Jacquelyn Martin/AP
White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson recorded in real-time the surreal scene of a December 2020 Oval Office meeting that nearly resulted in a brawl as Trump attorney Sidney Powell and White House lawyers clashed over efforts to push President Donald Trump's debunked claims of election fraud.
"The west wing in UNHINGED," Hutchinson, a top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, wrote in a text message to Anthony Ornato, another top aide, according to messages released by the House January 6 committee.
—Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 12, 2022
Lawmakers on the panel investigating the attack on the Capitol focused part of Tuesday's hearing on what unfolded during a six-hour December 18, 2020, meeting that began in the Oval Office. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat on the panel, said that things were so heated that aides could later hear screaming down the hallway.
The meeting began when Powell, former national security advisor Michael Flynn, and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne walked in for an unscheduled meeting with the president. White House counsel Pat Cipollone was alerted that the trio of election fraud pushers were in the building and quickly jumped in to counter their views. The gathering quickly went off the rails.
Hutchinson in another message sarcastically said the trio of Powell, Flynn, and Bryne were the "Dream team!!!!." Staffers were also comforting themselves by drinking, she added.
"That's why the alcohol opened," she wrote. "It's not flowing around the oval — just the outer oval." (The outer oval is a reference to the area just outside the Oval Office.
Those inside the meeting pain an even grimmer portrait. Axios' previously published an extensive report about it deemed "the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency" that depicted a scene of yelling and cursing.
"If it had been me sitting in his chair, I would have fired all of them that night and had them escorted out of the building," Powell told the committee of her view of the White House lawyers.
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York Mayor and one of Trump's lawyers, said he most likely called the White House attornies "pussies."
"I'm going to categorically describe it as, 'you guys aren't tough enough' or maybe I put it another way, 'maybe you guys are a bunch of pussies," Giuliani told the committee, trying to recall what he said. "Excuse the expression, I'm almost certain that word was used."
Eric Herschmann, a Trump White House lawyer, said that Flynn had belittled him so much during the meeting that he just finally lost.
"At a certain point, I had it with him and so I yelled back, "Either come over or sit your f-ing ass back down.'"
Hutchinson sent another message later that night. She said she took a picture of Meadows every day at the White House. That day's photo was of Meadows escorting Giuliani out of the building "to make sure that he doesn't wander back into the mansion."
