by Daniel Oliver
The House Oversight Subcommittee exposes Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony as unreliable, raising questions about media bias and the January 6 Committee's investigative integrity.
A New York Times headline reads: “Billionaires Wanted to Save the News Industry. They’re Losing a Fortune.” The opening sentence is: “Time magazine, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times—owned by Marc Benioff, Jeff Bezos and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong—are still losing money.” And they are surely not the only ones. Is it any wonder?
The mainstream media’s coverage of Cassidy Hutchinson and her testimony before the now-pardoned January 6 Select Committee offers a cautionary tale.
The Interim Report of the Failures and Politicization of the January 6th Select Committee issued by the House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight is not exactly weekend reading, but it nevertheless fascinates and rewards. Readers who don’t slavishly read only the left-wing media may have a general sense of what the authors have to say, but those who read and listen only to the left-wing propagandists will be in for a shock. The perfidy of the left-wing in this country is remarkable, but it no longer surprises.
The Subcommittee on Oversight’s press release may be what encouraged Biden to issue his last-day pardons. The top three findings cited in the subcommittee’s press release were: “1. Former representative Liz Cheney colluded with ‘star witness’ Cassidy Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge. 2. Former representative Liz Cheney should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering. . . . 3. Cassidy Hutchinson’s most outrageous claims lacked any evidence and the [January 6th] Select Committee had knowledge that her claims were false when they publicly promoted her.”
Hutchinson was a twenty-four-year-old special assistant to the president and coordinator for Legislative Affairs for White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during his tenure as chief of staff. That was the position, which now seems far beyond her capabilities, that she held on January 6, 2021.
As readers familiar with the details of some of the January 6 Committee’s hearings and findings may remember, Hutchinson made a number of claims that seemed, at least to many, preposterous. Some of them were explicitly denied by Donald Trump.
Hutchinson’s post-White House behavior seems odd too. Despite saying she was disgusted by Trump, whose actions she described as “unpatriotic” and “un-American,” she continued to work “for him” after he left office, at a salary of $90,000 a year.
When the January 6 Select Committee began interviewing individuals, Cassidy was one of the persons they sought out. Cassidy couldn’t afford an attorney, so she contacted two close allies of President Trump, who arranged to have Stefan Passantino represent her at no cost.
According to the Interim Report, following her second interview, Hutchinson “drastically switched her narrative and began testifying to a variety of unsubstantiated and uncorroborated claims that ultimately appeared in the Select Committee’s final report.”
Why? The Interim Report states, “[T]he [House Administration’s] Subcommittee [on Oversight] has uncovered evidence of secret conversations between Hutchinson, former White House employee Alyssa Farah Griffin (“Farah Griffin”), and, troublingly, conversations between Hutchinson and Representative Cheney without the knowledge of Hutchinson’s attorney.”
The Interim Report states: “It is unusual—and potentially unethical—for a Member of Congress conducting an investigation to contact a witness if the Member [in this case, Vice Chair Liz Cheney] knows that the individual is represented by legal counsel.”
Subsequently, Cheney (one of those pardoned by Biden on his last day as president) engineered the removal of Hutchinson’s attorney, following which Hutchinson replaced him with two attorneys recommended by Cheney.
The Interim Report states: “Despite the Select Committee’s exhaustive interviews of hundreds of witnesses, Cassidy Hutchinson was the only witness to testify to a series of specific, outrageous claims about President Trump on January 6, 2021. Nearly all her allegations involve incidents to which she was not an eyewitness, and the parties she credited for relaying those alleged events to her categorically denied her claims.”
And finally, for our purposes here, this from the Interim Report:
“Hutchinson’s willingness to testify under oath to these demonstrably false claims proves her unreliability as a witness. The Select Committee’s decision to craft its narrative almost exclusively on the unchallenged, uncorroborated claims of one witness fails to meet even the most basic investigative standards and as a result, the Select Committee’s Final Report lacks any credibility.”
