Stefan Passantino, a lawyer who represented the Trump White House, is suing former federal prosecutor who claimed he coached a witness to lie in a Congressional probe about the events surrounding the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Passantino’s lawsuit argues that Mr. Weissmann was referencing him specifically when Mr. Weissmann described a lawyer who allegedly coached former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson to lie to members of the now-defunct House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
“Hunt also is Cassidy Hutchinson’s good lawyer. (Not the one who coached her to lie) Mr. Weissmann’s Sept. 15 X post reads in part, naming Jody Hunt, another lawyer who has represented Ms. Hutchinson.
Mr. Weissmann is a career federal prosecutor who was part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating claims of coordination between President Donald Trump and the Russian government during the 2016 election.
Following Mueller’s special counsel investigation—which failed to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia—Mr. Weissmann has gone on to serve as a legal analyst for MSNBC and co-host the network’s “Prosecuting Donald Trump” podcast.
The lawsuit argues that Mr. Weissmann’s alleged defamatory comments arise out of a partisan animus toward Mr. Passantino’s prior affiliation with President Trump.
NTD News reached out to Mr. Weissmann for comment through his employer, MSNBC, but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.
Mr. Passantino represented several former members of the Trump White House throughout 2021 and 2022, including Ms. Hutchinson, who sat for four transcribed interviews with the committee in 2022.
In his complaint, Mr. Passantino alleges Ms. Hutchinson had initially opposed requests for testimony from the Democrat-controlled House on Jan. 6 and showed contempt for the Democrat-led effort.
Despite this apparent initial opposition to the Jan. 6 committee, Ms. Hutchinson went on to cooperate as a witness for the committee last year. In June of 2022, Ms. Hutchinson testified that a Secret Service official, Tony Ornato, told her that President Trump had fought with a Secret Service driver in an effort to reroute his vehicle to the U.S. Capitol to join with protesters at the building.
Hutchinson’s Testimony Guidance
In her Sept. 14, 2022 testimony, Ms. Hutchinson told the Jan. 6 committee that after selecting Mr. Passantino to represent her, he advised that she not volunteer to describe how President Trump allegedly fought with his Secret Service driver to take him to the U.S. Capitol.“It’s not important to anything that actually happened on that day. It’s a headline. It’s a cool story for them. It will be on the news for a couple days,” Mr. Passantino allegedly told Ms. Hutchinson, according to her Sept. 14, 2022, testimony. “I don’t want you to be the one to have to tell that story. Tony told it to you. If anybody is going to tell it, it’s Tony’s responsibility to tell it. But just because he told you doesn’t mean that you need to share that with them.”
According to the testimony, Mr. Passantino advised Ms. Hutchinson that she could rely on the answer “I don’t recall” as much as she felt necessary, including in cases where she could recall events but not perfectly remember the date they occurred or who was present.
“The committee doesn’t know what you can and can’t recall, so we want to be able to use that as much as we can unless you really, really remember something very clearly,” Mr. Passantino reportedly told Ms. Hutchinson. “And that’s when you give a short, sweet response. You don’t want to get ahead of their questioning. Let them ask the questions.”
While Mr. Passantino advised Ms. Hutchinson not to volunteer details about President Trump’s alleged altercation with his driver and to not provide answers beyond the scope of the committee’s questions, Ms. Hutchinson insisted Mr. Passantino never told her to lie.
“I want to make this clear to you: Stefan [Passantino] never told me to lie,” she said during her Sept. 14, 2022, testimony before the Jan. 6 Committee.
There was some disagreement between the two about what would constitute a lie. For instance, in her Sept. 14, 2022 testimony, Ms. Hutchinson recalled a break during her initial May 2022 testimony where she told Mr. Passantino that she felt like she had lied, to which Mr. Passantino responded that “you didn’t lie” and “you’re doing fine.”
