When will this circus end?
Tuesday’s (June 28) last-minute public hearing opened up a can of worms for the Jan. 6 Select Committee, which has to contend with public pleas to have former White House counsel Pat Cipollone testify.
Responding to the outcry, the panel subpoenaed Cipollone on Wednesday (June 29).
In a joint statement, Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and committee Vice Chairwoman Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said: “The Select Committee’s investigation has revealed evidence that Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on Jan. 6 and in the days that preceded.”
The statement also acknowledged Cipollone’s cooperation with the panel, stating it “appreciates Mr. Cipollone’s earlier informal engagement with our investigation” but needed to “hear from him on the record, as other former White House counsels have done in other congressional investigations.”
The statement also noted that Cipollone’s concern regarding “institutional prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony.”
The panel’s subpoena comes on the heels of testimony by Hutchinson, a special assistant to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, that Cipollone had raised concerns about the legality of former President Donald Trump’s plans to march to the Capitol.
Hutchinson also relayed that Cipollone had made repeated requests to the White House to do more as the attack on the Capitol was unfolding.
In April, Cipollone met with the committee’s investigators but never sat for a formal deposition.
If Cipollone complies with the subpoena, he would become the second former White House official to publicly testify. His testimony would also be significant for the committee, as they would receive Cipollone’s unique perspective of Trump’s state of mind during the events and his awareness about plots to keep him in power.
