Attorney seeks $67M over riot investigation

ATLANTA — A prominent Georgia attorney is seeking $67 million in damages from the U.S. government, saying the House Jan. 6 committee spread false information about his representation of a star witness.

Stefan Passantino represented Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who provided some of the most sensational testimony during last summer’s hearings on then-president Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

In an interview transcript released in December, Hutchinson said Passantino advised her to avoid providing information to the committee, which was investigating Trump’s actions. She also said Passantino offered to find her jobs and said she would be “taken care of ” if she remained loyal to Trump.

Passantino has said he represented Hutchinson honorably and ethically. On Tuesday, he filed a claim for damages with the U.S. House of Representatives. The claim says the Jan. 6 committee sought to “destroy his reputation and career in support of a pre-ordained political and legal narrative” against Trump. The complaint singled out former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who co-chaired the committee.

At a hearing last summer, Hutchinson testified that Trump wanted to go to the Capitol himself after a rally that preceded the attack. She said Secret Service agents refused to take him because it wasn’t safe, and Trump became so angry that he lunged at one of the agents and tried to grab the steering wheel of the vehicle he was sitting in. Other witnesses said Trump was angry about not being allowed to go to the Capitol, but they did not confirm he lunged at an agent.

But it was Hutchinson’s testimony about Passantino that drew attention when the committee’s report and supporting documents were released in December.

Hutchinson said he discouraged her from telling investigators too much, saying, “the less you remember the better.” One example was Trump’s anger about not being taken to the Capitol — a story she said she heard secondhand from a Secret Service agent. She said Passantino urged her not to repeat the story, even if investigators asked about it.

“I want to make this clear to you: Stefan never told me to lie,” Hutchinson told investigators. “He specifically told me, ‘I don’t want you to perjure yourself, but ‘I don’t recall’ isn’t perjury. They don’t know what you can and can’t recall.”