COMMENTARY: Book tells story that doesn't go far 'Enough'


By Berl Falbaum

Enough!

That is the word Cassidy Hutchinson, a former member of the Trump team, uses as the title of her new book which pillories her former boss.

Hutchinson is right in using the word “enough” but she does so in the wrong context. It is enough already to make her and other of her former colleagues who have written critical books on Trump as heroes.  She and the others, many who appear as “objective” analysts and “experts” on political TV talk shows, are working hard to redeem their soiled reputations and make a buck along the way with books and honorariums for speaking engagements.

While in the White House, Hutchinson, special assistant to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, along with other former Trump aides, helped spread the president’s lies and covered up his corruption and countless ethics and moral violations. None resigned and all kept silent, at a time, when speaking out could have made a difference.

Hutchinson is no Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman who put his career on the line when he testified publicly that he heard Trump threaten Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, by withholding aid unless he (Zelenskyy) stated that the Ukraine was investigating Joe Biden for corruption.

Hutchinson and the other women in Trump’s White House world ignored his perverse sexual history, which included dozens of charges of sexual assault, including rape, his bragging about assaulting women, a conviction of sexual assault, hiring a porn actress while his wife was pregnant, and discussing his daughter, Ivanka, with radio host Howard Stern in ugly, disgusting sexual terms. That’s only part of his sordid sexual record. This is the man who Hutchinson says she “adored.”

But here is the kicker: While some aides finally resigned after the January 6 insurrection, Hutchinson stayed on. Not only did she remain in her job, but she applied for a job with Trump after he returned to Mar-a-Lago. She didn’t get the job because, Meadows told her, she says, that Trump did not think she was sufficiently loyal.

If she had been hired in Mar-a-Lago, she does not know if she would have testified before the January 6 Select Committee or gone public with her criticism of Trump.  She says:

“I still felt that loyalty to him at the end of the administration. And I worry that if I had gone down to Florida, then that would have only grown, and I would not have come forward. I would hope that I would have come forward to do the right thing still. But when you’re in that environment, it becomes a lot more difficult.”

No, it’s not really that difficult if one has principles and has a basic understanding of right and wrong.  And we are not talking here about minor offenses that can, in good conscience, be explained away. We are talking about a president who may well be the most corrupt public official ever to hold office – any office.

It should not be “difficult” for Hutchinson to conclude, even by her own tortured ethical/moral standards, that is traitorous to try to overturn an election and incite an insurrection that killed five people and injured more than 100.

So, she decided to do the “right thing” after being spurned and rejected by Trump.  She testified before the January 6 Select Committee and wrote her book which has a full portrait of her on the cover.

She believes Trump must be stopped from winning a second term; “this is a make-or-break moment.”  In interviews on her book, she warns us that Trump is a “most grave threat to democracy.”

“We’re talking about a man who at the very essence of his being almost destroyed democracy in one day and he wants to do it again.

“He has been indicted four times since January 6. I would not have a clear conscience and be able to sleep at night if I were a Republican,” Hutchinson wrote.

“Now is the time, if these politicians, these men and some women that are currently in Congress, want to make the break and want to take the stand, they have to do it now. We can’t wait any longer for them to do it. I don’t know why they are so willing to support him. [In effect, she is describing herself.]  I think it’s extremely disappointing and it is not a hard issue to take.”

She certainly cannot be accused of being subtle. This is the man she wanted to continue to work for in the coming years.

Effusive, gushing praise for her unmitigated “heroism” and her book comes from The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Salon, and others but, no, Hutchinson is hardly a hero. Nor are those who served Trump but have “seen the light.”  

More suitable adjectives, among others, are hypocrite, charlatan, schemer, chameleon and opportunist. What is particularly frustrating in all the coverage I have seen on TV and read in the papers, is that no one has taken Hutchinson to task or even challenged her hypocrisy.

Warning to companies who may employ these former Trump “loyalists:” Be careful what you discuss with them.

Given that Hutchinson wrote her book after failing to be employed by Trump, a better title might have been, “Revenge.”
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Berl Falbaum is a veteran journalist and author of 12 books.