NEW YORK (AP) — The attorney for a just one-time supporter of former President Donald Trump who has been caught up in a Jan. 6 conspiracy concept demanded Thursday that Fox News and host Tucker Carlson retract and apologize for recurring “falsehoods” about the man’s supposed intentions.
The action taken on behalf of Raymond Epps specifically mentions a voting equipment company’s pending $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit in opposition to Fox, an sign that persons caught up in political conspiracy theories are battling back again.
The law firm, Michael Teter, claimed he gave Fox official detect of opportunity litigation. Fox Information experienced no fast comment.
Epps, a former Maritime from Arizona, traveled to Washington, D.C., for Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, rally and was caught there on video two times, at the time urging demonstrators to go to the Capitol.
He was under no circumstances arrested, main some to theorize that he was a governing administration agent conducting a “false flag” procedure to whip up difficulties that would be blamed on Trump supporters. There has been no evidence to suggest that was correct, and Epps instructed the congressional committee investigating the attack that he has hardly ever labored at or been an informant for a government agency.
Yet the principle, first posed on a fringe conservative website, distribute to the additional influential Fox Information and to Congress and was even pointed out by Trump himself.
Epps explained to The New York Moments final summer time that he and his spouse had to market their enterprise and dwelling and go away for an undisclosed location simply because of threats.
“The crazies started out coming out of the woodwork,” Epps testified to the congressional panel.
He has acknowledged remaining caught on movie on Jan. 5, 2021, telling demonstrators to go to the Capitol the following day. He reported he was hoping to defuse a tense situation and intended that the demonstration should really be peaceful. He testified that it was “something stupid” that he reported and he regretted it.
Epps also was caught on video clip at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but said he did not enter the creating. He has been pointed out on Carlson’s key-time Fox News Channel display five periods in 2023 by itself, in accordance to a search of transcripts identified in Nexis.
On March 6, Carlson said: “What was Epps executing there? We simply cannot say, but we do know that he lied to investigators.”
Previous July 13, on the day the Periods story about Epps and his spouse likely into hiding was posted, Carlson explained he was “on camera repeatedly telling people today to storm the Capitol. A whole lot of people who did that are however in jail, but Epps is not. But it’s a conspiracy principle?”
In his letter to Fox on Thursday, Teter demanded “that Mr. Carlson and Fox Information retract the claim that Mr. Epps was operating for the FBI or any other federal government entity when he attended the Jan. 6 events and the declare that Mr. Epps acted as an instigator or provocateur of the incident.”
He termed on Carlson and Fox to situation a official on-air apology “for the lies.”
Teter explained revelations that have emerged via court papers in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit might make clear why Fox acted the way it has with his shopper.
Dominion has stated Fox knowingly and maliciously spread lies that it was associated in voting irregularities that damage Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Documents have unveiled the suspicion that a lot of at Fox had about those theories, but also inside worry about how the community may well be dropping professional-Trump viewers who considered the wrong promises that the election was stolen.
Fox has explained that it was carrying out its job in reporting on newsworthy claims created by the then-president and his allies.
In Epps’ situation, Teter wrote that “fear of getting rid of viewers by telling them the fact is not a defense to defamation and bogus light, nor will it absolve you of liability relevant to statements for infliction of emotional distress.”
___
Associated Push researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
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Quite a few laws handed in the 2021 Texas legislative periods laws took impact Jan. 1, like a revision to how house taxes are gathered, an expansion of the judicial branch and an amendment to pollution specifications.
Senate Monthly bill 12, prepared by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, limitations the sum of house taxes a college district can levy on the homestead of an elderly or disabled particular person, according to a invoice assessment by the Senate Research Heart.
To guarantee that districts are not burdened by a decrease in revenue, the legislation can make districts qualified for extra condition help. The law addresses a perceived shortcoming of the faculty funding overhaul lawmakers passed in 2019. That law provided additional condition money to school districts so they, in change, could reduced regional property tax rates. But aged and disabled property owners had been not entitled to this reduction.
