On Friday, former White House counsel Pat Cipollone spent over 8 hours talking with the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th Capitol riot, and Donald Trump’s reaction to the extraordinary development is being reported as being “terrified.”
Cipollone, who reportedly warned former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson that administration officials would be charged with multiple crimes over their role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results and inciting the Jan 6 Capitol attack, was expected to claim executive privilege.
However, as noted by Mary Trump, the former president’s niece, the amount of time he spent has raised eyebrows among observers who believe that he may have been more forthcoming than expected, leaving Trump increasingly nervous.
“To say that Donald is terrified is accurate, it is also an understatement,” Mary Trump told MSNBC host Katie Phang. “I think this might be the first time in his entire life that even he can’t deny the walls that are closing in. The amount of evidence that we see coming out of these committee hearings is overwhelming.”
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“Even more troubling for him is the witnesses coming forward,” she explained. “They are increasingly important in terms of access and their position in his administration. It is not at all surprising that he would pull his punches when it comes to Pat Cipollone.”
In a separate interview on MSNBC, legal analyst Daniel Goldman told host Ali Velshi that Cipollone’s testimony will likely provoke a rush of members of Donald Trump’s inner circle to talk to investigators out of fear they might have been implicated in the Jan 6th insurrection.
“This is what happens often in criminal investigations,” Goldman said. “I am very interested to see whether and to what extent any of these witnesses go marching into the Department of Justice to cooperate with them. Because what everybody is realizing now is that there was a crime spree as Cipollone indicated to Cassidy Hutchinson. The question now, who is going to have a target on his or her back as a part of the criminal investigation? You don’t want to be the last one standing. You want to be the first one to cooperate and gave your information and get on the right side of the investigation.”
“That is why Cipollone came in,” he suggested. “I expect that others have realized, ‘oh boy, we better get in’.”
