Former Trump White House attorney Pat Cipollone appeared Friday morning on Capitol Hill for a closed-door interview with House committee investigators Jan. 6 after negotiations over what could be questioned .
His testimony will be videotaped and clips from Cipollone’s deposition are expected to be presented during the committee’s next public hearings, according to sources familiar with the planning.
Cipollone and the committee, according to sources, have agreed that he may be asked what he knows about the actions taken by former senior Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark to use the powers of the Justice Department to try to overturn the election 2020 presidential elections, what Cipollone did during the day of January 6, and the interactions he was present or had with former Trump lawyer John Eastman, as well as the interactions he was present or to have with members of Congress after the 2020 elections.
Interrogations on these issues are expected to rule out talks he held directly with former President Donald Trump.
Sources close to Cipollone told ABC News that he may claim some kind of executive privilege, which sources familiar with the negotiations say is not expected to be challenged by committee investigators.
Pat Cipollone, a former White House attorney under President Donald Trump, arrives at the Ford House office building to answer questions from investigators with the Jan. 6 select committee at Capitol Hill in Washington. DC, July 8, 2022.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
Committee investigators may also ask Cipollone about other issues, sources said.
Cipollone, who appears under subpoena, has been one of the panel’s most wanted witnesses after last week’s testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former chief aide to Mark Meadows, Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff in the White House.
Hutchinson told the panel that Cipollone was afraid of the consequences of Trump’s push to march with his supporters on Jan. 6 from the Ellipse to the Capitol, where Congress was working to certify the results of the Electoral College. of 2020.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified during the sixth hearing of the House Selection Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol on June 28, 2022.
Brandon Bell / Getty Images
“Mr. Cipollone said something to the effect of, ‘Please make sure we don’t go up to the Capitol, Cassidy, keep in touch with me. We will be charged with every crime imaginable if we make this move happen. Hutchinson said.
During the attack on the Capitol, Hutchinson also said Cipollone was pushing for Trump to make some kind of statement to help end the violence.
“Mark, something has to be done or people will die and the blood will be in your hands f ——,” Cipollone told Meadows, according to Hutchinson’s testimony.
On Wednesday, Trump complained that Cipillone accepted an interview on his social media platform Truth Social.
“Why would a future president of the United States want to have sincere and important conversations with his White House lawyer if he thought there was even a small chance that this person, acting essentially as the country’s“ lawyer, ”could be one day? brought before a partisan Committee and openly hostile to Congress, or even a fair and reasonable Committee, to reveal the inner secrets of foreign policy or other important issues, “Trump wrote. “So bad for the US!”