Cassidy Hutchinson was a key witness in the House Jan. 6 committee’s hearings, but it appears she isn’t done making important claims. NBC News reported on Wednesday:
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, said in a new book that she was groped by then-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani at an event on Jan. 6, 2021. In excerpts of her book “Enough,” set to be released next week, Hutchinson said Giuliani was “like a wolf closing in on its prey” when she met with him backstage while President Donald Trump delivered remarks to his supporters at the Ellipse near the White House shortly before the Capitol riot.
According to excerpts that were first reported by The Guardian, Hutchinson, who’s scheduled to appear on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Monday, alleges in her book that the former New York City mayor approached her with a stack of documents before reaching his hand “under my blazer, then my skirt.” She then describes recoiling as “his frozen fingers trail up my thigh.” (NBC News has not obtained a copy of the book, but a person familiar with the book confirmed that the quotes published by The Guardian were accurate.)
A spokesperson for Giuliani denied the allegations and accused Hutchinson of pushing “a disgusting lie.”
Nevertheless, the former White House aide’s book adds to a staggering list of scandals surrounding the Republican lawyer. Indeed, it was earlier this week when Giuliani’s own former lawyers sued him, claiming that the former mayor owes them $1.36 million in unpaid legal fees.
Those developments came just three weeks after NBC News reported that a federal judge ruled that Giuliani defamed former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, and is liable for damages after he failed to comply with discovery obligations in their defamation lawsuit.
My MSNBC colleague Jordan Rubin added that there will still be a trial later this year, but the question at trial “won’t be whether he’s liable but how much he has to pay the plaintiffs.”
Two weeks before that, Giuliani was indicted in Georgia as part of the broader case related to Team Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. A month earlier, a Washington, D.C.-based bar discipline committee concluded that Giuliani should be disbarred for “frivolous” and “destructive” efforts to derail the 2020 election. For good measure, let’s also not forget that Giuliani has also received attention from special counsel Jack Smith’s office, and he’s facing a credible defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. It’s possible that the Republican lawyer is pondering his options right now, wondering if there’s a way out of these cascading messes. But a list of scandals this severe is not easily overcome.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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