Pat Cipollone, the Covington Catholic graduate who was President Donald Trump's White House counsel, was a central figure in Tuesday's hearing of the select U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol.
Portions of Cipollone's videotaped but private deposition last week before the committee were aired during Tuesday's hearing. He and other witnesses described what he said at a tumultuous meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020 – a meeting that included Cipollone and another White House lawyer being insulted and labeled the P-word by Rudy Giuliani, the head of a team of attorneys pursuing baseless claims of election fraud.
Giuliani had to be escorted out of the White House after the meeting, according to Tuesday's testimony.
Tuesday's hearing was designed to have committee members connect the dots between that Dec. 18 meeting to events on Jan. 5 and 6, 2021.
Live and recorded testimony Tuesday showed how that meeting resulted in plans to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory. The December meeting attendees included Trump, attorney Sidney Powell, Giuliani, former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and other members of the former president's inner circle who helped him promote unsubstantiated election conspiracies.
Cipollone was among the White House staffers who faced insults and verbal attacks from Powell, Giuliani and Flynn, who wanted to overturn the 2020 election, two former White House staffers said in videotaped testimony.
“It was not a casual meeting,” said Derek Lyons, a former White House staff secretary. “At times there were people shouting at each other, hurling insults at each other. It wasn’t sort of people sitting around on the couch just chit-chatting.”
Cipollone said, “I remember the three of them were really sort of forcefully attacking me verbally," and he, Lyons, and lawyer Eric Herschmann were asking "one simple question, as a general matter, ‘Where is the evidence?’”
Herschmann, who said he’d had it with Giuliani after Giuliani screamed insults at him, told the attorney “either come over or sit your effin’ ass back down.”
Hutchinson captured the moment in a photograph the committee showed Tuesday. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said the photo showed then-White House chief of staff Meadows escorting Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, off the grounds to “make sure he didn’t wander back into the mansion.”
“The west wing is UNHINGED,” Hutchinson said in a text message that night, according to the committee.
Trump wanted to seize voting machines
One of the jaw-dropping moments from Tuesday’s hearing was how Trump wanted to seize voting machines in the aftermath of losing the 2020 election.
Former White House lawyer Pat Cipollone explained in taped testimony how the president had an unplanned meeting with outside advisors, including Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, about the plan.
"It's a terrible idea for the country," he said. "That's not how we do things in the United States."
The committee showed a draft of an executive order by Trump that would have empowered the secretary of defense to seize voting machines, and appoint a “special counsel” who could charge people with election crimes. Trump had considered Powell for the position of special counsel, according to the panel.
Powell was one of the faces of the campaign’s efforts to overturn the election, including false claims that foreign governments had interfered in the 2020 contest.
“I was vehemently opposed,” Cipollone said. “I didn’t think she should be appointed to anything.”
A witness who appeared June 28 before the committee, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, repeatedly mentioned Cipollone as one of the most outspoken in Trump’s inner circle, imploring Trump on both Jan. 6 and 7 to speak out against rioters that breached the Capitol. Hutchinson is the former special assistant to Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The head of the committee, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said on June 28 that Cipollone might be called to testify. The panel's vice chair, Rep. Lynn Cheney, R-Wyo., implored Cipollone to come forward.
On Tuesday, Cheney said that Cipollone’s testimony before the committee had “met our expectations.” Cipollone was questioned Friday behind closed doors on what he knew regarding Trump’s actions during the Capitol attack.
Other things Cipollone told the committee in portions of his deposition aired Tuesday included:
Meadows told Cipollone that Trump would make a ‘graceful exit’
Cipollone told the committee in his prerecorded testimony that Meadows insisted Trump would participate in the peaceful transfer of power.
Meadows was said to assure both Cipollone and former Attorney General Bill Barr that Trump would agree to a “graceful exit” by conceding the 2020 presidential election around Nov. 23, 2020.
“I will say that that is a statement and a sentiment that I heard from Mark Meadows,” Cipollone said.
Cipollone thought Trump should concede
Cipollone said he thought the process for deciding the 2020 election had ended by mid-December, just after the Electoral College met to cast formal votes for president.
“Did I believe she should concede the election at a point in time?” Cipollone asked the Jan. 6 committee in a videotaped interview. “Yes, I did.”
He pointed to comments from then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Dec. 15, 2020, saying that the process had already played out, and added, “That would be in line with my thinking on these things.”
Mike Pence should get Medal of Freedom
Cipollone said that former Vice President Mike Pence had no legal power to do anything related to the certification of the 2020 election except for what he did.
Cipollone told the committee that he suggested Pence should be awarded "the presidential Medal of Freedom for his actions." Rioters at the Capitol chanted "hang Mike Pence" and the vice president had to be taken to safety inside the building.
Former Overstock.com CEO among Trump’s confidantes
Cipolone was shocked to find retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, attorney Sidney Powell and Patrick Byrne – the former CEO of Overstock.com – alone with Trump in the Oval Office.
“I walked in, I looked at him and I said ‘Who are you?’ And he told me,” Cipollone testified. “I had never heard of who this guy was.”
Byrne, Flynn, Powell and others met alone with Trump for at least 10-15 minutes without the White House staff’s knowledge.
“I don’t think any of these people were providing the president with good advice, so I didn’t understand how they had gotten in,” Cipollone said.
Compiled from reporting by USA TODAY reporters Phillip M. Bailey, Chelsey Cox, Rick Rouan, Merdie Nzanga, Erin Mansfield, Katherine Swartz
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