Residence Invoice 3774, authored by Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, includes quite a few reforms to the judicial branch. It makes 10 district courts, five statutory county courts, a person statutory probate court and one legal justice of the peace courtroom. It revises the jurisdiction of certain statutory county courts, gives magistrates in specific counties jurisdiction in legal circumstances, revises the obligations of sure district and county attorneys and gives public accessibility to the point out court document database — if the point out Supreme Courtroom agrees.
Additionally, the regulation creates a code of qualified accountability to control entities overseen by the Texas Forensic Science Fee, revises the commission’s investigatory electricity and permits the fee to use condition resources to practice forensic analysts.
Among the other housekeeping provisions, the law demands that the protecting buy registry consist of protecting orders for victims of sexual assault or abuse, stalking or trafficking and mandates the removing of certain vacated orders from the registry. It extends the deadline for prosecutors to remedy an application for a writ of habeas corpus submitted immediately after final conviction in a felony circumstance with no the dying penalty.
Some provisions of the bill took outcome on Sept. 1, 2021, while the remaining turned legislation on Jan. 1.
Senate Monthly bill 1210, prepared by Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, and Bettencourt, necessitates that building codes permit the use of refrigerants, a part of air conditioning models, other than hydrofluorocarbons, so prolonged as they comply with the federal Clear Air Act. This regulation is in line with a motion in the United States and close to the environment to section out the use of hydrofluorocarbons, chemical compounds of hydrogen, carbon and fluorine that erode the ozone layer and add to world-wide warming.
A Senate Exploration Center investigation of the regulation pointed out that a top business group, the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, supported the legislation. Big Texas suppliers including Goodman and Chemours also supported it, the evaluation located. The evaluation said the transition away from hydrofluorocarbons features ramping up the production of air conditioners that use other types of coolants, quite a few of which can be manufactured in Texas.
“Overall, the changeover is predicted to generate 33,000 new manufacturing jobs and sustain additional than 138,000 existing manufacturing jobs nationwide,” the assessment mentioned. “A substantial proportion of these work opportunities will be in Texas, currently a main manufacturing hub for these products.”
The new 88th legislative session commences Jan. 10.
California passed a fast food bill last summer aimed at raising wages and working conditions.
Opponents said it would raise costs and blocked it with a petition to let voters decide.
California planned to enact the law Jan 1 anyway, but a group filed a lawsuit and won a temporary hold on it.
A group won a temporary restraining order to stop California’s plan to implement a law on Jan. 1 that could, among other things, raise the industry’s minimum wage to $22 per hour.
Save Local Restaurants filed a lawsuit on Thursday saying California couldn’t enact AB 257, or the FAST Act, also known as Fast Food Recovery Act, as planned after the group on Dec. 5 submitted a petition signed by more than 1 million Californians to put the measure on the ballot in November 2024. Save Local Restaurants includes International Franchise Association, the National Restaurant Association, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The law would give an appointed 10-member state council, or “Fast Food Council,” wide-ranging authority over fast food and fast casual restaurants in California with more than 100 locations nationwide. The council could raise the minimum wage to $22 per hour in 2023 and up to 3.5{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} annually after that. It could also set minimum standards for working conditions, maximum hours worked, security, and more.
Normally, a petition for referendum would put the law on hold but earlier this week, the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) said it would implement the law as planned. DIR said the law should only be put on hold once the petition signatures are verified and the ballot referendum is formally approved, which could take weeks.
“Since the inception of the right of referendum over a century ago, approximately 52 referendum measures have made it on to the statewide ballot, over 50{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} of which ended up repealed by voters,” said Nielsen Merksamer attorney Kurt Oneto, who helped file the lawsuit, in a statement. “Not in a single one of those prior instances did the State ever attempt to temporarily enforce the referred statute while the signature review process was underway.”
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has pushed for the bill, claims it gives workers “a seat at the table to help set wage, health, safety, training standards across fast-food industry,” while opponents claim food prices would soar as much as 22{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}, bringing further hardship to those already suffering under the highest inflation in a generation.
How would this fast-food act impact small businesses?
Increased costs ultimately mean fewer small, local restaurants, studies show.