Hutchinson was a flaming fraud.
But that’s not the way the media presented her.
Max Boot wrote:
“When the Secret Service refused to take him to the scene of the mob, Trump reportedly became so ‘irate’ that he tried to grab the steering wheel of the presidential limousine and lunged at an agent who tried to restrain him. Has there ever been an incident of a president trying to attack one of his bodyguards?”
According to the Interim Report, there was no truth to the story at all. But Boot wasn’t finished: “If there is any justice in the world, Hutchinson’s testimony will finally break through the force field of indifference enveloping the Republican Party.”
If there is any justice, perhaps Boot will read the Interim Report and confess his journalistic sins.
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank practically fell in love with Hutchinson:
“The former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, just three years out of college, strode into the Cannon Caucus room with a four-person entourage, facing down 25 photographers. She was understandably nervous—TV cameras from all directions beamed her every move to millions—but she had a preternatural poise.”
Oooh! Preternatural! You can almost hear Milbank humming to himself: “You’re sixteen, you’re beautiful, and you’re mine.” Then Milbank recounts Hutchinson’s story about Trump trying to grab the steering wheel:
“Hutchinson, 25, recounted what she was told President Donald Trump had done when the head of his Secret Service detail, Bobby Engel, refused to drive him to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021: ‘The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, and said, “Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing.” . . . Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel’ in the direction of his throat.”
Wow! Damning stuff, no?
Actually, no. According to the Interim Report, the driver of the car denied it ever happened.
Norman Eisen of the New York Times wrote:
“She [Hutchinson] corroborated reports of Mr. Trump’s animus toward his vice president during the riot. Ms. Hutchinson recalled a conversation about Mr. Trump between Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Meadows: ‘I remember Pat saying something to the effect of, “Mark, we need to do something more. They’re literally calling for the vice president to be f-ing hung.” And Mark had responded something to the effect of, ‘You heard him, Pat, he thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong.” To which Pat said something like, “This is f-ing crazy.”’”
According to the Interim Report, Hutchinson’s “recalled” conversation between Cipollone and Meadows came only after Cheney had directed Hutchinson to fire her attorney and hire counsel Cheney had suggested. She had not mentioned the incident during her first two interviews, in conversations with her attorney, nor in conversations with her closest friends.
It is reasonably safe to conclude there is no truth to the story at all.
Frank Bruni of the New York Times wrote the “steering wheel story” this way:
Apprised of the intensifying danger, and aware of the potential destruction, he [Trump] wanted to join the rioters at the Capitol, where he could behold and savor the havoc that he was able to wreak. So he tried to wrest control of the presidential vehicle from the Secret Service agent who was driving it.
There may be no better metaphor for Trump’s reckless attempt, from the beginning of his presidency to the end, to steer the country in whatever direction he pleased. The rules of the road, fundamental safety, the airbag of the Constitution—none of that mattered. All of it took a back seat to his whims.
Such a dramatic, impressive description! And so wrong.
In the coming weeks will we read retractions from the media mavens who fell in love with the girl with the “preternatural poise?” Please. They won’t even bother to read the Interim Report.
Is the Interim Report accurate? How do we find out? The lesson here is that show trials, like the January 6 Select Committee’s hearings—whether in the Soviet Union or the U.S. Congress—neither uncover nor are designed to uncover the truth. You’d think even the left-wing journalists in this country would know that. Maybe they do—but their perfidy, in service to their warped view of America, no longer surprises.
The perfidy of the reporters may no longer surprise, but the real question is: why do their editors, whose publications, even according to The New York Times, are losing fortunes, keep them on?
Email Daniel Oliver at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.
Daniel Oliver is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of the Education
and Research Institute and a Director of the Pacific Research Institute
for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as Chairman
of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was Executive
Editor and subsequently Chairman of the Board of William F. Buckley
Jr.’s National Review.
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/28/the-media-coverage-of-cassidy-hutchinson-a-cautionary-tale/
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