What could he have said?
On Friday (July 8), former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone spent eight hours being interviewed for the Jan. 6 Select Committee regarding his role in trying to convince Trump to concede the 2020 Presidential elections and prevent the former President from joining the crowd of protestors at the Capitol.
Cipollone has become a central figure in the Panel’s investigation, which is trying to prove that — despite knowing he had lost — former President Donald Trump still pushed a false narrative that he had won.
The former White House Counsel and once close confidant to Trump, who had defended the former President during his first impeachment trial, had been reluctant to testify before the Committee.
It’s also possible that — similar to other White House officials — Cipollone claimed his counsel to the former President is privileged information that he could not share with the Committee.
Yet, following the 8-hour-long interview, it’s not clear if Cipollone divulged privileged communication he had with Trump.
What is clear is that Cipollone’s name emerged as a fundamental piece of the Jan. 6 puzzle, as bombshell testimony by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson revealed Cipollone had attempted to convince Trump to not attend the Capitol rally to prevent the certification of the 2020 election results.
Hutchinson indicated that at the time Cipollone warned that if Trump went, the then-President would be charged with “every crime imaginable.”
Hutchinson’s revelations prompted the Committee to subpoena Cipollone to testify to corroborate his role in Jan. 6.
In a statement accompanying the subpoena, Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said, “Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6th and in the days that preceded,” which the Panel claimed makes him “uniquely positioned to testify.”
