TRUMP WHISTLEBLOWER CASSIDY HUTCHINSON
SHE WAS A RISING STAR AS A WHITEHOUSE AIDE UNDER FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP— UNTIL HER TESTIMONY BEFORE CONGRESS TURNED HER WORLD UPSIDEDOWN. STILL, SHE SAYS, ‘I STAND BY EVERYTHING’By KYLER ALVORD
Photographs by CANDACE DANE CHAMBERS
Standing tall as she was sworn in to testify on June 28, 2022, before U.S. House members investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021, Cassidy Hutchinson faced not just the committee before her but more than 13 million Americans watching from home. At just 25 years old, Hutchinson—a former White House aide who worked for then President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows—calmly recounted what she had witnessed firsthand in the run-up to Jan. 6. Trump, she testified, knew the crowd he had gathered outside the Capitol were armed and could turn violent, but still he urged them on. What led the New Jersey-raised, once earnest congressional intern—“I have set a personal goal to pursue a path of civic significance,†she told her college newspaper in 2018—to blow the whistle on her powerful former bosses? “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,†says Hutchinson, now 26. “I realized how far gone I was from the person I wanted to be and the person that I saw myself becoming when I first entered public service in 2017 interning on Capitol Hill.â€
Hutchinson’s bombshell testimony made her a pariah among Trump loyalists, halted her budding political career and forced her into isolation as a safety precaution. But looking back, she says, “I don’t view it as a loss. I truly view it as gaining a sense of freedom. Making the hard choice leads to a more rewarding life, and that’s something that I found really transformative in this past year.â€
In an exclusive excerpt from Hutchinson’s new memoir Enough, she details the days surrounding her testimony as she grappled with the challenges of becoming a polarizing public figure overnight.
IN THE INNER CIRCLE
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol asked Hutchinson to testify live about what she witnessed in Trump’s White House. Terrified, and with only a few days’ notice, she got in her car and drove to her home state of New Jersey.
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 all right.
On Friday morning, I go to my favorite local bagel shop and get an Asiago bagel with olive cream cheese, my regular order since I was a child. I bring it home and wash it down with a Nestlé Nesquik chocolate milk, another childhood favorite. I spend the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon lying in the sun in my parents’ backyard. I coat myself in baby oil to get a deep tan. I’m a Jersey girl. I don’t normally burn, but I do that day, and now I have another worry, that I’m going to look like a lobster at the hearing.
My mom gets home from work, and that evening we go to Target where we pick through a pile of T-shirts.Unprompted, I say, “Oh, by the way, I’m testifying next week.â€â€œAnother deposition?â€â€œNo,†I say. “Live. On TV.â€â€œWhat? Cass, are you okay? Do you have something to wear?â€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?â€â€œOh my God,†she says, winding herself up. “What are you going to say? What don’t I know?â€Everything, I think, literally everything. “Drop it, please. I don’t have any more information right now.â€
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 stepdad] 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.
‘I DON’T SEE MYSELF IMMEDIATELY JUMPING BACK INTO POLITICS’ —CASSIDY HUTCHINSON
Days later, Hutchinson delivered explosive 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.
Some of the time, I feel I’ve lost control of my life, and I have a hard time imagining when and how I’ll be in control of it again. The pushback from Trump defenders is picking up speed, the attacks led by Trump himself, whose insults are getting cruder. I tried to mentally prepare for breaking with Trump World. I know how they curate vile attacks on their detractors. I was once part of that process.
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.â€
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.
I recognize the handiwork of some friends and colleagues who are amplifying Trump’s attacks anonymously. They try to impeach my testimony by impugning my character. I’d had my share of detractors among my White House colleagues who resented the authority Mark [Meadows] gave me. They derisively referred to me as “Chief Cassidy,†which finds its way into a Washington Post story. But it isn’t only my detractors who are busy. I know that people who had been my friends are trashing my reputation, too. I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I do. They were my friends. But their abuse is a reflection of their character, not mine, celebrated in the world they are a part of, the world where I had felt I belonged but now know I do not. I escaped before it was too late.
FROM TOP: HAIR & MAKEUP: BROOKE LEE SMITH/ZENOBIA AGENCY; INSET: STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; SHEALAH CRAIGHEAD/THE WHITE HOUSE; TIA DUFOUR/THE WHITE HOUSE; SIMON & SCHUSTERFrom Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson. Copyright © 2023 by Cassidy Hutchinson. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
