Cipollone was a much-sought-after witness, especially after bombshell testimony that he tried to prevent Donald Trump from challenging the results of the 2020 election and worked to prevent the defeated president from joining the violent mob that besieged the Capitol, they said. “He did not contradict the testimony of other witnesses,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said late Friday on CNN. Committee member Lofgren clarified that “not contradicting is not the same as affirming.” In some cases, the former White House counsel was not present at the events described or “couldn’t accurately recall” some details, he said. “He was honest with the committee, he was careful in his answers,” Lofgren said. “And I think we’ve learned a few things, which we’ll bring up in the next hearings.” Cipollone’s central role came into focus during a surprise committee hearing last week, when former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson described his repeated efforts to prevent Trump from joining the mob on Capitol Hill. In a stunning public hearing, Hutchinson testified that Cipollone warned her that Trump would be charged with “every crime imaginable” if the defeated president went to Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, trying to stop Joe from being certified. Biden. Hutchinson said Cipollone urged her to convince her boss, chief of staff Mark Meadows, not to let Trump go to the Capitol. Hutchinson testified that she was told Trump was angry when he finally prevented his security team from going to the Capitol that day. The Secret Service disputed parts of its account detailing Trump’s actions when he said he attacked the driver of the presidential motorcade. At another critical juncture, Cipollone also sat in on a meeting Sunday before Jan. 6 with Justice Department officials at the White House who have threatened to resign if Trump moves forward with plans to install a new deputy attorney general who would continue the his false claims. voter fraud. During that meeting, Cipollone referred to a letter that Jeffrey Clark, the lawyer Trump wanted to install as head of the Justice Department, had proposed sending to Georgia and other battleground states challenging their election results as “murder-suicide pact”, according to precedents. testimony before the committee. Cipollone and his attorney, Michael Purpura, who also worked in the Trump White House, did not respond to requests for comment. Once a staunch confidante of the president who had defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, Cipollone was reluctant to appear formally for an on-the-record interview. Like other former White House officials, he is likely to have held up his adviser to the Republican president as privileged information he was unwilling to share with the committee. Cipollone appeared for about eight hours before the commission and its investigators. Cipollone was subpoenaed to testify, but Lofgren said he appeared voluntarily. “An exhausting day,” he said. “But it was worth it.” Earlier this week, Trump responded to news of Cipollone’s partnership on social media platform Truth Social, calling it bad for the country. “Why would a future President of the United States want to have frank and meaningful conversations with his White House counsel if he believed there was even a remote possibility that this person, effectively acting as a ‘lawyer’ for the country, might someday to be brought before a partisan and openly hostile Committee in Congress,” the former president said. The commission said Cipollone is “uniquely placed to testify” in a letter accompanying the subpoena issued last week. “Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on Jan. 6 and in the days leading up to it,” said Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. “While the Select Committee appreciates Mr. Cipollone with our investigation, the committee should hear him on the record, as other former White House advisers have done in other congressional investigations.”
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
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