Cassidy Hutchinson's Testimony: A Primer in Authoritarian Corruption

"The less you remember, the better." White House lawyer Passantino to Hutchinson before her testimony

"The less you remember, the better." This is the advice Trump White House ethics lawyer Stefan Passantino gave his client Cassidy Hutchinson before she talked to the House Jan. 6 Committee. Hutchinson’s experiences with Trump’s inner circle (she was an aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows), as recounted in the transcript of her interview, are a window onto how authoritarian corruption operates.

The failure of the attempt by Trump and the GOP to overthrow the 2020 election set in motion a massive Republican coverup and damage control operation. It shows many similarities with methods of crime concealment used by authoritarian states and parties and organized crime.

Each participant in such coverups is bound by omertà (the Mafia code of silence), which means they must say nothing that might harm their superior --and all of them must protect the Capo. Meadows used another aide, Ben Williamson, to remind Hutchinson of the rules right before her June testimony: he "know[s] you'll do the right thing tomorrow...and protect him and the boss."