Kevin McCarthy and Senator Roy Blunt inquired if anything was being done about the 25th amendment.
Before her second deposition with the Select Committee, a staffer for Mark Meadows, Ben Williamson, called her to say, “Mark let me know that you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re a team player, you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.”
Cassidy Hutchinson is loyal all right, but to US, not them.
