Yesterday, we discussed the newly-discovered reason why the testimony of January 6 “Select” Committee witness Cassidy Hutchinson kept growing and changing during their so-called investigation.  Her testimony grew to include such tall tales as Trump lunging to grab the steering wheel away from his driver so he could go to Capitol Hill (not only hearsay, but a physically impossible feat disputed by both Secret Service agents who were actually there).  Recently uncovered encrypted messages suggest that committee co-chair Liz Cheney had been unethically coordinating with Hutchinson on her testimony, going around Hutchinson’s own attorney, Stefan Passantino, to do this.  To account for Hutchinson’s evolving testimony --- ultimately she had SIX transcribed interviews --- a phony story was apparently concocted that Passantino had given her bad advice, leading almost to his disbarment, though charges were later dropped.

It was also Cheney who arranged for Hutchinson to have new, different counsel (from a short list of attorneys created by Cheney herself) and for them to work pro bono.

Our perspective --- we’re admittedly non-lawyers and have our own terminology --- is that this stinks to high heaven.  For a legal perspective, we now have a column by law professor Jonathan Turley, who goes into more detail on all the things Liz Cheney was doing to shape a phony narrative for the cameras, including burying the evidence of Trump authorizing the deployment of the National Guard in advance of the rally.

Turley thinks that “ethical proceedings against Cheney are unlikely” over the disclosure of the ex parte communications with witness Hutchinson.  (Well, of course they are.)  But “the evidence seemingly contradicts public accounts of how Hutchinson decided to fire her counsel and change her testimony.”  As much as we want to see accountability, we’d say it’s not as important as being able to view Hutchinson’s later testimony in the clear light of day, which we now can do.

Turley quotes Rule 4.2 of the Rules of Professional Conduct, which says “a lawyer shall not communicate or cause another to communicate about the subject of the representation with a person known to be represented by another lawyer in the matter, unless the lawyer has the prior consent of the lawyer representing such other person or is authorized by law or a court order to do so.”  We’d take that to mean that if anyone should be disbarred, it’s Cheney, not Passantino.

It appears that one mitigating factor for Cheney is that, judging from these messages, Hutchinson is the one who reached out to her about her testimony, not the other way around.  We see little difference that this should make in Cheney’s subsequent behavior --- she should have flatly said, “I can’t talk to a witness” --- but for fellow attorneys looking for a reason to give Cheney, as a member of Congress, a pass, this might be enough.  Turley says it’s “a gray area.”

He singles out this quote from Passantino’s conversation with JUST THE NEWS that we linked to yesterday: “I absolutely had no knowledge at the time that Congresswoman Liz Cheney was communicating with my client behind my back --- either directly, through her staff, or through cutouts.”  (Passantino is presently pursuing a defamation lawsuit against Andrew Weissmann, an MSNBC legal analyst and former aide to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.)

Also noted by Turley: “Cheney and the Committee were aware that the account [of Trump and the limo driver] was directly and clearly refuted by the driver of the vehicle.  However, they buried his account and highlighted that claim in its final report as being credible.”  

One shocking thing we learned from Turley’s column is that Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former White House staffer who served as the handy go-between for Cheney and Hutchinson’s conversations, is now a co-host on THE VIEW.  (We most definitely don’t watch THE VIEW and so had no idea.)  Actually, this shouldn’t be shocking at all; it’s really just par for the course.

https://jonathanturley.org/2024/10/16/liz-cheney-under-fire-for-allegedly-improper-contacts-with-cassidy-hutchinson/