Pat A. Cipollone, the White House counsel to President Trump who repeatedly fought Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has reached a deal to be interviewed by Friday before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, according to people familiar with the inquiry, the New York Times reports. The agreement was a breakthrough for the panel, which has pressed for weeks for Cipollone to cooperate — and issued a subpoena to him last week — believing he could provide crucial testimony. Cipollone was a witness to pivotal moments in Trump’s push to invalidate the election results, including discussions about seizing voting machines and sending false letters to state officials about election fraud. He was also in the West Wing on Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump reacted to the violence at the Capitol, when his supporters attacked the building in his name. People close to Cipollone have repeatedly cautioned that concerns about executive privilege and attorney-client privilege could limit his cooperation.
But committee negotiators have pressed to hear from Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, who was his deputy in the White House. Cipollone will sit for a videotaped, transcribed interview, according to a person familiar with the discussions. He is not expected to testify publicly. The panel’s push to hear from Cipollone intensified after the testimony last week of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide to the chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Hutchinson described detailed conversations with Cipollone in which she said the counsel had expressed deep concerns about the actions of Trump and Meadows. Some allies of Trump have privately tried to cast doubt on parts of Hutchinson’s testimony, which was the committee’s most explosive to date and was delivered under oath. In April, Cipollone and Philbin both appeared for informal interviews with the panel on a limited set of topics, according to an agreement reached by their representatives and representatives for Trump. Members of the House committee had hoped that Cipollone would testify publicly at a previous hearing, but he declined. They then took their case public.
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