{"id":2371314,"date":"2024-11-20T14:43:03","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T19:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judge-rules-msnbc-pundit-potentially-defamed-trump-attorney\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T14:45:14","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T19:45:14","slug":"judge-rules-msnbc-pundit-potentially-defamed-trump-attorney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judge-rules-msnbc-pundit-potentially-defamed-trump-attorney\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Rules MSNBC Pundit Potentially Defamed Trump Attorney"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjudge-rules-msnbc-pundit-potentially-defamed-trump-attorney%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2371314&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A federal court \u2064in Washington, D.C.\u2062 has ruled that a claim made by\u200d MSNBC legal\u2062 analyst Andrew Weissmann\u200b against former \u200dTrump White\u2063 House \u2062attorney Stefan Passantino\u2062 may be defamatory. Passantino, who represented Cassidy Hutchinson before her testimony to the\u2063 Jan. 6 Committee, filed a lawsuit against Weissmann after \u200dthe latter \u2063alleged that \u200bPassantino\u200d &#8220;coached her to lie.&#8221; The court decision allows Passantino&#8217;s lawsuit to proceed, following Weissmann&#8217;s public accusation on social media. <\/p>\n<p>Passantino, who has been \u200da\u2064 target of allegations regarding his \u200blegal conduct, asserts\u200b that he advised Hutchinson\u2062 not to lie during her\u2062 testimony, contradicting Weissmann&#8217;s claims. After \u2064Hutchinson changed her \u200dlegal representation, tensions arose, \u2064leading \u200cto these accusations and the lawsuit. Previous\u2063 media coverage\u200d has also scrutinized Passantino&#8217;s actions, \u2062suggesting he pressured Hutchinson inappropriately, but transcripts from her \u200cinterviews indicate he instructed her to be truthful. \u200bThe situation is\u200d further complicated by outside organizations pushing to revoke Passantino&#8217;s\u2062 law\u200d license based on\u2062 alleged misconduct. The case continues to\u2063 develop as more details emerge.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A federal court in Washington, D.C., ruled an online claim made by a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/california-deputy-said-he-was-shot-in-line-of-duty-he-shot-himself\/\" title=\"California Deputy Said He Was Shot In Line Of Duty. He Shot Himself.\">legal analyst<\/a> at MSNBC against a former White House attorney in the Trump administration is potentially defamatory.<\/p>\n<p>In September, U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courtlistener.com\/docket\/67819714\/17\/passantino-v-weissmann\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">denied<\/a> 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&rsquo;s star witness. <\/p>\n<p>Passantino had previously served as head deputy ethics counsel in the Trump White House and was Hutchinson&rsquo;s attorney when she was initially questioned by the House Democrats&rsquo; Soviet-style inquisition run by then-Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. Hutchinson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/12\/20\/politics\/trump-ethics-lawyer-passantino-cassidy-hutchinson-misleading-testimony-jan-6\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fired<\/a> Passantino, who was being paid by the Save America PAC, when she decided to change her testimony before the House committee and make a series of outlandish claims <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/06\/30\/if-the-jan-6-committee-is-into-investigating-unbelievable-stories-it-should-probe-trumps-gorilla-channel-next\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">immediately discredited<\/a> by her own named sources.<\/p>\n<p>Passantino sued Weissmann last year after the former deputy to Special Counsel Robert Mueller claimed the Trump-world attorney &ldquo;coached her to lie.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This is an insidious lie,&rdquo; Passantino&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.dcd.260017\/gov.uscourts.dcd.260017.1.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lawsuit<\/a> reads. &ldquo;Ms. Hutchinson even testified, under penalty of law: &lsquo;I want to make this clear to you: Stefan [Passantino] never told me to lie. &hellip; He told me not to lie.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Hutchinson&rsquo;s testimony can be found on page 42 of the publicly available <a href=\"https:\/\/www.govinfo.gov\/content\/pkg\/GPO-J6-TRANSCRIPT-CTRL0000928888\/pdf\/GPO-J6-TRANSCRIPT-CTRL0000928888.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">transcript<\/a> 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&rsquo;s testimony. While the transcripts were also recorded, the Jan. 6 Committee destroyed the video.<\/p>\n<p>Weissmann, however, charged Passantino with &ldquo;coach[ing] her to lie&rdquo; in a post to roughly 320,000 followers on X after CNN published a series of hit pieces that accused Passantino of pressuring Hutchinson to illegally manipulate her testimony.<\/p>\n<p>On Dec. 21, 2022, CNN ran the first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/12\/20\/politics\/trump-ethics-lawyer-passantino-cassidy-hutchinson-misleading-testimony-jan-6\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hit piece<\/a>, which cited &ldquo;sources familiar with the committee&rsquo;s work&rdquo; who alleged Passantino urged Hutchinson to mislead lawmakers. The network included a statement from Passantino, but made no reference to the transcript of Hutchinson&rsquo;s Sept. 14 interview, in which she explicitly said he told her &ldquo;not to lie.