January 6th Committee confirms Pat Cipollone lines up with Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony
When former Trump White House senior aide Cassidy Hutchinson publicly testified about explosive things that former Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone had said to her, it helped the January 6th Committee to finally corner Cipollone into testifying himself. He did so behind closed doors today.
It was known going in that Cipollone would invoke (essentially imaginary) executive privilege in the name of not answering certain sticky questions. But whatever Cipollone decided not to talk about was going to be less important than what he did talk about, because if he gave up enough on the whole to nail Donald Trump, then it doesn’t matter what details he specifically decided to keep to himself.
When media reports surfaced that Cipollone’s testimony had stretched to eight hours, it was a good sign for the committee and a bad sign for Trump. After all, invoking privilege results in a very quick non-answer, while cooperative answers take much longer. Witnesses who dodge most or all of the questions tend to be done testifying before lunch.
Sure enough, after Cipollone’s testimony concluded, January 6th Committee member Zoe Lofgren appeared on television and stated that Cipollone was very cooperative on the whole – “We learned a lot today” – and that his testimony did not in any way conflict with Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony. In other words, Cipollone’s testimony lined up with the portion of Hutchinson’s testimony that related to him.
This is indeed very bad for Donald Trump. If Cipollone is confirming that he told Hutchinson that going to the Capitol would result in criminal charges, then by default it means that Cipollone gave that same legal advice to Donald Trump – whether he testified to as much today or not.
Now comes the question of when and how the committee will make Pat Cipollone’s testimony public. It has two public hearings scheduled for next week, one on Tuesday morning and one on Thursday evening. It’s not clear if video footage of Cipollone’s testimony will be used in either or both hearings, or if he’ll be brought back to testify live during a public hearing.
But the bottom line is that the committee appears to have gotten exactly what it needed from Cipollone, and it’ll surface soon enough. Also keep in mind that because Cipollone has testified to the committee, Cipollone knows darn well that the DOJ will seek the same kind of testimony against him, if it hasn’t obtained it already. Cipollone, along with Hutchinson and others who have emerged as key witnesses during these public hearings, will surely be called to testify against Donald Trump in an inevitable criminal trial.