If wages rise to around $22 per hour, labor costs could increase by more than 60{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} for these businesses, wrote Christopher Thornberg, director of the University of California, Riverside School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting and Development in a study this year supported by the International Franchise Association (IFA).
California’s Department of Finance opposed the bill in June, saying it would be expensive to enforce and “could lead to a fragmented regulatory and legal environment for employers and raise long-term costs across industries.” The department also questioned if the bill would even accomplish its goal.
Of 67 economists in an August Employment Policies Institute survey, 93{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} expect operating costs will rise, 84{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} said fewer restaurant chains would want to operate in California and 73{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} said franchisees will close restaurants.
Franchise-focused research firm FRANdata estimates the bill will affect 16,753 franchised locations in California operated by 5,820 franchisees.
How would consumers pay the price?
About 70{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} of Californians, or 28 million people, eat at quick service restaurants each week. Underrepresented communities, and those who can afford it least, will be hit hardest as businesses pass on higher costs to consumers.
“The measure would establish an unelected council to control labor policy in the counter-service restaurant industry, cause food prices to increase by as much as 20{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} during a period of decades-high inflation, and harm thousands of small family-, minority-, and women-owned businesses across the state,” Save Local Restaurants, led by the National Restaurant Association, IFA and The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement.
For every 20{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} to 60{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} increase in wages, Thornberg estimates restaurant prices will rise 7{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} to 22{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}. Some IFA members forecast prices could rise more, possibly as much as 40{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}.
Households with an average annual income of $35,000 would pay an extra $184 per year to maintain their current levels of consumption if wages rose 20{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}, Thornberg estimates.
“If you are a small business owner running two restaurants that are part of a national chain, like McDonald’s, you can be targeted by the bill,” Joe Erlinger, McDonald’s USA president, wrote last summer. “But if you own 20 restaurants that are not part of a large chain, the bill does not apply to you.”
Additionally, many business groups representing minority communities said the law would kill opportunity. “Not only do franchise models provide minority entrepreneurs with uncharted economic opportunity, but the franchise model represents a key pathway towards achieving the American Dream while also generating employment, revenue, and opportunity for their immediate communities,” they said.
SEIU says California’s 550,000 fast-food workers, most of them Black or Hispanic, would benefit “with a seat at the table to help set minimum industry standards around wages, safety and training.”
The minimum wage in California is $15 an hour. The average fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the state jumped to $2,274 this year from $1,526 in 2021, according to RentData.org, which provides free rental price data for homes and apartments across the country.
But opponents say unions are the main benefactors. Typically, employees at one location must organize with labor unions negotiating for them.
Under the FAST Act, though, unions can skip the organizing and instead go straight to negotiating, Sean Redmond, vice president of Labor Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said.
“Labor unions and their political allies want to impose a form of sectoral bargaining that runs afoul of American labor policy,” Redmond said.
If the bill passes, SEIU hopes copycat legislation will follow in other states. That would “clearly” have “anti-growth ramifications,” said Andy Barish, Jefferies analyst, in an analyst note in September.
Save Local Restaurants and DIR will each have a chance to state their case at a hearing on January 13, Superior Court of California in Sacramento said.
“While this pause is temporary, the impact is beyond just one piece of legislation and keeps intact for the time being California’s century-old referendum process,” Save Local Restaurants in a statement.
In the meantime, the Secretary of State will continue conducting the “random sample” verification to ensure that enough of the signatures on the referendum petition are valid. It has until Jan. 25 to conduct that sample.
If more than 66{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} are valid, then the petition is considered verified, and the law would be frozen until the election in November 2024.
In response to the lawsuit, Alondra Hernandez, a worker at an Oakland Burger King, said “the fast-food industry should consider this New Year’s resolution: Drop the referendum, drop the lawsuit and meet us at the table. ”
Medora Lee is a money, markets and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at [email protected] and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.
TALLAHASSEE — Beefed-up lobbying restrictions and breaks for motorists who frequently use toll roads are among state laws and other changes that will arrive with the new year.
