(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s former White House counsel Pat Cipollone was subpoenaed Wednesday for a deposition by the House’s Jan. 6 committee.
“The Select Committee’s investigation has revealed evidence that Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6th and in the days that preceded,” the committee’s chair and vice-chair, Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson and Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, said in a statement.
Cipollone and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin met with committee investigators for an informal interview in April.
Cipollone had been considering some form of cooperation with the committee, under certain restrictions, ABC News previously reported.
The new subpoena comes one day after Cipollone was repeatedly mentioned during the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a top aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Hutchinson told the committee during a Tuesday hearing that on the morning of Jan. 6, Cipollone was adamant that Trump shouldn’t accompany his supporters to the Capitol after addressing them at the Ellipse near the White House earlier that day.
“We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen,” she recalled Cipollone telling her at the time.
A lawyer familiar with Cipollone’s deliberations told ABC News in response to the committee’s announcement: “Of course a subpoena was necessary before the former White House counsel could even consider transcribed testimony before the committee.”
“Now that a subpoena has been issued, it’ll be evaluated as to matters of privilege that might be appropriate,” the lawyer said.
The committee had written in a letter to Cipollone along with his subpoena that they “continued to obtain evidence about which you are uniquely positioned to testify; however, you have declined to cooperate with us further.”
Cipollone was one of the few aides who was with then-President Trump in the West Wing on Jan. 6. ABC News has reported that in the days following the attack on the Capitol, he advised Trump that Trump could potentially face civil liability in connection with his role encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol.
Sources have said there would be a number of circumstances that could serve to complicate any eventual appearance by Cipollone — including the issue of who questions him and for how long; whether there are any ongoing issues of privilege; and whether Trump would approve of his appearance.
Cipollone also made clear that his testimony would be restricted to the effort undertaken by former top Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark to use the powers of the DOJ to further Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential race, sources familiar with the deliberations have said.
Both Cipollone and Philbin, his deputy, were part of a Jan. 3, 2021, Oval Office meeting where Trump insisted on replacing then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Clark, a Trump loyalist who had vowed to use the Department of Justice to investigate the election.
Cipollone and Philbin made it clear to Trump that they would resign if Clark were installed, according to a Senate committee report released last year that detailed instances where Trump and his allies sought to use the DOJ to overturn the election.
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