Former Trump attorney at the White House Eric Hershman claims that a handwritten note on a potential statement that then-President Donald Trump would make during the January 6 attack on the Capitol was written by him during a White House meeting that afternoon. not by White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
At the committee’s hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 6, Liz Cheney showed a handwritten note that Hutchinson testified she wrote after Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, handed her a note and a pen to carry out his dictation.
Sources familiar with the matter said Hershman had previously told the commission that he had written the note.
“The handwritten note that Cassidy Hutchinson testified was written by her, it was actually written by Eric Hershman on January 6, 2021,” a Hershman spokesman told ABC News on Tuesday night.
“All sources with direct knowledge and law enforcement are and will confirm that it was written by Mr. Hershman,” the spokesman said.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Hutchinson, testifying about the note, said: “This is a note I wrote on the instructions of the chief of staff on January 6, probably around 3 o’clock.”
“And it’s written on the Chief of Staff’s note, but is that your handwriting, Mrs. Hutchinson?” Representative Cheney asked.
Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during the administration of former President Donald Trump, arrives to testify during a public hearing of the House of Representatives’ commission to investigate the Capitol attack. on January 6 on Capitol Hill, June 28, 2022.
Evelyn Hockstein / Reuters
“This is my handwriting,” Hutchinson replied.
Hutchinson, a former chief aide to Meadows, said Meadows handed her the note card and pen and began dictating a potential statement for Trump to release amid the Capitol uprising.
Hutchinson also said Hershman had proposed to change the statement and put it “without legal right.”
Responding to Hershman’s statement, a commission spokesman on January 6 said: “The commission took care of this and found Ms Hutchinson’s account on the matter plausible. Although we understand that she and Mr. Hershman may have different memories of who wrote the note, what is ultimately important is that both White House officials believed that the president should have instructed his supporters immediately. to leave the Capitol building. “
“The note remembers that,” the commission spokesman said. “But Mr. Trump did not take that action at the time.”
The Jan. 6 commission has repeatedly relied on Hershman’s candid and sometimes vulgar testimony during hearings in June, including when a former White House attorney testified that he shot former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark’s plan to cancel the election in 2020
Hershman, a former Trump lawyer in the White House, also defended former President Trump during the first impeachment trial against Trump and worked in the West Wing as a senior adviser.
Hutchinson’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News or Meadows.
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