Byrne has been active in supporting efforts to challenge and promote unfounded claims about the 2020 election, including attending a mid-December meeting at the White House to discuss strategies to overturn the election. This meeting with Trump was also attended by former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his lawyer Sidney Powell, as well as some White House staff. He focused on ideas to block the confirmation of Joe Biden for president and discussed the prospect of confiscating voting machines. White House officials at the meeting pushed back on the ideas in the heated exchange, CNN previously reported. Excerpts from Cipollone’s closed-door committee interview are expected to be presented at the committee’s next hearing, which is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday. That hearing will seek to link the various pressure campaigns Trump has undertaken to try to overturn the 2020 election and how “all the elements came together” to erupt into violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, committee aides said Monday . Two sources familiar with Cipollone’s testimony told CNN that he was questioned at length about his role in that meeting where Trump welcomed the pro-election group to the West Wing and what was discussed. A source familiar with Cipollone’s testimony told CNN that he described to the committee his view of how crazy the meeting was. The meeting, which, according to two people familiar with the matter, began as an impromptu gathering, escalated and eventually erupted into shouting matches at some points as some of Trump’s aides pushed back against Powell and Flynn’s more outrageous overturning proposals of the elections. Select committee aides told CNN that Flynn will be among former Trump associates whose role in swinging the election will be highlighted at Tuesday’s hearing. The Dec. 18 meeting, committee aides said, is of great interest to the committee’s investigation. They pointed to a tweet Trump sent the next day encouraging his supporters to descend on Washington as a key moment that ultimately led to the violence on Capitol Hill on January 6. This story has been updated with additional details on Monday. CNN’s Pamela Brown, Ryan Nobles and Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
