Pat Cipollone defended Trump through impeachment. By Jan. 6, everything changed.

[marmar]

July 8, 2022, 5:48 AM EDT
By Hayes Brown, MSNBC Opinion Columnist


In early 2020, Pat Cipollone, former President Donald Trump’s second White House counsel, stepped into the spotlight as a lead member of Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment trial. “Put simply, you seek to overturn the results of the 2016 election and deprive the American people of the President they have freely chosen,” Cipollone had written to House Democratic leaders in October 2019. “Your highly partisan and unconstitutional effort threatens grave and lasting damage to our democratic institutions, to our system of free elections, and to the American people.”

Before 2020 was out, Cipollone was on the outs with the president who’d once called him “Mr. Attorney.” By the time a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, he was reportedly in open revolt against the president in his bid to defend the presidency. When Trump wanted to go to the Capitol with his supporters after his incendiary speech that day, Cipollone argued against it. “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” Cipollone said, according to the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former senior White House aide-turned-star Jan. 6 committee witness. Hutchinson also testified that Cipollone thought it was “effing crazy” that Trump wasn’t calling off the mob as it ransacked the Capitol.

Cipollone’s journey has led him to testify behind closed doors to the House Jan. 6 committee on Friday. Instead of taking the meandering route, one that saw him spend months refusing to cooperate with the committee, he should have walked that path much faster.

....(snip)....

Who knows, maybe Cipollone really believed what he was saying in 2020. Despite the clear evidence that Trump had pressured Ukraine’s government for corrupt purposes, maybe he actually thought he was trying to avert a congressional coup d’état. Maybe he saw the impeachment as an unwarranted attempt to override the will of the American voters.

I’m only willing to entertain that possibility because of the way Cipollone reportedly blocked some of the most extreme tactics that Trump’s most delusional advisers were pushing after the 2020 election. When Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark wanted to send a letter giving credence to Trump’s conspiracies to the states, Cipollone reportedly described it as “a murder-suicide pact” that would “damage everyone who touches it.” .............(more)

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/pat-cipollone-witnessed-trump-s-worst-jan-6-moments-n1296882

[agingdem]

1. Cipollone..another so-called "hero" in defense of the realm.

looking to salvage his reputation...

I can hear the narrative now.."If not for brave men like Cipollone, Pence, and Barr, January 6 could have ended in catastrophe"...except in a way it did...