11th July, 2022
Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone provided testimony “reinforcing” alleged misconduct by former President Donald Trump during the Jan. 6, 2021 riots.
Tim Mulvey, a spokesman for the House select committee investigating the riots at the U.S. Capitol disclosed this on Sunday.
Although Cipollone had expressed concern about some questions that may have required him to invoke executive privilege, Mulvey told CNN that “allegations of some pre-interview agreement to limit Cipollone’s testimony are completely false.”
“In our interview with Mr. Cipollone, the committee received critical testimony on nearly every major topic in its investigation, reinforcing key points regarding Donald Trump’s misconduct and providing highly relevant new information that will play a central role in its upcoming hearings,” said Mulvey.
In an interview with NBC News’ Meet the Press Sunday, committee member Rep. Stephanie Murphy, said Cipollone did claim executive privilege “on conversations that related to the advice he provided directly to the president or conversations with the president.”
She added, however, that the committee “still got a lot of relevant information from him” during the interview.
“It provides us another perspective on what was happening in the White House in those weeks running up to Jan. 6 that were so critically important,” Murphy said.
Mulvey added that the testimony included “information demonstrating Donald Trump’s supreme dereliction of duty” and also “corroborated key elements” of testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, late last month.
Hutchinson testified that Secret Service official Tony Ornato told her Trump became enraged when Secret Service agents told him they could not go to the Capitol during the riots and lunged toward Secret Service agent Bobby Engel while attempting to take the wheel of the presidential limo.
Also Sunday, The Guardian, CNN and NBC News reported that Steve Bannon is expected to testify before the committee after Trump said he would waive executive privilege for his former adviser.