Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), who sits on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, said that former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone provided “relevant information about what was happening in the White House” while meeting with the panel on Friday.
Cipollone claimed executive privilege in some areas of the conversation on Friday that “related to the advice he provided directly to the president or conversations with the president,” she told NBC’s “Meet the Press” during an interview aired Sunday, adding, “I think we still got a lot of relevant information from him.”
Murphy said the committee’s upcoming hearing on Tuesday will likely feature testimony from Cipollone, as well as other White House officials.
“I imagine that you will be hearing things from Mr. Cipollone, but also from others that were in the White House,” she said of the hearing.
She also said that Cipollone “made very clear” while meeting with the panel on Friday his stance on several issues, including false claims about election fraud occurring in the 2020 election.
“He made very clear that he thought the [John] Eastman theory, which was this idea that the vice president could somehow unilaterally declare the president the president elect, or that the pressure on the Department of Justice, he sided with the Department of Justice on their findings of no fraud in the election,” Murphy said.
“He made very clear that he took the side of many of the folks that you’ve already seen come before the committee, and was asserting that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that the election was not free and fair. And that, you know, the right thing to do I think for democracy is to have a peaceful transfer of power, especially after December 14th, when the states have certified their electors,” she continued.
Cipollone appeared voluntarily before the panel on Friday after the House select committee subpoenaed him after explosive testimony was given by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
She testified that Cipollone had told her on the morning of the Capitol riot that he did not want Trump to go to Capitol that day, saying he warned, “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.”
Hutchinson also said that Cipollone urged Meadows to act while the Capitol riot was ensuing, at one point saying, “Mark, something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood is going to be on your effing hands.”
Murphy said the panel’s witnesses have generally been telling the same story.
“I think there was a lot of information that fit into this bigger puzzle that we’re putting together,” she said when asked if Cipollone confirmed Hutchinson’s testimony.
“The overall message that we have been gathering out of all of these witnesses is that the president knew he had lost the election, or that his advisers had told him he had lost the election, and that he was casting about for ways in which he could retain power and remain the president, despite the fact that the democratic will of the American people was to have President Biden be the next elected,” she added later.