From our high school history classes we all remember learning about Teddy Roosevelt, a larger than life character who was our nation’s 26th president. When characterizing America’s foreign policy, he coined the phrase “Walk softly, but carry a big stick.” A century later, in my mind, Cassidy Hutchinson might just be the modern day embodiment of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous words. Last week Ms. Hutchinson carried a very large stick while speaking softly.

In testifying before the bipartisan January 6th congressional committee, the 26 year old former White House West Wing aide spoke in muted tones while projecting a persona of maturity beyond her tender years. She displayed self-confidence, subtlety, incredible courage, stunning bravery, and most of all, rock solid credibility. Set against the backdrop of a media frenzy that has not been seen since the days of the Watergate scandal of a half century ago, she offered testimony that was explosive, and quite damning to former President Donald Trump.

She worked as the executive assistant to Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief of staff. Make no mistake about it, Ms. Hutchinson was speaking to an audience that went way beyond the borders of this country. A worldwide audience, has been, and is continuing, to watch America closely in these times. The world is holding its collective breath and wondering if our country can get back on the high road that once saw America as a beacon of democracy that was the envy of, and best hope for, the rest of the world. After hearing what she had to share with the committee, it seems reasonable to say that both the former president and his chief of staff should shed their persona of smugness, and now definitely be frightened.

In a clear voice that carried absolutely no axe to grind Hutchinson had everything to lose as she testified both “live” to the congressional panel, as well as through previous sessions that were videotaped. Her recall of the waning days of the Trump administration painted a graphic and shocking picture of a president who appeared to be becoming increasingly unhinged, and who consistently refused to see the reality of his having lost the 2020 election. She was right there to witness a defeated president who was directly involved in attempting to subvert the will of the American people, and who orchestrated a campaign of fear and intimidation in order to overturn the legitimate victory of Joe Biden. According to Hutchinson, this was all happing in the face of Trump’s inner circle, those who were his closest and most loyal advisors, all telling him that there was no evidence whatsoever of any election fraud or vote tampering, and that he had lost.

She spoke of escorting Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, out of the White House on the evening of January 2nd after a meeting with her boss, Mark Meadows. In her recall of that night she testified that Giuliani said to her, “Cass, are you excited about the 6th? It’s going to be a great day. We’re going to the Capitol.” She told the committee that after asking Meadows what Giuliani meant, he said, “There’s a lot going on, Cass, but I don’t know, things might get real, real bad on the 6th.” She went on to say, “That was the first moment that I remember feeling scared and nervous for what could happen on January 6th, and I had a deeper concern about what was happening with the planning aspects of it.”

Her recalling, to the congressional panel, her up-close and personal experience working in the West Wing was indeed graphic and explosive as she testified to the committee about a day when, in an uncontrollable rage, Trump threw his lunch across the room after having learned that his Attorney General, Bill Barr, had disclosed to an Associated Press reporter that Trump had, in fact, lost the election. Hutchinson stated that after hearing noise, she walked down to the dining room where she observed the valet cleaning up the mess that Trump had made. “I first noticed that there was ketchup dripping down the wall, and there was a shattered porcelain plate on the floor.” She went on to say that this was not the first time that she had seen the former president picking up and throwing his lunch at the wall while in the throes of uncontrolled anger. “There were several times when I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the table cloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor, likely break or go everywhere.”

One can’t help but be shocked, and more than a bit disgusted, at what went on behind closed doors during the term of Donald Trump. He was a president who was impeached twice, and who mounted a fierce and unrelenting pressure campaign that featured not so subtle mafia-like threats against people in key states who he wanted to come up with votes for him that did not exist, and that would have allowed him to win the states that he had legitimately lost. It all sounds more like a Mafia movie than reality. However, truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony also painted what can only be described as being a devastating picture of her former boss, Presidential Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows as being completely detached and totally disengaged. Her remarks showed Meadows to be seemingly bored with the January 6th insurrection.

The White House simply refused to do anything at all to defend besieged congress, the heroic and hopelessly outnumbered Capitol police force that showed amazing bravery, discipline and restraint, and his own Vice President who the mob wanted to hang. According to Hutchinson’s testimony, Meadows told Hutchinson that the president “doesn’t want to do anything” to stop the violence,” and “He thinks Mike [Pence] deserves it.”

As has always been the operating plan for Donald Trump and those around him, Trump and his supporters have already mounted a smear campaign designed to discredit Hutchinson’s testimony, and ruin her. In typical Trump fashion he has said that he hardly knows who she is. Well, she is the woman whose desk was literally a 5 to 10 second walk from the Oval Office, and a woman who he would see every single day. He stated, “I heard very negative things about her,” characterizing her as “a total phony,” and “a third rate social climber.”

What emerges from this firestorm is the fact that Cassidy Hutchinson is indeed a hero. A courageous young woman who showed the character and bravery to stand up and tell the truth when virtually all of the men around Trump chose to hind behind the Fifth Amendment, ignore congressional Subpoena’s, or to constantly repeat the answer of “I don’t recall.” The bottom line here is that Cassidy Hutchinson made the choice to put country above a president who was hell-bent on overturning an election that he had lost, and that his ego would simply not let him accept.

Paul Collins is a freelance writer from Southborough, Massachusetts.

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