The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol announced Wednesday that it has subpoenaed former White House counsel Pat Cipollone. The news comes a day after Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified before the committee that Cipollone expressed concerns about former President Donald Trump’s desire to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and about the language Trump wanted to use in his speech at the Ellipse that day.
“The Select Committee’s investigation has revealed evidence that Mr. Cipollone repeatedly raised legal and other concerns about President Trump’s activities on January 6th and in the days that preceded,” committee chairman Bennie Thompson and vice chair Liz Cheney said in a statement announcing the subpoena. “While the Select Committee appreciates Mr. Cipollone’s earlier informal engagement with our investigation, the committee needs to hear from him on the record, as other former White House counsels have done in other congressional investigations.”
“Any concerns Mr. Cipollone has about the institutional prerogatives of the office he previously held are clearly outweighed by the need for his testimony,” the statement added.
Hutchinson discussed Cipollone multiple times during her testimony Tuesday, perhaps most notably when she told lawmakers that he pushed back on Trump’s desire to go to the Capitol on January 6.
“We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen,” Hutchinson recalled Cipollone saying.
Hutchinson also testified that she was aware of concerns from Cipollone and others about language Trump had proposed for his speech at the Ellipse, telling the committee, “There were many discussions the morning of the 6th about the rhetoric of the speech that day.”
Hutchinson said that language was something to the effect of “Fight for Trump. We’re going to march to the Capitol,” adding that Trump also wanted to include things “about the vice president at the time, too.”
John Wood, who was the investigative lawyer for the Jan. 6 committee before he resigned last week, told CBS News on Wednesday that subpoenaing Cipollone was a “necessary step” because it’s “really important” for the committee to speak with him.
Caroline Linton contributed reporting.
