Pat Cipollone, who served as White House counsel in the Trump administration at the time of the Capitol riot, was testifying Friday before a federal grand jury amid the Justice Department’s wide-ranging investigation into the events of January 6 and issues connected to it.
Cipollone previously testified to the House committee investigating the Capitol riot after receiving a subpoena from the panel, and he was relatively forthcoming in key areas of questioning. He explained in his testimony some of what transpired, for instance, around a mid-December 2020 meeting at the White House that involved Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn. Cipollone said that Powell may have left the gathering under the impression she was appointed as special counsel, in a role where she would deal with some of the federal government’s response to imaginary voter fraud. Patrick Byrne, a Trump ally who was involved in the meeting and was on the side of the election-related conspiracy theories, claimed in a recent court filing he saw then-President Trump “verbally grant White House Special Counsel Sidney Powell a Top Secret security clearance.” Byrne added that in January of this year he allegedly spoke with Rudy Giuliani, who told him Trump “verbally reversed his decision and instructions” about Powell’s status very soon after issuing them.
Cipollone was appearing before the federal grand jury under subpoena. Patrick Philbin, who worked in the White House counsel’s office during Trump’s term, was also served with a grand jury subpoena in the Justice Department’s January 6 investigation. Cipollone was broadly opposed to Trump’s push against the 2020 election outcome, and according to former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, he was seriously concerned in the lead-up to January 6 about the possibility of someone getting criminally charged in the event certain actions under consideration were, in fact, taken. Among other plans, Trump wanted to go to the Capitol on January 6 — an idea floated before the day rolled around and violence began, although it’s unclear what Donald would have actually done. His overall goal, of course, was to see Congress’s certification of Joe Biden’s election win upended. How would he have tried to achieve such a thing?
According to available info, it wasn’t for a lack of trying that Trump didn’t actually go to the Capitol that day. His security staff pushed his return to the White House after his January 6 speech amid security concerns. The Justice Department’s investigation into January 6 is distinct from its ongoing criminal probe into the handling of records from Trump’s administration that were taken to Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s southern Florida resort, as his tenure ended. In that probe, potential federal crimes under examination include violations of the Espionage Act, which broadly covers national security-related issues, and obstruction. Obstruction wouldn’t hinge on whether disputed documents were, in fact, declassified all along, something there’s no apparent hard evidence Trump actually enacted. Meanwhile, an individual Capitol rioter, Thomas Webster, recently received the longest sentence imposed on any mob member thus far. Webster, who singled out and attacked an officer during the chaos, tackling them to the ground, was sentenced to ten years.
