Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone thought Trump should have conceded after Electoral College certification

Former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told the January 6 House Select Committee that he thought Donald Trump should have conceded after the Electoral College certification on 14 December 2020.

Mr Cipollone appeared in front of committee investigators last week for the first time, and clips from his testimony were shared by the committee during its hearing on Tuesday afternoon.

The former White House counsel told the committee that he agreed that there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the election as early as 1 December 2020.

Mr Cipollone said he thought Mr Trump should have conceded in mid-December.

“If your question is ‘did I believe he should concede the election at a point in time’, yes, I did,” Mr Cipollone said.

“I believe [Republican Senate] Leader McConnell went on to the floor of the Senate, I believe in mid-December and basically said the process is done – that would be in line with my thinking on these things,” Mr Cipollone told the committee in pre-recorded testimony on Friday but which was first revealed publically on Tuesday.

Trump Attorney General Bill Barr testified that he believed the certification on 14 December was “the end of the matter” and that it would lead to a “new administration”.

Mr Cipollone said that Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows shared this view.

Trump Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, the son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, told the committee that he “communicated to the president ... I believed what had to be done was concede the outcome”.

Ivanka Trump told the committee that it was her “sentiment, probably prior as well” that after the legal effort was done after December 14 and that it was time to move on.