I was grateful to receive my free Covid test kits from the government, but after watching Cassidy Hutchinson testifying before the January 6 Committee, it’s obvious I’m dealing with another dreadful virus. And I need additional help.
As cynical as I had become over the lifetime—it certainly seemed that long to me—that Donald Trump presided over us, my brain wasn’t fully prepared for what Cassidy Hutchinson told me. I mean at that point I thought how much worse could it get? Grabbing them by the… The Mexican rapists. Lock her up. Bullying Raffensperger for 11,780 votes. Trying to extort Zelensky. But then listening to Cassidy, worse turned worst times worst.
I—we—have been totally Trumpified, 0ver the years slowly learning to accept the crude, the lewd, the unacceptable as the new kind of normal. But Cassidy Hutchinson, assistant to Mark Meadows, the President’s Chief of Staff, blew even that kind of normal to smithereens. Let’s start with January 2nd, 2021:
Cassidy Hutchinson: “As Mr. Giuliani and I were walking to his vehicle that evening, he looked at me and said something to the effect of, ‘Cass, are you excited for the 6th? … we’re going to the Capitol. It’s going to be great. The President’s going to be there. He’s going to look powerful. He’s — he’s going to be with the members. He’s going to be with the Senators. Talk to the chief about it, talk to the chief about it. He knows about it’ …
“I found Mr. Meadows in his office on the couch. He was scrolling through his phone. I remember leaning against the doorway and saying, ‘I just had an interesting conversation with Rudy, Mark. It sounds like we’re going to go to the Capitol.’ He didn’t look up from his phone and said something to the effect of, ‘there’s a lot going on, Cass, but I don’t know. Things might get real, real bad on January 6th.’” (Emphasis added.)
Cassidy Hutchinson: “[Robert O’Brien, the National Security Advisor] asked if he could speak with Mr. Meadows about potential violent—words of violence that he was hearing that were potentially going to happen on the Hill on January 6th. I had asked if he had connected with Tony Ornato, because Tony Ornato had a conversation with him, with Mark, about that topic.”
Tony Ornato was a Secret Service officer and the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for operations.
Cassidy Hutchinson: “I just remember Mr. Ornato coming in and saying that we had intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th … where I remember Tony mentioning knives, guns in the form of pistols and rifles, bear spray, body armor, spears, and flagpoles. Spears were one item, flagpoles were one item. But then Tony had related to me something to the effect of and these effing people are fastening spears onto the ends of flagpoles.” (Emphasis added.)
Liz Cheney: “On January 3rd … the Capitol Police noted that the Proud Boys and other groups planned to be in Washington, DC on January 6th and indicated that, quote, ‘unlike previous post-election protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counter-protesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th.’”
Cassidy Hutchinson: “On January 3rd, Mr. Cipollone had approached me knowing that Mark had raised the prospect of going up to the Capitol on January 6th. Mr. Cipollone and I had a brief private conversation where he said to me ‘we need to make sure that this doesn’t happen. This would be a legally terrible idea for us. We’re—we have serious legal concerns if we go up to the Capitol that day.’ And he then urged me to continue relaying that to Mr. Meadows, because it’s my understanding that Mr. Cipollone thought that Mr. Meadows was indeed pushing this, along with the president … In the days leading up to the 6th, we had conversations about potentially obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral count. (Emphasis added.)
Cassidy Hutchinson: “[On the morning of January 6] I saw Mr. Cipollone right before I walked out onto West Exec that morning, and Mr. Cipollone said something to the effect of ‘please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.’”
Liz Cheney: “The Select Committee has learned about reports from outside the magnetometers, and has obtained police radio transmissions identifying individuals with firearms, including AR-15s, near the Ellipse on the morning of January 6th. Let’s listen.”
So just to be clear: the “mags” or magnetometers, are metal detectors set up in airports or public events to keep people from bringing in weapons. The Secret Service had deployed them at the Ellipse where President Trump was due to speak.
