Former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to Testify before January 6 Committee
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Pat Cipollone, who served as White House counsel to Donald Trump and opposed the former president’s attempts to fight the results of the 2020 election, will reportedly testify before the January 6 committee on Friday.
The planned testimony, first reported on by the New York Times, comes after the committee issued a subpoena to compel Cipollone to appear before it. He is not expected to testify publicly and will sit down for a recorded, transcribed interview, according to the outlet.
Cipollone was at the White House on January 6, 2021 and advised the president against marching towards the Capitol, per testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Hutchinson also said that after the riot, Cipollone told Trump not to pardon those who took part in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
According to Hutchinson, Cipollone approached her on January 3 to tell her that the president and his team should not go to the Capitol on January 6, before repeating the warning on January 6.
“We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen,” Cipollone reportedly told Hutchinson.
Cipollone also expressed concerns about “potentially obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral count” before January 6.
As the riot on the Capitol took place, Cipollone is said to have rushed to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’s office, urging him to see Trump and telling him that “something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood is going to be on your f****** hands.”
Calls for Cipollone to testify intensified after Hutchinson made several incendiary claims about Trump’s behavior on January 6.
According to Hutchinson, Trump urged the Secret Service to allow armed supporters of his to attend the speech he delivered prior to the riot on January 6. She also claimed, citing White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato, that Trump became “irate” when Secret Service told him he couldn’t to go the Capitol after his remarks, even lunging at the wheel of the presidential vehicle as well as Secret Service agent Bobby Engel, who was trying to stop him.
Multiple sources close to the Secret Service have disputed Hutchinson’s claims. The Secret Service told CBS News it plans to “respond on the record” to Hutchinson’s allegations, but a source close to the service told the outlet “Engel and the driver are prepared to testify under oath that neither man was physically attacked or assaulted by Trump and that the former president never lunged for the steering wheel of the vehicle.”
