Trump-Paid Lawyer Accused of Tampering With Bombshell Witness Cassidy Hutchinson Leaves Job — Explains How Normal Everything Was
Former Trump White House lawyer Stefan Passantino, who is accused of attempting to get bombshell witness Cassidy Hutchinson to mislead the Jan. 6 committee, has left his job and is defending his actions during his stint as Hutchinson’s lawyer.
Passantino was Hutchinson’s attorney as she prepared to testify before the committee and was paid by Trump’s Save America PAC.
On Tuesday’s edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, anchor Brianna Keilar and CNN Senior Crime And Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz broke the news that Passantino is the lawyer described by the committee as advising a witness to lie under oath:
KEILAR: And, Katelyn, you also have exclusive new information about a startling allegation that was made by the January 6th committee. Tell us about this.
POLANTZ: Right. So, Brianna, in the summary yesterday, the committee did highlight a lawyer that was paid by Donald Trump, a PAC working with Donald Trump, the Save America Pac, who was advising a client to mislead the committee. We now at CNN, Pamela Brown, Jamie Gangel and I, have been able to confirm that the witness that they were talking about who was advised to mislead was Cassidy Hutchison, their start witness, and the lawyer at that time was a man named Stefan Passantino.
Passantino was a White House ethics lawyer, during the Trump administration, then was representing Cassidy Hutchison, was getting payments through an LLC that he set up to represent her and other witnesses and do political law. And so that she, right before she was about to give her public testimony that was very damaging to Donald Trump, she changed lawyers. There was a big mystery around this.
And now there is a he said/she said happening of what happens. The committee is saying that she did say a client did tell them that the lawyer was advising her that she should testify, she couldn’t recall certain things, when she wasn’t did able to, that there were certain things she was going to say that could cast a bad light on Donald Trump, and she was saying that the lawyer told her, we don’t want to go there, we don’t want to talk about this. So, those are some really serious accusations that the committee is levying.
Now, Stefan Passantino did release a statement to CNN about what happened here. He said, I represented Ms. Hutchison honorably, ethically and fully consistent with her sole interest as she communicated them to me. I believe Ms. Hutchinson was being truthful and cooperative with the committee throughout the several interview sessions in which I represented her.
Now, since this, we have also learned tonight that Cassidy Hutchison has spoken to the Justice Department about this, and we also have learned that Stefan Passantino has taken a leave of absence from another law firm, a major law firm out of the Midwest that he’s also a partner in.
In his statement, Passantino also sought to explain that the circumstances around his representation of Hutchinson were perfectly normal.
“It is not uncommon for clients to change lawyers because their interests or strategies change. It is also not uncommon for a third party, including a political committee, to cover a client’s fees at the client’s request. External communications made on Ms. Hutchinson’s behalf while I was her counsel were made with her express authorization. Unfortunately, the committee never reached out to me to get the facts,” Passantino said.
Watch above via CNN.