The laws, passed during this year’s regular legislative session and special sessions, also include making available land-preservation money, allowing local governments to publish legal notices online instead of in newspapers and ending a long-controversial practice in the property insurance system.
Most of the bills that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed this year took effect on July 1 or upon his signature. But here are some changes that will take effect Sunday:
LOBBYING: New laws (HB 7001 and HB 7003) will carry out a constitutional amendment that voters overwhelmingly passed in 2018 to expand from two years to six years the time that certain officials will have to wait to start lobbying after leaving government positions. The restrictions will apply to lawmakers, state agency heads, judges and many local officials.
TOLL CREDITS: During a special session this month, lawmakers approved a measure (SB 6-A) that will provide 50{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} credits to motorists who record 35 or more toll road trips in a month. The program will last for a year, with lawmakers agreeing to spend $500 million to help toll agencies cover lost revenue.
Related: DeSantis signs toll relief law for frequent Florida commuters
DISASTER ASSISTANCE: Responding to the devastating 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside, lawmakers approved making property tax rebates available when residential properties are rendered uninhabitable for 30 days. During the December special session, lawmakers passed a measure (SB 4-A) to offer similar rebates to property owners who sustained damage in Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole. Property owners will be able to apply to county property appraisers between Jan. 1 and April 1.
LAND PRESERVATION: Part of the state budget will free up $300 million within the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for land acquisition.
PUBLIC NOTICES: Lawmakers approved a measure (HB 7049) that will allow local governments to publish legal notices on county websites instead of in newspapers. Local governments in counties with fewer than 160,000 residents must first hold public hearings to determine if residents have sufficient access to the internet.
PROPERTY INSURANCE: Lawmakers during the special session this month approved ending a controversial practice known as assignment of benefits for property insurance. The practice involves homeowners signing over claims to contractors, who then pursue payments from insurers. The prohibition on assignment of benefits (SB 2-A) will apply to policies issued on or after Jan. 1.
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WORKERS’ COMPENSATION RATES: An average 8.4{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8} decrease in workers’ compensation insurance rates will take effect in January, marking the sixth consecutive year that average rates have decreased.
APPELLATE COURTS: Florida’s appellate courts will be revamped Jan. 1 under a law (HB 7027) that created a 6th District Court of Appeal and revised the jurisdictions of the 1st District Court of Appeal, the 2nd District Court of Appeal and the 5th District Court of Appeal.
Related: DeSantis appoints ousted Hillsborough judge to new appeals court
MIYA’S LAW: Lawmakers passed a measure (SB 898) that will require apartment landlords to conduct background checks on all employees. The bill, dubbed “Miya’s Law,” came after the death of 19-year-old Miya Marcano, a Valencia College student who went missing from her Orlando apartment in September and was found dead a week later. The suspected killer, who later died by suicide, worked as a maintenance worker at Marcano’s apartment complex.
SCHOOL BOOK SELECTIONS: As part of a broader education bill (HB 1467), lawmakers required that a training program be available as of Jan. 1 for school librarians, media specialists and others involved in the selection of school library materials. The program is aimed, in part, at providing access to “age-appropriate materials and library resources.”
Related: Tensions simmer as conservative moms, Florida educators differ on school books
NEWBORN SCREENINGS: A measure (SB 292) will require hospitals and other state-licensed birthing facilities to test newborns for congenital cytomegalovirus if the infants fail hearing tests. The virus can cause hearing loss in infants.
Cassidy Hutchinson described in raw detail why she decided to come clean to the Jan. 6 committee.
Hutchinson told the panel that her Trump-aligned lawyer advised her to mislead lawmakers.
Ultimately, she said that she wanted to prove her loyalty was to the truth.
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New transcripts released by the House January 6 committee on Thursday show how one key witness was pressured by her counsel to mislead the panel before flipping against President Donald Trump and his allies.
The witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as a top aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified to the committee that her Trump-aligned lawyer repeatedly urged her to “downplay” her role in the Trump White House and told her”we just want to focus on protecting the president.”
But as their attorney-client relationship developed, Hutchinson said, she became increasingly uneasy with Stefan Passantino, a former top ethics lawyer in the Trump White House, advice until finally she decided to fire him and tell the committee what she knew.
