Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, is filling in the details of her journey more than a year after testifying against Trump and his top officials before the Jan. 6 House committee.Photo:Candace Dane Chambers; STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty
Candace Dane Chambers; STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty
To most of the world,Cassidy Hutchinson’s story begins and ends on June 28, 2022, when she stood before the House committee investigating theJan. 6 Capitol riotand testified about shocking behavior she witnessed as an aide in PresidentDonald Trump’s White House.
While the televised testimony was an inflection point in Hutchinson’s journey, it’s part of a much larger, more personal saga that began years prior and continues to this day. Hutchinson pulls back the curtain in a new memoir,Enough, publishing Sept. 26.
“I want people to know that I didn’t just arrive at that moment of testifying,” Hutchinson tells PEOPLE. “It was hard in a lot of ways to get to that place. And it was hard afterward too.”
Cautiously optimistic about Meadows' offer, she left her post in the Office of Legislative Affairs, where she had been an effective White House liaison to members of Congress.
With close proximity to the president and his inner circle during the 2020 reelection campaign — often traveling alongside Meadows and Trump, and seeing the trail of people entering and leaving the Oval Office — Hutchinson says she was clued in on the happenings of the administration, and in many cases, was involved in helping Meadows plan and execute significant events and meetings.
Cassidy Hutchinson attends the final 2020 campaign rally for Donald Trump in Grand Rapids, Michigan, pictured here alongside the president and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.Shealah Craighead/The White House
Shealah Craighead/The White House
“There were a lot of moments, especially during the campaign season and in the post-election period, where I began to question what we were doing and whether or not it aligned with my perception of what I wanted my public service to be,” she says, adding that when Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — a moment she believes “was single-handedly the most destructive force that our democracy has faced in modern times, if not in American history” — all of the small red flags became a big realization.
“Throughout my service in the Trump administration, I had lost this piece of myself,” she can now say. “The circle of people I was surrounded with wasn’t really a circle, it was a cage. I was locked in the cage of this ideological mindset, and every time I tried to break free of the cage, I found myself coming back into it.”
In the investigations that followed after Trump left office, Hutchinson had a difficult choice to make: defend the administration that she’d once given her all to support, or follow her conscience. “It was a year and a half of this moral tug of war inside of me, because on one hand I knew how fervently I disagreed with everything that happened that day — and I knew that I was complicit,” she explains.
On the advice of a Trump-affiliated lawyer, Hutchinson claims, she falsely testified that she didn’t recall many things that happened in the White House — but she says the guilt of lying under oath to protect people whose actions she didn’t agree with ate at her, and she wanted to make it right.
“I knew from the moment that I decided that I wanted and needed to come forward with the information that I had, that it would take a toll on my career,” she adds. “But it was a small price to pay in exchange for living the rest of my life in this aura of dishonesty and inauthenticity.”
Cassidy Hutchinson in a deposition with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.House Select Committee via AP
Hutchinson sought new counsel with no strings attached and had a second chance to testify on her own terms, telling the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot that Trump knew there were armed supporters in Washington on Jan. 6 and that he urged them on anyway, and that the presidentphysically assaulted a Secret Service agentwhen his request to meet his supporters at the Capitol was denied.
“All I did was come forward and tell the truth,” she says, “and I believe that everybody who was subpoenaed should have done that.”
“It’s important for my readers to be able to understand that I know I didn’t always handle everything correctly,” she says. “I’m not proud of a lot of the decisions that I made, but being able to admit that to myself is what led me to being able to make that decision to come forward and testify.”
Cassidy Hutchinson is rebuilding her life in Washington, pictured on Sept. 17, 2023, with her cockapoo George.Candace Dane Chambers
Candace Dane Chambers
Hutchinson’s testimony made her a polarizing public figure overnight, halting her career prospects and forcing her to isolate in a Washington, D.C. hotel before retreating to Atlanta for a while out of safety concerns. More than a year later, though, she’s back in the nation’s capital — and while she doesn’t see herself immediately jumping back into politics, she’s happy to be home.
“I don’t view it as a loss. I truly view it as gaining a sense of freedom,” she says of the fallout that came after speaking out against the Trump administration.
Below, an exclusive excerpt fromEnough, in which Hutchinson details the days immediately before and after her life-altering testimony.
Simon and Schuster
On Thursday night, I pull up to my parents’ house for what I know will be my last visit for a long while. I have one weekend left to enjoy my anonymity, but I don’t want to be alone. For one more night, I want to pretend that everything is alright.
“Another deposition?”
“What? Cass, are you okay? Do you have something to wear?”
I laugh. “Nope. But I’ll figure it out. It’s not going to be a big deal. Can we please not talk about it?”
“Oh my God,” she says, winding herself up. “What are you going to say? What don’t I know?”
Everything, I think,literally everything. “Drop it, please. I don’t have any more information right now.”
The committee hasn’t announced my hearing yet because of security concerns, which I do not tell Mom. If she knows that, she won’t ever let the subject drop.
“I wish you could stay longer,” [my step-dad] Paul says as he wraps me in a bear hug Saturday morning. “I’ll try to come home soon,” I tell him. But I know that’s not true. I know that won’t be an option for a while. I merge onto the interstate.When will I see my parents again?
I stop at Zara in the Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey. I’m worried about my clothes for the hearing. I want to look professional and demure. I don’t want to wear anything distracting or anything that would attract commentary, positive or negative. I have only a few hundred dollars in my checking account, so whatever I purchase will have to be at a discount. I see a white blazer on sale. It feels bold and I’m not confident I will wear it, but I buy it in the event I can’t find anything in my wardrobe more suitable.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the Trump administration, testifies about the behavior of Trump and his senior officials surrounding the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.Brandon Bell/Getty
Days later, more than 13 million Americans tuned in live to watch Cassidy — wearing her instantly famous white blazer — deliver shocking testimony about President Trump’s actions surrounding the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot. For her safety, she goes into hiding after the hearing.
It’s a strange four days, alternately boring, fretful, and unreal. Quarantined in my hotel room, I feel disoriented, like I have just gotten off a boat after weeks at sea. My world is still rocking as I try to find my footing.
We haven’t planned how long I’ll stay in [the hotel] or where I will go next. [My lawyers] Bill, Jody, and I are of the same mind—that it isn’t safe for me, physically, emotionally, or politically, to be seen or heard in public or to risk going to my apartment. There have been security threats, they warn, although I don’t know the specifics. I don’t want to know.
The scene is worse at my parents’ house. News vans are parked in front of their home, cameras positioned to catch a glimpse of someone inside. Mom and Paul are staying home from work. They feel safer that way.
We released a statement after the hearing: “Ms. Hutchinson believes that January 6 was a horrific day for the country, and it is vital to the future of our democracy that it not be repeated.”
Cassidy Hutchinson stands at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 17, 2023. She is rebuilding her life in Washington, D.C. after spending time in Atlanta following her testimony.Candace Dane Chambers
With Trump running for reelection in 2024, Hutchinson — who has spent much of the past year writing her book — remains a public enemy to him and his supporters.
Trump continues to hurl insults in my direction. I learn how it feels to be on the other side. But I know enough not to react. That’s what he wants me to do. He wants me to be defensive. He wants to know when he’s hurt someone or gotten a rise out of them; he wants to project his hurt onto the source of it. Trump doesn’t care if you dispute him or call him a liar. Only silence bothers him. Being ignored drives him mad.
Hutchinson will give her first broadcast interview about the book onCBS Sunday Morningon Sunday, Sept. 24.
source: people.com