Unknown: “There’s an individual who is in a tree. It’s gonna be a white male, about six feet tall, thin build, brown cowboy boots. He’s got jeans and a blue jean jacket, and underneath the hoodie jacket the complainants both saw stock of an AR-15. He’s going to be with a group of individuals, about 5 to 8—5 to 8 other individuals. Two of the individuals in that group at the base of the tree near the porta-pottys were wearing green fatigues, green olive dress house fatigues. About 5’8”, 5’9”, skinny—skinny white males, brown cowboy boots.”
Unknown: “They had Glock style pistols in their waistband. 8736—That subject’s weapon on his right hip. That’s a negative, he’s in the tree. Motor one, make sure PPD knows they have an elevated threat in the tree south side of Constitution Avenue. Look for the Don’t Tread on Me flag, American flag facemask, cowboy boots, weapon on the right—right side hip. I got three men walking down the street in fatigues. One’s carrying an AR-15. Copy at 14th and Independence.”
Liz Cheney: “So Miss Hutchinson, is it your understanding that Mr. Ornato told the President about weapons at the rally on the morning of January 6th?”
Cassidy Hutchinson: “That’s what Mr. Ornato relayed to me.”
Liz Cheney: “And here’s how you characterized Mr. Meadows’ general response when people raised concerns about what could happen on January 6th.”
Unknown Questioner: “So at the time in the days leading up to the 6th, there were lots of public reports about how things might go bad on the 6th, even the potential for violence. If I’m hearing you correctly, what stands out to you is that Mr. Meadows did not share those concerns or at least did not act on those concerns.”
Cassidy Hutchinson: “Did not act on those concerns would be accurate. There were many discussions the morning of the 6th about the rhetoric of the speech that day. In my conversations with Mr. Herschmann, he had relayed that we would be foolish to include language that had been included at the President’s request, which had lines along—to the effect of fight for Trump. We’re going to march to the Capitol. I’ll be there with you. Fight for me. Fight for what we’re doing. Fight for the movement. Things about the Vice President at the time too. Both Mr. Herschmann and White House counsel’s office were urging the speechwriters to not include that language for legal concerns, and also for the optics of what it could portray the president wanting to do that day.”
Cassidy Hutchinson: “He was furious because he wanted the arena that we had on the ellipse to be maxed out at capacity for all attendees. The advanced team had relayed to him that the mags were free flowing. Everybody who wanted to come in had already come in. But he still was angry about the extra space and wanted more people to come in.”
The reality was that armed protesters did not want to have their weapons seized when they went through the mags.
Cassidy Hutchinson: “When we were in the offstage announce area tent behind the stage he was very concerned about the shot, meaning the photograph that we would get, because the rally space wasn’t full … and he was angry that we weren’t letting people through the mags with weapons …
“I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the President say something to the effect of, ‘you know, I—I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take that effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away.’” (Emphasis added.)
Cassidy Hutchinson: “A scheduled presidential movement is on his official schedule. It’s notified to the press and to a wide range of staff that will be traveling with him. It’s known to the public, known to the Secret Service, and they’re able to coordinate the movement days in advance. An off the record movement is confined to the knowledge of a very, very small group of advisers and staff.”
It’s important to note that Donald Trump had every intention, as he told the crowd during his speech, that he would walk and join the crowd as they marched to the capitol as part of an off-the-record movement to the Capitol.
Cassidy Hutchinson: “I had two or three phone conversations with Mr. Ornato when we were at the ellipse. And then I had four men on Mr. Meadows’ detail with me in between those individuals and a few other bodies on the ground, just secret service doing advance. They’re getting notifications through their radios and Mr. Ornato on one phone conversation had called me and said make sure the Chief knows that they’re—they’re getting close to the Capitol. It’s—they’re having trouble stacking bodies … It was becoming clear to us and to the Secret Service that Capitol Police officers were getting overrun at the security barricades outside of the Capitol building. And they were having short—they were short people to defend the building against the rioters.
