Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone has to testify before the committee on January 6

July 11, 2022: -On Friday, the House select committee examining the January 6 Capitol riot is assigned to interview one of its most sought-after witnesses as it continues to collect evidence involving former President Donald Trump in the attack. Pat Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel, is expected to meet with the committee behind closed doors for a transcribed interview, according to NBC News and other media outlets.

The panel subpoenaed in the previous week said it had obtained evidence that Cipollone “repeatedly increased legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6 and in the days that preceded.”

Cipollone, who spoke with investigators informally in April, has taken center stage in some of the committee’s current public hearings through the testimony of other witnesses, citing his numerous warnings to Trump.

The panel hopes he could confirm some of the most explosive allegations shared prior week by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to Trump’s ex-chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

Hutchinson testified that before the January 6 riot, Cipollone warned staff against allowing Trump to meet protestors at the U.S. Capitol, where lawmakers were meeting to confirm President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump followed through on those plans, she recalled him saying.

“It would look like we were obstructing justice,” Cipollone explained, according to Hutchinson.

Trump told his followers he would meet them at the Capitol at a rally near the White House that shortly preceded the riot. But his security detail refused to take him to the Capitol, and he ultimately returned to the White House. At that point, Hutchinson testified that Cipollone encouraged Meadows to act to get Trump to quell the attack.

“I remember Pat said something to the effect of, ‘Mark, and we need to do something more. They’re calling for the vice president to be effing hung,'” she said.

“Mark had responded, ‘You heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong,'” she said.