Attorney for 'Rust' Assistant Director Backs up Alec Baldwin's Claim He Didn't Pull the Trigger

By Stephen Andrew

During his first interview about the tragic Rust on-set shooting, actor Alec Baldwin claimed that he did not pull the trigger on the prop gun that led to the fatal incident. Now, Deadline reports that an attorney for the film's Assistant Director, David Halls, is backing up Baldwin's version of the events. "Dave has told me since the very first day I met him that Alec did not pull that trigger. His finger was never in the trigger guard," said attorney Lisa Torraco, while appearing on Good Morning America.

Baldwin sat down with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos in his first official interview on the shooting which left Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead, and director Joel Souza injured. In a recently shared clip from the interview, Baldwin stated that he "didn't pull the trigger" on the gun. The questions that investigators are working to answer now are exactly how the gun was able to fire, and why it was loaded with a live round. The interview, which aired Thursday, Dec. 2 on ABC, is now available to stream on Hulu.

"This was the most intense [ABC interview] I have ever experienced," Stephanopoulos said during a Wednesday appearance on Good Morning America while announcing the new interview. "He was so raw, as you can imagine he was devastated, but he was also very candid, he was very forthcoming, he answered every question, he talked about Halyna Hutchins, meeting her family as well, and he talked in detail about what happened on the set that day."  In addition to the new interview, there will also be a special two-hour edition of 20/20, which airs on Dec. 10, focusing on the Rust accident and featuring other interviews.

Following the incident, Baldwin released a statement on Twitter, and more recently he spoke to a group of photographers who were inquiring about the incident. "A woman died," he told the group, per Deadline. "She was my friend. She was my friend. The day I arrived in Santa Fe to start shooting, I took her to dinner with Joel, the director. We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened." The shooting on the set of Rust is still under investigation, and no charges have been filed.

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