Enough

by Cassidy Hutchinson

When Pelosi had begun counting votes in late September, the president had instructed his staff to give the impression that we were unfazed by the impeachment inquiry. From members and senior staff, I heard that the president was uneasy about the optics of an impeachment as we neared the election year and worried how it might impact his reputation and legacy. It was with those considerations in mind that he continued to rally his base with his signature us-versus-them rhetoric.

I doubt any politician could have led the country through the deadliest pandemic in a hundred years without making errors of judgment and execution. But of all the people in the world, President Trump was uniquely unsuited to the challenge. He lacked empathy and was stubborn and impatient. For all but the MAGA base, his aggressive personality made his leadership appear more erratic than inspirational.

I now directly reported to Eric and Mike McKenna, his deputy, whom I was not fond of. Mike had a tendency to publicly single out women with crude and demeaning comments.

“We’re going to start working on people we need to get rid of who are disloyal to the president, starting with the people who leak to the press.”

I felt deflated yet did not push back, worried that if I pressed my ideas, advocating for bipartisan wins, Mark would consider me disloyal to the president’s agenda.

The press would criticize him for not wearing a mask, not knowing that the depth of his vanity had caused him to reject masks—and then millions of his fans followed suit.

A little more than a year later, Mark would publish a book recounting that the president had tested positive for the virus the day of the Barrett announcement, September 26. He and the president had disregarded the result, blaming it on a faulty test.

Lindell pushed past me, hustling up the stairs. I was at his heels as he informed me, “No one here cares about the president. No one here is loyal to him. Including you.” He bolted into counsel’s office, directing more profanity at me and staff there.

I had given everything I had to this job and to the president, and it was ending the same way it had for so many others, with an undeserved accusation of disloyalty, and the specter of taking revenge. I knew I would be out of sight, but not out of mind.

I knew the goodbyes being exchanged were tearful, and heavy with grief for the president’s loss. I was grieving, too, but for the way the administration had ended, for the wreck we had left behind. The president and I never said goodbye. Some goodbyes are better left unspoken.

the New York Times, a newspaper the president had banned from distribution in the White House but that was now back in circulation for the incoming administration.

Deep down, I knew my loyalties should have been to the country, to the truth, and not to the former president, who had made himself a threat to both.

Alex Butterfield would be my guide out of the morass of suspicions and misplaced loyalties that had kept me in a near-permanent state of anxiety.

I lay in the grass and stared into the cloudless sky, half listening as he droned on about how not cooperating with the committee was best for everyone. “Everyone” did not include the tens of millions of Americans who had been lied to about the results of a free, fair, and democratic election; it did not include the families of law enforcement officers who had lost their lives defending the Capitol from the mob Trump had called to Washington. “Everyone” did not include the lawmakers, staff, and journalists who feared for their lives as rioters bludgeoned their way into the building. It did not include the investigators who were being stonewalled by former colleagues of mine who dismissed the investigation as a politically motivated witch hunt. “Everyone” who would benefit from my ceasing to cooperate with the January 6th Committee was limited to people in Trump World whose personal interests could be affected by my testimony. In less than twenty-four hours, they would all find out that I was no longer protecting “everyone.” I had found my way out.

While I had hesitated in previous interviews to share details about the president’s unhinged behavior, I now understood the gravity of those moments. Trump’s temperament wasn’t rational, but neither was it unfamiliar to me. His outbursts shed light on how his volcanic temper and egotism had lit the match that set his followers’ torches ablaze.

regretted the belligerence and crudity of some of the president’s messaging, the inappropriate, unpresidential tweets. But you can become inured to it, and I did. I often laughed with colleagues at his communications, when I should have seen them for what they were—mean-spirited. Politics is a team sport, and I was a willing teammate.

My views of Trump would change as I witnessed his selfish recklessness threatening the country’s constitutional order. My resolve only strengthened when my loyalties to him and my former colleagues were put in direct conflict with my obligations to the country.

After I describe a few favorite memories, Stephen says that what I’m going to do the next day will be more important to the country than anything I had done in the White House.

“The country needs to see you, needs to see your courage. The country needs to hear the truth.”

The portrait my answers paint of the president is damning: an unhinged chief executive, willing to overturn the will of the people and plunge the country into chaos and violence on the advice of crazy people. For what? To avoid the embarrassment of conceding an election he knew he had lost? That is who he is,

the president of the United States had told his chief of staff and legal counsel that he was fine with an armed mob trying to kill the vice president of the United States.

Trump doesn’t care if you dispute him or call him a liar. Only silence bothers him. Being ignored drives him mad.

I know that people who had been my friends are trashing my reputation, too. I shouldn’t let it bother me, but I do. They were my friends. But their abuse is a reflection of their character, not mine, celebrated in the world they are a part of, the world where I had felt I belonged but now know I do not. I escaped before it was too late.