Cassidy Hutchinson

I certainly don’t think that I will be reading all 845 pages of the Report of the January 6th Committee, though it would be worthwhile to do so; and it will be one of the most important documents in American history. Maybe, if there is a time when Democrats regain complete institutional power, it will be encouraging to read it. Right now, it is all too unsettling a time.

I will certainly listen to the gloss on it, as read and interpreted by the most reliable political analysts. In that vein, I wanted to write a few words about Cassidy Hutchinson, a young Republican aide in the White House, who has emerged as one of the few heroes in this saga.

Amid a suffocating miasma of lies, deceit, stonewalling, and treason, Ms. Hutchinson was perhaps the only person in that White House who somehow stood up for the truth. Her testimony was really the fulcrum which supported the rest of the investigation. While so many Trumpists refused to testify, or kept taking the Fifth Amendment, or actually lied under oath, she told what she knew and she didn’t waver or obfuscate, at least as far as anyone could tell.

The more extensive interviews with Hutchinson, as read on air last night, showed her as very much wanting to stick to the truth, so that “she could look herself in the mirror.” She recounted how a Trump attorney essentially encouraged her to lie, although of course those people would not call it lying. She was told that if she could not remember every detail of something that happened, she was to say that “I don’t recall” to any of it. How many times have we seen someone in Congressional hearings, even someone nominated for a judgeship or cabinet position, saying “I don’t recall.” And you listen to that, and you don’t believe them, but they get away with it, again and again.

Cassidy Hutchinson would not do it. She also realized, in her words, that if you accepted the advice and funding from “Trump World,” as she termed it, you could never escape. That sounded chillingly like what happens if you take those things offered by the Mafia. They then have something on you, and you will never be free of them. She asked the attorney, who was funding this defense?, and he said not to worry about it, we don’t want to reveal that now, but if you really want to know when this is all over, we will tell you. Does that not sound chillingly like the mafia?

What they wanted, as they wanted from everyone else, was for her to lie for them, dissemble, do nothing to damage Trump and his cabal. Others were doing it. But she would not. She testified of the moment when Trump, furious that the driver of the vehicle he was in, would not take him back to the Capitol, tried to assault the driver. Immediately after her testimony, some journalistic hack printed that there were two members of Trump’s Secret Service who would testify under oath that Cassidy’s testimony about Trump trying to grab the wheel, was untrue. This of course led to the Trump mob and its media tools saying that Cassidy lied, that her testimony was all lies.

Of course the Secret Service people never actually testified or even interviewed refuting anything she said. It was a bluff, because her story was true. And the minute that she stopped doing what Trump and his mob wanted, she was viciously attacked, as anyone who ever defied them, was. But she did not backtrack, she said again that everything she testified to was true.

Hutchinson has said that she was given inspiration when she read more about the Watergate Hearings, and specifically about Alexander Butterfield, the White House aide who testified to that committee that President Nixon taped every White House discussion, and that as far as he knew, the tapes were still available That stunning news led to the subpoenaing of those tapes, Nixon’s fight against that, and a Supreme Court decision that he must surrender the tapes, which led to his resignation from office. Most of what was on those tapes was still hidden from public knowledge; and then Ford pardoned Nixon, which led to a complete cessation from further investigation, something Ford said was necessary for “healing the nation,” but was only essential for protecting the Republican Party.

But even so, Butterfield, along with John Dean, and one or two others, was an admirable figure in these hearings, and Hutchinson wanted to talk to him. And she gained encouragement and solace from what he said to her. That was touching to learn about. A fragile thread which linked two moments in history; and a very few people who stood up for telling the truth, even if it cost them their political future. Because you have to be able to look yourself in the mirror.

Of course, there are many people who are quite happy looking at themselves in the mirror, knowing that they did what their dons wanted them to do, or that they were waging holy war against the liberals. So many people who either were comfortable selling out their morals, or more likely, had no morals in the first place. Even having followed this throughout history, one is still shocked and horrified at how many people are willing to lie, slander, and cheat, and to even destroy the institutions and the democracy in the name of something, usually their own political advancement and power.

I don’t expect that Cassidy Hutchinson is going to become a Democrat, or stand up for liberal causes. She will probably retain her political beliefs. But what is most important is that she had a belief in telling the truth. And she had an understanding that going along any further with the mafia which was trying to take complete control of the country (and still well might), would cost her the ability to be proud of herself; knowing that she would stand up for telling the truth, and stand against the forces who were using her like they used everybody, to serve their masters. Those masters did not just include Trump, and never had.

So at least for right now, Cassidy Hutchinson is a kind of hero. Without her testimony, I doubt that these hearings would have gone nearly as far as they did. She was virtually the only White House figure who was willing to break the stone wall that they were attempting to erect to block out the facts, and to protect their efforts to overturn the election, declare martial law, and a dictatorship. That took courage and resolve on her part, something which we have only very occasionally seen in the last few years, in the midst of the fascism and the lies and the attempts to turn reality into something that the fascists create and everyone else is required to believe and follow. And so she deserves our appreciation and admiration for that.

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