Liz Cheney called on former White House counsel Pat Cipollone to testify before the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
Ms Cheney, who serves as the committee’s vice chairwoman, cited testimony from former Trump administration staffer Cassidy Hutchinson.
Ms Hutchinson told the committee on Tuesday that Mr Cipollone feared that a line in a draft of former president Donald Trump’s remarks at the White House Ellipse to “fight for me, fight for what we are doing, fight for the movement” and Mr Trump’s desire to go to the Capitol would leave them open to being charged with “every crime imaginable.”
“As we heard yesterday, WH counsel Pat Cippollone [sic] had significant concerns re. Trump’s Jan 6 activities”, she said. “It’s time for Mr. Cippollone to testify on the record. Any concerns he has about the institutional interests of his prior office are outweighed by the need for his testimony.”
Ms Hutchinson also said that she saw Mr Cipollone “barreling down the hallway” to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’s office saying that they needed to see the president because rioters had breached the Capitol’s defences.
“Mark looked up and said: ‘[Mr Trump] doesn‘t want to do anything”, Ms Hutchinson said the chief of staff said. She said in a videotaped part of her testimony that Mr Cipollone returned with deputy Eric Herschmann.
“I remember Pat saying something to the effect of ‘Mark, we need to do something more. They’re literally calling for the vice president to be [f***ing] hung,’” she said.
In addition, Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News reported that the select committee is considering a subpoena to Mr Cipollone. Punchbowl also reported that the committee was considering taking up the US Secret Service on its offer to testify about an incident Ms Hutchinson said she heard about second-hand wherein Mr Trump grabbed the steering wheel of his presidential limousine to go to the Capitol to join his supporters.
