A legal analyst for MSNBC made the decision that an online claim against a former White House lawyer in the Trump presidency was likely defamatory.
A complaint filed by Stefan Passantino, who represented former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson before she became the Jan. 6 Committee’s sun hear, was denied by U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan in September.
When Hutchinson’s lawyer, then-Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney’s Soviet-style inquisitor, questioned her, Passantino had formerly served as the Trump White House’s head assistant ethics counsel. When Passantino made a series of outrageous claims that her own named options instantly refuted, Hutchinson fired her because she was being paid by the Save America PAC to testify before the House commission.
Weissmann was sued by Passantino last year after the original Special Counsel Robert Mueller claimed the Trump-world counsel had” coordinated her to lie”
” This is an nefarious lie”, Passantino’s complaint reads. ” Ms. Hutchinson even testified, under penalty of law: ‘ I want to make this clear to you: Stefan]Passantino ] never told me to lie. … He told me never to lie”.
Hutchinson’s evidence can be found on site 42 of the publicly available text from her Sept. 14, 2022, meeting with the Jan. 6 Committee. Passantino, rather, coached her as a regular fact witness to just answer questions she may remember. Prior to her change of guidance and public appearance, Passantino represented Hutchinson in all three of her committee meetings. None of the records dated Feb. 23, 2022, March 7, 2022, or May 17, 2022, show Passantino obstructing Hutchinson’s evidence. While the records were likewise recorded, the Jan. 6 Committee destroyed the picture.
Weissmann, however, charged Passantino with” coach]ing ] her to lie” in a post to roughly 320, 000 followers on X after CNN published a series of hit pieces that accused Passantino of pressuring Hutchinson to illegally manipulate her testimony.
On Dec. 21, 2022, CNN ran the initial strike part, which cited” sources familiar with the agency’s work” who alleged Passantino urged Hutchinson to persuade lawmakers. The system included a declaration from Passantino, but made no reference to the record of Hutchinson’s Sept. 14 meeting, in which she expressly said he told her” never to lie”.
On December 22, 2022, CNN ran a second history with the headline” Cassidy Hutchinson told the House of Representatives on January 6 that she felt pressured to speak out against the possibility of contempt.”
According to records from her interviews and resources with information on her evidence,” the last straw for previous Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s second attorney, paid through friends of former president Donald Trump,” came when he told her to stop working with the January 6 House select committee also if she ran a contempt of Congress charge.
The second tale did website to Hutchinson’s almost 140-page Sept. 14, 2022, transcript, which was embedded on the network’s website, and reported on her testimony that she was directly coached” never to rest” halfway through the story.
House Republicans ‘ recent investigation of the Jan. 6 Committee in October revealed that during his representation of Cheney, Hutchinson and Passantino were speaking directly with each other without Passantino’s knowledge.
The New York Times reported on” several prominent legal figures, including former presidents of the American Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar,” attempting to revoke Passantino’s law license six months after CNN’s stories were published and six months before Weissmann’s potentially defamatory post on X.
” In a 22-page complaint filed on Monday with D. C.’s Board on Professional Responsibility, prominent lawyers accused Mr. Passantino of the crimes of subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and bribery”, the Times reported.
Another bar complaint was brought against Passantino in Georgia by a group known as the “65 Project,” which was specifically designed to intimidate attorneys into refusing to represent Republicans. By the end of March, both the Georgian State Bar Association and the D.C. ethics watchdogs had dismissed the Passantino-related complaints.
Through America First Legal, Passantino personally lodged bar complaints against Cheney and the 65 Project director in October.
