AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
- Hutchinson in her new book and during a New York Times interview described a White House steeped in paranoia.
- The ex-Meadows aide said that staffer feared "deep state" interception when it came to document disposal.
- Hutchinson alleged that Meadows burned files in his fireplace, which ran up his dry-cleaning costs.
Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson in her new memoir said that onetime chief of staff Mark Meadows burned so many documents in the waning days of the administration that his wife complained to her about the dry-cleaning bills to remove the burning smell from his clothes, according to The New York Times.
Hutchinson, who last year vaulted into the national spotlight after testifying before the House January 6 committee and remarking on the inner workings of the White House during Capitol riot, described to The Times an administration that was steeped in paranoia.
The former GOP aide told The Times that Meadows and other staffers feared that individuals from the "deep state" could potentially swoop in and find the documents they were disposing of.
Hutchinson in her memoir wrote that Meadows chose to dispose of documents in his fireplace in the waning days of the administration in January 2021, with Meadows' wife grumbling about the mounting expenses of removing the "bonfire" scent from his suits.
Earlier this week, Hutchinson — whose memoir, "Enough," will be released on Sept. 27 — accused former New York City mayor and ex-Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani of groping her on January 6, 2021. She also accused John Eastman, another pro-Trump attorney, of watching Giuliani as the ex-mayor put his hand "under my blazer, then my skirt" before offering a "leering grin."
Giuliani and Eastman were two of the most vocal backers of former President Donald Trump's debunked claims regarding the 2020 election. In August, Giuliani and Eastman were indicted by a Fulton County grand jury alongside Trump and 16 others over their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential results in Georgia.
Both men through representatives vehemently denied Hutchinson's allegations.
In the memoir, Hutchinson wrote of how she felt "a creeping sense of dread that something really horrible [was] going to happen" on January 6.
While testifying before the House committee last year, she spoke of her exasperation at what she described as Meadows' lack of urgency as the Capitol riot unfolded, which disrupted the certification of now-President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory.
"I start to get frustrated because I sort of felt like I was looking at a bad car accident about to happen where you can't stop it but you want to be able to do something," she told the panel at the time. "I remember thinking in that moment, 'Mark needs to snap out of this and I don't know how to snap him out of this but he needs to care.'"
Insider reached out to Meadows for comment.