A federal grand jury looking into the Capitol riots on January 6 has subpoenaed a former White House counsel for former President Donald Trump who fought some of the politician’s more extreme attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The federal summons listed Pat Cipollone, the highest-ranking White House employee working for Trump in his final months in office.
The 56-year-old was already scheduled to give a testimony regarding what happened during the riots last month.
He was inside the White House when supporters of the departing president stormed the structure, resulting in numerous fatalities and general mayhem.
The development, which was confirmed Tuesday by numerous sources with knowledge of the situation, is the most recent indication that the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into Trump’s possible involvement in the unrest is intensifying.
It comes after senior members of former Vice President Mike Pence’s staff made several appearances before the grand jury two weeks ago, and after top congressional Democrats made an official accusation that several Secret Service agents had deleted potentially incriminating text messages in the days following January 6, 2021.
Cipollone and his attorneys are currently debating how to handle executive privilege issues, which may require him to keep quiet about some details of that day, in relation to his impending appearance before the grand jury.
Since Cipollone was in the West Wing of the White House when the rioting took place and the president reportedly refused to order an end to it, he has become a particular person of interest in the investigation.
In the days leading up to the riot, the conservative lawyer also participated in a number of meetings where Trump and his team discussed strategies for contesting the results and maintaining their control of the government.
However, numerous witnesses present at those meetings claim that Cipollone consistently resisted those attempts.
In a lengthy, behind-closed-doors interview at the Capitol last month, Cipollone was questioned about the riots.
Since then, the committee overseeing the investigation has used portions of the interview in two recent public hearings.
In one of the videos played by the committee, Cipollone claimed he repeatedly asked Trump to stop the attack while it was happening but got no response.
In his testimony, Cipollone stated, “I was pretty clear there needed to be an immediate and forceful response, statement, public statement, that people need to leave the Capitol now.”
Additionally, he discussed how the Cabinet secretaries thought about holding a meeting to discuss Trump’s choices made during the rioting.
Three weeks ago, Cassidy Hutchinson, a 25-year-old former assistant to Trump’s final White House chief of staff, testified that Cipollone had urged her to prevent Trump from visiting the Capitol on a day when thousands of his supporters stormed the building.
Mr. Cipollone reportedly said, “Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy, and keep in touch with me,” or words of that effect.
If we make that movement materialise, we’ll be prosecuted with every felony possible,” she warned the committee in her own dramatic statement.
According to other testimony, Cipollone engaged in intense debates with Trump attorney John Eastman in the Oval Office prior to January 6 about his thoughts of an election reversal.
In a potential allusion to former White House counsel John Dean’s Watergate testimony, the committee stated when it issued its subpoena last week that it needed to “hear from him on the record, as other former White House counsels have done in past congressional investigations.”
Cipollone agreed to go before the committee for a confidential, recorded interview, according to the person knowledgeable on the situation, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.
As the senior White House counsel for Trump, Cipollone attended crucial meetings in the West Wing on January 6, 2021 as well as in the tumultuous weeks following the election, when Trump and associates, including Republican lawmakers and attorney Rudy Giuliani, discussed and plotted ways to challenge the results.
Cipollone is alleged to have admonished Trump and his supporters against trying to overturn the election, threatening to quit as Trump considered a radical change in leadership at the Justice Department.
The New York Times reported that except from an explosive Jan. 3 meeting with former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, the informal agreement did not cover conversations with Trump.
Instead, it covered conversations with Eastman, conversations with senators, and the events of Jan. 6.
According to a witness, Cipollone called a draught letter that would make untrue charges about election fraud a “murder-suicide pact.”
Another witness claimed Cipollone had warned her that if Trump visited the Capitol on January 6, he might commit “every crime imaginable.”
But even though his meeting with the committee might be a turning point, it remained unknown whether Cipollone would try to restrict what he is willing to discuss.
He could claim that some or all of his conversations with Trump are privileged because he serves as the administration’s top attorney.
Other former White House officials have also asserted their own privileges, including former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Even though Cipollone serves in a different capacity than a personal attorney for the president, some of Trump’s conversations with him may be protected by executive privilege or attorney-client privilege claims due to his position as White House counsel.
In the midst of the conflict and Trump’s own assertions of executive privilege this spring, Cipollone and his former assistant Patrick Philbin each agreed to participate in “informal” interviews.
Nevertheless, a number of other witnesses who opposed Trump’s attempt to rig the election characterised Cipollone as a supporter.
To illustrate Trump’s attempts to maintain power, the panel has incorporated videotaped testimony of other officials in video montages that it has shown during broadcast sessions.