According to transcripts, Hutchinson, even admitted that she initially lied to the committee about whether she had heard Trump lunge at a Secret Service agent after being told he could not go to the Capitol on January 6.
The transcripts, released Thursday, illustrate in detail Hutchinson’s transformation from combative former aide to star witness whose testimony painted a damning portrait of Trump’s final months in office.
No matter how hard she tried, Hutchinson couldn’t escape Trump’s orbit.
In a September deposition, Hutchinson told lawmakers how uncomfortable she felt after her first interview with the committee in February, during which she followed Passantino’s counsel despite disagreeing with his strategy of downplaying virtually everything.
“”Look, we want to get you in, get you out,” Hutchinson said Passantino told her before the appearance. “We’re going to downplay your role. You were a secretary. You had an administrative role.”
Hutchinson both in this instance and many others described Trump-aligned figures as speaking in plural pronouns. Often, she said it is not specified who “we” or “everyone” is. It was clear though that the former president was never far from mind.
“To be completely frank, I was extremely nervous going into the first interview, for
a multitude of reasons. You know, I felt like – I almost felt like at points Donald Trump was looking over my shoulder,” Hutchinson later said.
Sometimes the subtleties would drop completely and it was made abundantly clear who was watching.
“‘Well, Mark wants me to let you know that he knows you’re loyal and he knows you’ll do the right thing tomorrow and that you’re going to protect him and the boss,'” Hutchinson told the panel paraphrasing what Ben Williamson, a former top Meadows aide, told her the night before Hutchinson’s second appearance. ” You know, he knows that we’re all on the same team and we’re all a family.”
The pangs of guilt started to grow, Hutchinson later recalled. One of the biggest episodes concerns what would later become some of her most central testimony. During that very first interview, the panel asked Hutchinson about what she knew about a reported confrontation between Trump and a Secret Service agent in a presidential SUV on January 6. During a break, Hutchinson freaked out about the possibility that she had lied to the committee.
“‘Stefan, I am fucked,'” Hutchinson recalled telling her lawyer. “‘And he was like, ‘Don’t freak out. You’re fine.’ I said, ‘No, Stefan, I’m fucked. I just lied.’ And he said, ‘You didn’t lie.'”
Hutchinson said Passantino told her not to worry, lawmakers wouldn’t know what the former aide didn’t remember.
“‘They don’t know what you know, Cassidy. They don’t know that you can recall some of these things,” Hutchinson said her lawyer told her. “So you saying ‘I don’t recall’ is an entirely acceptable response to this.'”
Hutchinson said Trump allies praised her loyalty and promised she would be looked after.
In between and leading up to her depositions, Hutchinson said she interviewed with multiple Trump-aligned organizations and promises to help her out and make sure she was looked after. None of these offers ever materialized and some conspicuously fizzled out during key moments as Hutchinson’s appearances before the committee became increasingly public. Passantino, Hutchinson recalled, was often central to these discussions.
“They know you’re loyal. They want to take care of you. Reach out to them,” Hutchinson told the panel, paraphrasing what Passantino told her of a job offer connected to former top Trump aide Jason Miller.
Ultimately, Hutchinson’s conflicted emotions came to a head when House lawyers responded to Meadows, her former boss dating back to his time in Congress, suit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In arguing why Meadows should not be able to block the committee’s subpoenas, House lawyers disclosed for the first time snippets of Hutchinson’s early testimony.
“I remember sitting there reading on my phone like this, glancing out the window, and I just kept thinking like, “Oh, my God, I became someone that I never thought I was going to become,” Hutchinson recalled of the night in her Navy Yard apartment.
This belief was furthered by a call with an unnamed Republican congressman. The lawmaker, who Hutchinson said she knew for years, advised her that she would need to behave in a way that she could live with for the rest of her life.
“‘Yeah, Cassidy, you need to – you’re the one that has to live with the mirror test for the rest of your life,'” Hutchinson said the lawmaker told her. “I know that you feel like that you didn’t handle things right. I know that you’re stressed about this. Are you going to be able to live with yourself if you just move on and kind of forget about this, or do you want to try to do something about it?'”
