certain things. according to the committee the lawyer said, quote, they don t know what you know. they don t know that you can recall some of these things, so you say i don t recall is an entirely acceptable response to this. and on a particular issue that would cast a bad light on president trump the attorney apparently allegedly said no, no, no we don t want to go there, we don t want to talk about that. now in a statement to cnn he says, quote, i represented ms. hutchinson with her sole interest as she communicated to me, unquote. is there any doubt i m going to the former ethics czar? norm, norm, norm. i m acquainted with stephen. there s a family of former white house ethics chiefs.
we all keep in touch. and i think he tried when he was in the trump administration, he tried mightily, and that s not easy when donald trump is your client to keep the white house on its ethical course. it went off course and now it saddens me to say so, laura, because i know him. he s gone off course. i mean to tell a witness that they don t know what you know, that they don t know you can recall something, to not go there when there s a question, if that s true and the committee has done their investigation, and i believe cassidy hutchinson on this, he s gone badly off course. there was a sign he started representing the election deniers, an assault on our democracy even before we learned this, but this is really a sign that he s gone off course. and it s particularly tragic when it happens to somebody
whose job is ethics. i think he s had serious ethics exposure now himself or maybe possible criminal risk depending on how doj accepts this information. the allegations of warning perjury in some way. yeah, as you know there s multiple weather criminal statutes, obstruction of justice. the committee has focused on that. obstruction of a congressional investigation, obstruction of an official proceeding in congress warning perjury possible. we ll see what doj does with it but i think it ll create ethics issues, and what can i tell you i believe cassidy hutchinson. there are some people out there who are not fans of lawyers. don t all lawyers tell their clients something like this? the answer is first of all, no, they don t do that. they want to encourage truth telling obviously. but there s also the idea that statement he makes, he was doing
good evening, everybody. i m laura coates, and this is cnn tonight. and look, there is a lot going on this evening. and we have with breaking news on capitol hill. we ll begin with that tonight because the all-powerful house ways and means committee, which is led by democrats as you know for now, voting tonight to release the former president donald trump s tax returns to the public. the committee s vote was along party lines, and it s a giant defeat for trump. he s fought for years now to keep all his tax information private citing audits and the like. also tonight a source saying the ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is on his way to washington, d.c. at this very hour. he ll meet with the president of the united states tomorrow at the white house as expected and may also address a joint session of congress. and now here s a cnn exclusive tonight saying trump s former white house ethics lawyer told cassidy hutchinson remember she was the star witness of the