Rudy Giuliani has branded claims he groped Cassidy Hutchinson on January 6, 2021, “absolutely false, totally absurd” and said he is “thinking about going after her and the publication” during an appearance on Newsmax.
The former New York mayor was responding to allegations by Hutchinson, formerly an assistant to Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, in her upcoming book Enough, which is being published by Simon & Schuster later in September.
Hutchinson shot to prominence in 2022 when she gave explosive evidence to the House committee investigating the storming of Congress by hundreds of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021, who were attempting to block the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
She claimed Trump opposed efforts to check his supporters weren’t armed before the rally, and later grabbed the steering wheel in a moving vehicle after his security detail refused to drive him to the Capitol. Trump has strongly denied both claims, branding Hutchinson a “total phony” and the allegation he tried to seize the steering wheel “ridiculous.”
In her book, extracts of which were published by The Guardian, Hutchinson claimed she was accosted by Giuliani on January 6, 2021, inside a tent that was serving as Trump’s de facto command center.
She wrote: “Rudy wraps one arm around my body, closing the space that was separating us. I feel his stack of documents press into the small of my back. I lower my eyes and watch his free hand reach for the hem of my blazer.
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“‘By the way,’ he says, fingering the fabric, ‘I’m loving this leather jacket on you.’ His hand slips under my blazer, then my skirt. I feel his frozen fingers trail up my thigh. He tilts his chin up. The whites of his eyes look jaundiced. My eyes dart to (Trump aide) John Eastman, who flashes a leering grin.
“I fight against the tension in my muscles and recoil from Rudy’s grip[…]filled with rage, I storm through the tent, on yet another quest for Mark [Meadows].”
During his Newsmax appearance Giuliani refuted this version of events, describing it as “completely, absolutely false.”
He continued: “She claims that I groped her in a tent on January 6 where all the people went in that were very, very cold as a result of the president’s speech, etc. I’m going to grope somebody with 100 people?
“First of all I’m not going to grope somebody at all, and number two, in front of like 100 people? Plus, that day I had extra security and I had my entire staff around me virtually all day as I took them to the speech as kind of a reward for all the work they did.
“So I took 10 people to the speech and they were with me virtually every moment that I was there and, if I wasn’t talking with them, I was taking pictures with people, so there would have been no occasion for this to happen. It’s completely absurd.”
Giuliani later claimed he had “plenty of witnesses to this one” and was “thinking about going after her and the publication.”
A clip of Giuliani’s remarks was shared on X, formerly Twitter, by the MeidasTouch account, which claims to be an “unapologetically pro-democracy” media outlet.
Newsweek has reached out to Hutchinson via her publisher Simon and Schuster, along with Giuliani through the website of his Common Sense podcast.
In August Giuliani was charged, along with Trump and 17 others, over claims he broke the law by attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in the state of Georgia. The former New York mayor has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts, branding the case an “attack on the American people.”