“After I had the conversation with Mr. Ornato I went to have the discussion with Mr. Meadows. He was in a secure vehicle at the time making a call. So when I had gone over to the car, I went to open the door to let him know and he had immediately shut it. I don’t know who he was speaking with. It wasn’t something that he regularly did, especially when I would go over to give him information. So I was a bit taken aback, but I didn’t think much of it and thinking that I was—would be able to have the conversation with him a few moments later.”
Liz Cheney: “And were you able to have that conversation a few moments later?”
Cassidy Hutchinson: “Probably about 20 to 25 minutes later. There was another period of between where he shut the door again and then when he finally got out of the vehicle we had the conversation. But at that point there was a backlog of information that he should have been made aware of.”
Liz Cheney: “And when you finally were able to give Mr. Meadows the information about the violence at the Capitol, what was his reaction?”
Cassidy Hutchinson: “He almost had a lack of reaction. I remember him saying, Alright, something to the effect of how much longer does the President have left in this speech … So when he got off the stage, I had relayed to Mr. Meadows that I had another conversation with Tony. The movement was still not possible. Mr. Meadows said, Ok. And then as they proceeded to go to the motorcade and Mr. Meadows had reiterated, we’re going to work on it, sir. Talk to Bobby. Bobby has more information.
“Mark got into his vehicle, to my understanding. Trump got into the [Inaudible]. And after we had all arrived back at the White House later in the day, it had been relayed to me via Mark that the President wasn’t happy that Bobby didn’t pull it off for him, and that Mark didn’t work hard enough to get the movement on the books.”
Liz Cheney: “As we’ve all just heard, in the days leading up to January 6th, on the day of the speech, both before and during and after the rally speech, President Trump was pushing his staff to arrange for him to come up here to the Capitol during the electoral vote count. Let’s turn now to what happened in the president’s vehicle when the Secret Service told him he would not be going to the Capitol after his speech …”
Cassidy Hutchinson: “When I returned to the White House, I walked upstairs towards the chief of staff’s office, and I noticed Mr. Ornato lingering outside of the office. Once we had made eye contact, he quickly waved me to go into his office, which was just across the hall from mine. When I went in, he shut the door, and I noticed Bobby Engel, who was the head of Mr. Trump’s security detail, sitting in a chair, just looking somewhat discombobulated and a little lost. I looked at Tony and he had said, ‘did you f’ing hear what happened in the beast?’ I said, ‘no, Tony, I—I just got back. What happened?’ …
Cassidy Hutchinson: “So, once the president had gotten into the vehicle with Bobby, he thought that they were going up to the Capitol. And when Bobby had relayed to him we’re not, we don’t have the assets to do it, it’s not secure, we’re going back to the West Wing, the president had a very strong, a very angry response to that.
“Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of I’m the f’’ing president, take me up to the Capitol now, to which Bobby responded, sir, we have to go back to the West Wing. The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And Mr.—when Mr. Ornato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.”
Yes, indeed. Cassidy Hutchinson was opening the door wide to an asylum’s worth of craziness. All of them seemingly infected with Trumphoma, and quite frankly I was beginning to feel as if the disease had seeped out from the variety of its audio and video outputs of my smart TV to my not-so-smart brain. Not just madness, but madness interwoven with violence, not just tolerated but encouraged.
Quite frankly, it was a bit too much for me to fully acknowledge. My brain tried to make light of it. I remember laughing to myself: if only there was something that might do for Trumpification what ivermectin did for horses and cows and their intestinal worms.
Anyway, with the help of my search engine friends at DuckDuckGo, I spent hours looking online for some pills to take.
I’m sure they did their best, but all the ducks ended up with was some online newsletters and articles.
