Cassidy Hutchinson was an aide in the Trump White House (sic). She gave explosive and damaging testimony to the January 6 Committee investigating the attack on the capitol and Trump’s attempts to steal the election.

Among the revelations provided by Hutchinson is that Trump demanded to join a crowd of his supporters at the Capitol, raged against his Secret Service protection after they refused to take him, showed approval for his supporters carrying weapons, endorsed chants of hanging his own vice president, and knew he lost the 2020 election fairly to Joe Biden.

Hutchinson testified that her boss, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, told her shortly after Trump tried to get Georgia’s Secretary of State to make up votes and swing the state from Biden to him, “He knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we are going to keep trying.”

Meadows also told her, “He’s just so angry at me all the time. I can’t talk to him about anything post-White House without him getting mad that we didn’t win.”

She also testified that John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence, told her Trump knew he lost but did not want to concede.

That’s damning testimony, that Trump knew he lost but still tried to remain in the White House. It shows that Trump knew he was committing sedition and making a coup attempt.

Naturally, Trump World didn’t want Hutchinson to give this testimony, so they hired a lawyer for her. This lawyer, Stefan Passantino, is a former Trump White House (sic) lawyer. He encouraged Hutchinson NOT to cooperate.

Passantino told Hutchinson, “We just want to focus on protecting the president.” He also told her, “We all know you’re loyal. Let’s just get you in and out, and this day will be easy, I promise.” 

She also testified that Passantino encouraged her to avoid mentioning the incident of Trump lunging at the Secret Service when they refused to take him to the capitol. Passantino advised her to say that she did not recall the event if she was asked about it. “The less you remember, the better,” he told her.

Passantino also told Hutchinson that she would not have to pay his bills. “We’re not telling people where funding is coming from right now. Don’t worry. We’re taking care of you.”

During her first testimony, before the committee, she did as Passantino asked, but then took a break from the interview and told Passantino in a hallway that she felt as though she had lied to the committee by avoiding talking about the incident. She testified that Passantino tried to assuage her by arguing that saying she did not recall was not the same as lying.

She quoted him saying, “They don’t know what you know, Cassidy. They don’t know that you can recall some of these things.” After that first interview with the committee, she said Passantino told her that he would help her get her “a really good job in Trump world.”

She quoted him again saying, “We’re going to get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family.”

She also testified that another aide to Mark Meadows, Ben Williamson, called her with a message from Meadows, stating, “Mark wants you to know that he knows you’re loyal and he knows you’ll do the right thing tomorrow and that you’re going to protect him and the boss (Trump). You know, he knows that we’re all on the same team and we’re all a family.” That’s some real gangster shit, “we know you’re loyal.” Everyone knows that’s code for, “if you’re not loyal, bad things will happen to you.”

Other witnesses testified that they received messages telling them that “Mr. Trump is watching you.”

Hutchinson fired Passantino and hired her own lawyer, not one provided by “Trump World.” Maybe the worst part of this is that Passantino was an ethics lawyer for the Trump White House (sic).

What’s an ethics lawyer? An ethics lawyer gives advice and counsels other lawyers on ethics. In case you’re a Republican, “ethics” covers morals, principles, and doing the right thing over the wrong thing. It’s not always clear-cut what is right and wrong, so an “expert” or a “practitioner” is staffed to offer guidance.

For example: In my business of editorial cartooning, there is some discussion over the ethics of tracing a photo instead of drawing it freehand. Some cartoonists believe this is wrong, others think it’s perfectly fine, and there’s a middle ground for those who don’t care that others do it but feel it’d be wrong if they did it. I’m on the side that believes it’s wrong, but am I right? I wanted to get a professional opinion so I talked to an ethics specialist from the Society of Professional Journalists, and it’s still not entirely clear. I believe the proof that is it wrong is that none of the multiple cartoonists who do trace never admit they do it, and they try to cover it up. When I see these guys get compliments for their “artwork,” and they thank the compliment giver or remain silent, that tells me they know they’re cheating. But since none of us are experts on journalism ethics, I talked to someone who specializes in it.

So, what is an ethics lawyer in Trump World? It’s a lawyer without ethics. It’s paying somebody to tell you what you want to hear. Most people who have dealt with a lot of lawyers have been told many times stuff they didn’t want to hear, Like “you’re going to jail.” Trump hired lawyers like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell who told him he won the election even though he clearly lost. Trump hires lawyers to lie to the FBI that all stolen documents were returned to the National Archives from Mar-a-Lago.

An ethics lawyer in Trump World will tell you the bad stuff is OK. An ethics lawyer in Trump World will tell you it’s OK to do the bad stuff because Mr. Trump is very powerful and will take care of you…and he’s watching you. An ethics lawyer in Trump World won’t tell you that Trump has a long history of demanding loyalty while giving none.

I think in Trump World, lawyers tell him he’s not going to jail…but if they can persuade people like Cassidy Hutchinson to lie by promising them jobs, then she’ll go to jail instead of Donald Trump. Don’t believe me? Ask Michael Cohen.

In Trump World, lawyers are more like accomplices and partners in crime.

Facebook Suspension Update: There are 19 days left in my Facebook suspension for typing the word “Taliban.” Here’s Quannah’s countdown clock.

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