Enough

by Cassidy Hutchinson

Liz plays a clip from my most recent interview describing the president’s explosive tantrum in the Beast. I know there will be denials and recrimination from Trump World. Anyone who resents me for disclosing it won’t be assuaged by the fact that I had done it behind closed doors and sat there timidly watching the committee publicize it. I had urged the committee to find someone in the Secret Service to corroborate my account. That had yet to happen.

“You’re not putting yourself in the spotlight,” she pushes back. “You’re being called by Congress to do it. It’s important that the country sees that. It’s important that the country sees you, that women and little girls see you doing the right thing.” Once she says the last part, I understand. The country needs to see someone from the Trump administration put the country’s interests before politics and self.

The hearing is scheduled for one o’clock, and I want to get there early to settle in before it begins. In the car, I try to make a joke by imitating Trump. “I’m the fucking witness, take me back to Alston & Bird now!” We are laughing when the car pulls through the security checkpoint outside the Cannon building. No turning back now.

Liz takes over, and she’ll guide me through each moment of the hearing. It’s just Liz and me having a conversation. We aren’t posturing or hiding or dreading anything. Her straightforwardness and steady cadence are comforting. I trust her implicitly. She has asked me to do a difficult thing, and I will do it to the best of my ability. Liz is on the right side of history, and she welcomes me to join her.

It brings me back to the trauma of that day, the dread and terror I felt as I learned of the multiple warnings of violence. I had felt the catastrophe coming, and witnessed the president of the United States not just failing to stop it but inflaming it.

I know that my association with Mark is finished, if it wasn’t already. I’m unlikely to hear from him ever again. But I had been his person, his eyes and ears, his advocate and protector. I was good at it, and I was proud that I was. There isn’t much I can do for him now, but I’m not his antagonist. I have an obligation to the truth—though I do not want to be instrumental in his disgrace.

Liz asks me to describe his reaction on December 1 to Bill Barr’s statement to the Associated Press that the Department of Justice had found no evidence of widespread election fraud. I describe the loud noise coming from the Oval dining room, the ketchup dripping down the wall, helping his valet clean up the mess.

I’ve been an idealist since childhood, a romantic about America since I carried the flag onstage at my preschool graduation and sensed a calling to serve my country. I’m gratified that there are people for whom my testimony meant something; listeners whose eyes were opened to the fragility of our democracy.

I learn how it feels to be on the other side. But I know enough not to react. That’s what he wants me to do. He wants me to be defensive. He wants to know when he’s hurt someone or gotten a rise out of them; he wants to project his hurt onto the source of it. Trump doesn’t care if you dispute him or call him a liar. Only silence bothers him. Being ignored drives him mad.