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>CNN ran another <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/12\/22\/politics\/cassidy-hutchinson-jan-6-testimony-trump-pressure\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">story<\/a> on Dec. 22, 2022, this one headlined &ldquo;Cassidy Hutchinson told the January 6 committee she felt pressure from Trump allies not to talk and instead risk &lsquo;contempt.&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The final straw for former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson with her first attorney, paid through allies of former President Donald Trump, came when he told her to stop cooperating with the January 6 House select committee even if she risked a contempt of Congress charge, transcripts of her interviews and sources familiar with her testimony tell CNN,&rdquo; the network reported. <\/p>\n<p>The second story did <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2022\/12\/22\/politics\/read-cassidy-hutchinson-jan-6-transcripts\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">link<\/a> to Hutchinson&rsquo;s nearly 140-page Sept. 14, 2022, transcript, which was embedded on the network&rsquo;s website, and reported on her testimony that she was explicitly coached &ldquo;not to lie&rdquo; halfway through the story.<\/p>\n<p>A recent <a href=\"https:\/\/cha.house.gov\/2024\/10\/new-texts-reveal-liz-cheney-communicated-with-cassidy-hutchinson-about-her-select-committee-testimony-without-hutchinson-s-attorney-s-knowledge-despite-cheney-knowing-it-was-unethical\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report<\/a> from House Republicans investigating the Jan. 6 Committee in October found that Hutchinson was communicating directly with Cheney without Passantino&rsquo;s knowledge throughout his representation of her.<\/p>\n<p>Three months after CNN&rsquo;s stories were published and six months before Weissmann&rsquo;s potentially defamatory post on X, the New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/03\/06\/us\/politics\/trump-lawyer-ethics-jan-6.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a> on &ldquo;several <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">dozen prominent legal figures<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/latest-campus-leftist-demand-a-grades-for-everyone\/\" title=\"Latest Campus Leftist Demand: A Grades for Everyone\">including past presidents<\/a> of the American Bar Association and the District of Columbia Bar,&rdquo; trying to revoke Passantino&rsquo;s law license.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;In a 22-page <a href=\"https:\/\/ldad.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Ethics-Complaint-against-Stefan-Passantino.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">complaint<\/a> filed on Monday with D.C.&rsquo;s Board on Professional Responsibility, prominent lawyers accused Mr. Passantino of the crimes of subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and bribery,&rdquo; the Times reported.<\/p>\n<p>Passantino became the target of another bar <a href=\"https:\/\/the65project.com\/ethics-complaint-against-stefan-passantino\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">complaint<\/a>, this one brought in Georgia by a group called the &ldquo;65 Project,&rdquo; which was <a href=\"https:\/\/the65project.com\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">expressly<\/a> established to intimidate attorneys into not working for Republicans. Both the State Bar of Georgia and D.C. ethics watchdogs <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/19\/us\/politics\/stefan-passantino-cassidy-hutchinson-jan-6.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dismissed<\/a> the complaints against Passantino by the end of March.<\/p>\n<p>In October, Passantino filed bar complaints of his own against <a href=\"https:\/\/aflegal.org\/america-first-legal-files-bar-complaint-on-behalf-of-stefan-passantino-against-former-congresswoman-liz-cheney-for-secret-communications-with-j6-committee-witness-cassidy-hutchinson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cheney<\/a> and the director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/aflegal.org\/america-first-legal-fights-back-against-leftist-lawfare-files-bar-complaint-against-65-project-director-for-abusing-the-attorney-grievance-process-to-target-lawyers-affiliated-with\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">65 Project<\/a> through America First Legal.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Tristan Justice is a national correspondent for The Federalist and the co-author of &#8220;Fat and Unhappy: How &#8216;Body Positivity&#8217; Is Killing Us (and How to Save Yourself).&#8221; He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan&#8217;s email newsletter <a href=\"https:\/\/socialjusticeredux.substack.com\/about\">here<\/a>. Buy &#8220;Fat and Unhappy&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sz7EDAJI1c\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A D.C. federal court found an MSNBC analyst&#8217;s claim against a Trump attorney potentially defamatory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":2371315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Weissmann.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[9142,5387,3746,5322,45395],"class_list":["post-2371314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-defamation","tag-judge","tag-msnbc","tag-pundit","tag-trump-attorney"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Weissmann.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2371314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2371318,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371314\/revisions\/2371318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2371315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2371314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2371314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2371314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}