WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol on Wednesday issued a subpoena for the testimony of Pat A. Cipollone, White House counsel to President Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly fought back against extreme violence. plans to undo the 2020 election after he resisted testifying publicly.
In a statement accompanying the subpoena, committee leaders said they were seeking Mr. Cipollone’s testimony because investigators “had to hear from him officially, as other former White House counsel have done in other congressional investigations.”
The commission said it was seeking information about Mr Trump’s efforts to reverse the 2020 election and his involvement in plans to submit false voter rolls to Congress and interfere with the Justice Department. The subpoena of a White House counsel, a rare move for a congressional committee, sent a clear signal of the aggressive tactics the panel is willing to use to try and coerce cooperation from even the former top White House attorney, who will most likely be able to invoke attorney-client privilege in response to many questions.
“Any concerns Mr. Cipollone has about the institutional prerogatives of the office he previously held clearly outweighs the need for his testimony,” Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson and Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney said. in a statement.
In April, Mr. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, his deputy, met the panel separately, said two people familiar with the sessions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make the meetings public.
The two men were not under oath at the time and their interviews were not transcribed. Since then, Mr Cipollone has resisted public testifying, despite calls from the commission to do so.
“Our committee is confident that Donald Trump does not want Mr. Cipollone to testify here. But we believe the American people deserve to hear from Mr. Cipollone in person,” Ms Cheney announced from the podium at a hearing last week. “He should appear before this committee and we are working to secure his testimony.”
