A federal court has denied a motion by anti-Trump pundit Andrew Weissmann to dismiss a defamation suit by former White House lawyer Stefan Passantino over false claims that he had coached a January 6 Committee witness to lie.
As Breitbart News reported in September 2023:
Former Trump White House attorney Stefan Passantino filed a defamation lawsuit against MSNBC’s Andrew Weissmann, who served as lead prosecutor for former special counsel Robert Mueller, over Weissmann’s claims that Passantino coached discredited January 6 Committee witness Cassidy Hutchinson to lie on the stand.
“Hutchinson’s third-hand testimony that Trump grabbed the wheel of his presidential limousine in an effort to force it to drive to the Capitol was rejected by the people she claimed had told her about it,” Breitbart News reported.
Passantino represented Hutchinson at the time of her testimony before the committee. Many members of the media falsely claimed he coached her to lie on the stand, a claim he has repeatedly denied.
The Federalist reported Wednesday:
In September, U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan denied a motion from MSNBC legal analyst and attorney Andrew Weissmann to dismiss a complaint filed by Stefan Passantino, who represented former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson before she became the Jan. 6 Committee’s star witness.
…
“This is an insidious lie,” Passantino’s lawsuit 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 not to lie.”
Hutchinson’s testimony can be found on page 42 of the publicly available transcript from her Sept. 14, 2022, interview with the Jan. 6 Committee. Passantino, instead, coached her as a standard fact witness to only answer questions she could recall. Passantino represented Hutchinson through her first three interviews with the committee before she changed counsel and appeared publicly. None of the transcripts dated Feb. 23, 2022, March 7, 2022, or May 17, 2022, show Passantino obstructing Hutchinson’s testimony. While the transcripts were also recorded, the Jan. 6 Committee destroyed the video.
Weissmann is known for his hostility to Trump and his enthusiasm for “lawfare” efforts to target the President-elect.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.