But really, given my condition, commentary just wouldn’t cut it. Sadly, after hours of searching, I reluctantly realized thatde-Trumpification was as complicated as a cure for Covid. And, unfortunately, I was slowly beginning to accept the great seriousness of what Cassidy Hutchinson was telling us. The poisoning of our democracy was so much more extensive and so much more lethal than I—we—imagined.
Cassidy Hutchinson: “No more than a minute, minute and a half later, I see Pat Cipollone barreling down the hallway towards our office … He just looked at me and started shaking his head and went over—opened Mark’s office door, stood there with the door propped open and said something to — Mark is still sitting on his phone …
“And I remember Pat saying to him something to the effect of, the rioters have gotten to the Capitol, Mark. We need to go down and see the President now. And Mark looked up at him and said, ‘he doesn’t want to do anything, Pat.’ And Pat said something to the effect of—and very clearly had said this to Mark—something to the effect of, ‘Mark, something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood is going to be on your f’ing hands. This is getting out of control. I’m going down there.’ And at that point, Mark set up from his couch, both of his phones in his hand. He had his glasses on still. He walked out with Pat. He put both of this phones on my desk and said, let me know if Jim calls. And they walked out and went down to the dining room.” (Emphasis added.)
After Jim Jordan called back, Cassidy brings the phone to the door of the Oval Dining Room where Meadows and CippolIone are talking to the President:
Cassidy Hutchinson: “He had stepped to where I was standing there holding the door open, took the phone, talking to Jim with the door still propped open, so I took a few steps back. ‘So, I probably was two feet from Mark. He was standing in the doorway going into the Oval Office dining room. They had a brief conversation. And in the crossfires—you know, I heard briefly, like, what they were talking about, but in the background I had heard conversations in the Oval Dining Room with the—at that point talking about the hang Mike Pence chants …
“It wasn’t until Mark hung up the phone, handed it back to me. I went back to my desk a couple of minutes later. Him and Pat came back, possibly Eric Herschmann too. I’m pretty sure Eric Herschmann was there, but I’m—I’m confident it was Pat that was there. 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, this is f’ing crazy, we need to be doing something more. Briefly stepped into Mark’s office, and when Mark had said something—when Mark had said something to the effect of he doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong. Knowing what I had heard briefly in the dining room coupled with Pat discussing the hanging Mike Pence chants in the lobby of our office and then Mark’s response, I understood ‘they’re’ to be the rioters in the Capitol that were chanting for the vice president to be hung.” (Emphasis added.)
Liz Cheney: “Ms. Hutchinson, what was your reaction when you saw this tweet: ‘Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!’”
Cassidy Hutchinson: “As a staffer that worked to always represent the administration to the best of my ability and to showcase the good things that he had done for the country, I remember feeling frustrated and disappointed, and really it felt personal. I—I was really sad. As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic.
“It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie, and it was something that was really hard in that moment to digest, knowing what I’ve been hearing down the hall and the conversations that were happening. Seeing that tweet come up and knowing what was happening on the Hill, and it’s something that I—it’s still—I still struggle to work through the emotions of that.”
So long ago, the summer before the summer of love, I happened upon the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco owned by the great poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who in 2007, among so many great works, penned these prescient lines in “Pity The Nation”:
“Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Whose sages are silenced
And whose bigots haunt the airwaves …
“Pity the nation oh pity the people
Who allows their rights to erode
And their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!”
From the right-wing militias eager to spill the blood of a once-loyal Vice-President to the extremists occupying the highest court in the land, there are those committed to waging war on a multicultural, progressive, democratic America. Under the banner of a vengeful God, they will shackle women, hand out guns like candy to the hateful, the sociopaths, and the stormtroopers, dismantle any and all safety nets, revoke your privacy, and make sex a dismal obligation/propagation for the heterosexuals, then ban it for everyone else.
One day the Ukrainian people were living in peace; the next day brought war.
Remember, they’ve already made the shirts.
