House panel demands J6 documents from Cassidy Hutchinson, questions her previous testimony

On Monday, the House committee Oversight Subcommittee of the House Administration Committee sent a letter to key Jan. 6 Cassidy Hutchinson ordering her to preserve and produce all records in her possession related to the events of that day and her interactions with the Democratic Jan. 6 Select Committee.

This new letter, from Chairman Barry Loudermilk, follows reporting from Just the News this weekend that Hutchinson—the former aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows—waived her attorney-client privilege with her first lawyer and internal Secret Service memorandums undercut her narratives of key events on the day of the Capitol riot.

“I write to you today to request that you immediately preserve and produce to this Subcommittee all records and materials in your possession related to the events of January 6th, 2021, and the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol,” Loudermilk wrote.

Chairman Loudermilk cited an infamous story from Hutchinson that raised doubts about the reliability of her testimony: that President Donald Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle from a Secret Service employee and lunged at another.

“On June 28, 2022, you testified during one of the Select Committee’s primetime hearings. During this hearing you asserted that former President Donald Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel from one United States Secret Service employee driving the vehicle and lunged at another,” Loudermilk wrote. “However, in your previous three transcribed interviews on February 23, 2022, March 7, 2022, and May 17, 2022, you did not mention this interaction.”

You can read Loudermilk’s letter below:

In November, Just the News reported that Hutchison had made significant changes to her first testimony to the Jan. 6 Committee, filing errata sheets in almost seven months after her first interview. The errata sheets identified Hutchinson’s account of the incident in the presidential vehicle—the Beast—as a later addition to her closed-door testimony.

Hutchison claims that she changed her testimony because her first lawyer, Stefan Passantino, pressured her to stay “loyal” to President Trump in her responses.

Hutchinson made this claim in a September 2022 interview with the committee, after Passantino ceased representing her in the matter and she had retained a new legal team. Hutchinson told the committee that Passantino informed her that “You're not lying if you say you don’t recall” as she prepared for her testimony to the committee.

“Everything’s going to be OK. We’re taking care of you,” Hutchinson described Passantino’s remarks the morning of her first testimony. “Just downplay your position. … It’s not fair that Mark [Meadows] put you in this position. We just want to focus on protecting the president. We all know you’re loyal. Let’s just get you in and out, and this day will be easy, I promise.”

Passantino has disputed Hutchinson’s account of events and filed a lawsuit against the House of Representatives for damages to his business and to his reputation.

Texts obtained from another of Passantino’s lawsuits show that, in fact, Hutchinson initially expressed misgivings about complying with the Jan. 6 committee.

This comes amid new reporting that internal Secret Service records undercut another narrative from the Jan. 6 committee, that then-President Trump had a plan and an intention to visit the U.S. Capitol following his speech at his rally near the White House.

Chairman Loudermilk and his committee are investigating the work of the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee and probing the law enforcement planning and response surrounding that day.