Former Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to testify to Jan. 6 committee

Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel to former President Donald Trump, will testify to the House Jan. 6 Committee. Cipollone has already spoken informally to the committee, but his role to resist Trump’s plan to overthrow the election came under the microscope last week after the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

Hutchinson relayed to the committee interactions and conversations she and Cippolone had, including one on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021 regarding the President’s pre-planned move to lead marchers to the Capitol.

Under oath, Hutchinson said, “Mr. Cippolone said something to the effect of, ‘Please make sure we don’t go up to the capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.’”

As the top White House lawyer on Jan. 6, 2021, Cipollone was in the West Wing that day, as well as for key meetings in the weeks after the election when Trump and some of his associates debated and plotted ways to challenge the election.

The Associated Press reported Cippolone agreed to a private, transcribed interview with the committee. The news came as a former White House staffer who resigned in the wake of the Capitol attack is set to give her own testimony.

Sarah Matthews was a deputy press secretary toward the end of the Trump administration’s tenure. She’s already given recorded testimony to the Jan. 6 Committee and will appear at a future hearing.

When she resigned shortly after the insurrection, Matthews said in an online post, “As someone who worked in the halls of Congress I was deeply disturbed by what I saw today…Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power.”

The Jan. 6 Committee is scheduled to meet next on July 12.