Former President Trump on Tuesday slammed the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson the testimony to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, attack on the U.S. Capitol, 2021, Capitol, attempting to cast her testimony as revenge by claiming that he “hardly know[s]” Hutchinson, calling her a “phony” and that he “personally turned down” a request she made to join his post-presidency staff at Mar-a-Lago.
Reacting in real-time to Hutchinson’s damning testimony, Trump weighed in on his social media platform “Truth Social.”
Hutchinson served in Trump’s Office of Legislative Affairs and later as a top aide to former chief of staff Mark Meadows. But Trump claims he barely knows her.
“I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and ‘leaker’), and when she requested to go with certain others of the team to Florida after my having served a full term in office, I personally turned her request down,” Trump posted.
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“Why did she want to go with us if she felt we were so terrible? I understand that she was very upset and angry that I didn’t want her to go, or be a member of the team. She is bad news!” Trump wrote.
Trump routinely claims not to be familiar with individuals who are critical of him, particularly when they were part of his administration. He deployed a similar tactic during his impeachment proceedings.
In response to this, one former White House aide said, “everyone high up at the White House knew her. And even if Trump didn’t know her name, he most certainly recognized her. She traveled on Air Force One with Mark for every trip.”
As noted by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, “Hutchinson may not be a well-known name outside of Trump world, but she was an access point to the inside of it when Meadows was the former President’s chief of staff. If lawmakers wanted to get in touch with Trump, they called Hutchinson, not the White House switchboard. When they had a message to push to Meadows, they rang Hutchinson, not the legislative affairs staffer.”
Meanwhile, former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews tweeted: “Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump [White House] worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is.”
Anyone downplaying Cassidy Hutchinson’s role or her access in the West Wing either doesn’t understand how the Trump WH worked or is attempting to discredit her because they’re scared of how damning this testimony is.
— Sarah Matthews (@SarahAMatthews1) June 28, 2022