Driving up to her parents’ home in New Jersey, Hutchinson tried to find solace in history. Googling “Watergate” she found the stories of John Dean and Alexander Butterfield, two Nixon-era aides who became legendary figures by turning against the president. It was Butterfield, who Hutchinson said she found some kinship with, who particularly intrigued her. A deputy assistant to President Richard Nixon, Butterfield revealed to Senate investigators the existence of the taping system that set the president on the path to his eventual resignation in the face of likely impeachment.
After ordering a book Butterfield recently wrote with the legendary journalist Bob Woodward, Hutchinson knew it was time for a change. She called Alyssa Farah, one of Trump’s former communications directors, who had been outspoken in her criticism of Trump following the Capitol riot. Hutchinson said she told Farah, who was also a former House aide, to back channel with the January 6 committee. Hutchinson was ready to talk, especially about the soon-to-be-infamous episode in the Beast.
Former White House Counsel John Dean testifies before Congress in 2019.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
After reaching her breaking point, Hutchinson was ready to prove her loyalty to the truth.
Unlike her previous appearances, she would not fall back on saying “I don’t recall” when asked about details she clearly remembered. Passantino, whom Hutchinson said encouraged her to be less than forthcoming, was still sitting behind her. This time, she was nervous that he had caught wind of what was really afoot. Hutchinson was going to blindside Trump world and do so with one of its card carrying representatives seated right behind her. Insider could not reach Passantino for comment. He previously told CNN that he did not advise Hutchinson to mislead the panel. Anthony Ornato, the Secret Service agent, who Hutchinson said had told her about Trump’s confrontation with him, told the committee he did not recall telling her about such an episode.
“So the question for me became, where do my loyalties lie? And I knew where they were, but I wasn’t equipped with people that allowed me and empowered me to be loyal to the country and to be loyal to the truth,” Hutchinson would later tell the panel. “Again, I partially thought that it would be corroborating. I didn’t think that it would be sometimes the first that you guys had heard things or however it ended up playing out.”
On that mid-May day, Hutchinson was prepared to cast aside the promises of plush jobs and the security of being “taken care of.” She was leaving Trump’s orbit once and for all. By the time they took their first break, Hutchinson could tell Passantino was shell-shocked.
“‘How do they have all of this? How do they know that you know all of this?'” Hutchinson paraphrased Passantino as saying “every time” the panel allowed for a break. “Like as far as | know, nobody’s talked about any of this. I know people that would be privy to all of this. Like how I don’t think any of them have given the committee any of this.”
Less than a month later, Hutchinson would send a short email to her former counsel.
“I am ending our attorney-client relationship but still own our privilege,” Hutchinson said, paraphrasing her missive. “Please coordinate with my new attorneys, Bill Jordan and Jody Hunt of Alston & Bird.”
Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson arrives for her public testimony in front of the January 6 committee.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Throughout her emotional testimony, Hutchinson recalls how her actions before and after her about face strained relationships. One of those was with Liz Horning, a former Trump White House counsel employee, who Hutchinson describes as one of her closest friends at 1600 Penn.
On the evening of June 27, Horning sent a final text to her once close colleague.
“‘Please tell me you’re not the effing witness tomorrow,'” she wrote, according to Hutchinson.
Hutchinson said it was unclear whether this was meant in gossipy jest or something hinting that an Oval Office omerta was about to be broken.
What is clear is that Hutchinson was, in fact, the witness. And her testimony changed the January 6 investigation in a way no one saw coming.
/static.texastribune.org/media/files/d5cc74c01bf7d99e88b5b2fd40efa349/Capitol{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}20File{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}20Jan{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}202022{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}20JV{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}20TT{c024931d10daf6b71b41321fa9ba9cd89123fb34a4039ac9f079a256e3c1e6e8}2008?w=2000&resize=2000,1200&ssl=1 "New Texas laws that took effect Jan. 1")
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/A54J3NIPAND7NGKW5DE3WVGIFY.png "Get insights into Florida politics")
