Cassidy Hutchinson was a staff member in the Legislature before she was quickly promoted to special assistant to then-President Donald Trump and an adviser to Meadows, before becoming his executive assistant until the end of the Trump administration. Meadows made Hutchinson his legal assistant and would accompany Meadows to Capitol Hill for his most serious meetings. Hutchinson was with Meadows “all the time,” said a former White House official, and another source said she had “very close access to Meadows.” A former White House aide said Hutchinson had an altercation with Meadows in 2021. She was supposed to go to Mar-a-Lago as a permanent staff member, but that never came to fruition. Hutchinson’s experience of working closely with Meadows will allow the committee to gain further information about Meadows’s efforts to overthrow the election and to know what happened on the day the Capitol was breached. A person close to Hutchinson told CNN she had previously testified before the commission for at least 20 hours detailing her time at key White House meetings as Trump and his allies tried to overturn the election results. He was an eyewitness to several key episodes that led to Jan. 6, in addition to seeing some of Trump’s reactions in real time that day. During interviews with the committee, Hutchinson testified that many Republican members of Congress, including MPs Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry and Louie Gohmert, asked for a precautionary pardon after Jan. 6. He also testified that Meadows had been warned directly before the uprising of possible violence. Meadows refuses to speak to the House committee. Prior to her confirmation that she had spoken before the committee, CNN had previously reported that Hutchinson had replaced her lawyer, who had close ties to Trump, in preparation for her testimony. CNN also reported that Hutchinson was increasingly aware of the security risk by speaking in front of the committee and was on alert.
