The barbs keep flying between former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson and the GOP’s Biden impeachment trial star witness Tony Bobulinski.
In a letter to the House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, Hutchinson’s lawyer claimed Bobulinski’s interview with the panel last week was “defamatory” and full of lies.
The letter to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), first obtained by ABC News, includes a picture of Bobulinski and then-Trump Chief-of-Staff Mark Meadows that Hutchinson says refutes claims Bobulinski made during his interview.
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In his hearing, Bobulinski was asked about a scene Hutchinson described in her memoir, Enough, in which she said she saw Bobulinski and Meadows meeting in a shady parking lot outside a Trump campaign rally in Rome, Georgia. She said that Bobulinski wore a ski mask over his face and that she saw “Mark hand Tony what appeared to be a folded sheet of paper or a small envelope.”
“Cassidy Hutchinson is an absolute liar and a fraud,” Bobulinski told the panel.
Bobulinski flatly denied that any type of exchange had happened and said that he wasn’t wearing a ski mask. On Friday, he went a step further, threatening to sue Hutchinson for defamation in a letter from his attorney, which also addressed the ski mask incident.
“This is a bald-faced lie. No such exchange occurred,” the letter reads, accusing Hutchinson of trying to “sensationalize” the event with “defamatory implications” of “unethical conduct.” It claims the meeting was “innocent and brief” and that the men didn’t talk business or politics.
But Hutchinson insists the photo proves the meeting went down exactly as she described it in her book.
“Mr. Bobulinski claims under oath that he was not wearing a mask, that Mr. Meadows did not hand him anything, and that Ms. Hutchinson is ‘fabricating facts,’” Hutchinson’s lawyer wrote tartly. “Perhaps Mr. Bobulinski’s memory is impaired about the meeting, and a picture would help refresh his recollection.”
Her lawyer said Hutchinson has no interest in getting involved with the impeachment probe, but that she felt compelled to answer because she “now finds herself the subject of defamatory comments made by Mr. Bobulinski in his testimony to that Committee.”
Bobulinski, meanwhile, pointed the defamation finger back at her.
“Ms. Hutchinson made such defamatory remarks to capitalize on her recent favorability with left-wing media and to promote the sales of her book,” Bobulinski’s lawyer wrote. “Such conduct by your client under the belief that it is without consequence is a mistake. Litigation is imminent.”
The shots between Hutchinson and Bobulinski were fired just after another star witness in the impeachment probe, Alexander Smirnov, was arrested for allegedly lying to the FBI about the Biden family’s business dealings.
