Watching tbe Cassidy Hutchinson testimony the other day I kept asking, “This is all pretty juicy, but what exactly about it did the committee see that made it ‘urgent’?”
Today’s subpoena for Trump’s top lawyer, Pat Cipollone, confirms what sharper legal minds than me understood. Namely that young miss Hutchinson was placing first-person eyewitness fingerprints on office elders who both knew what in hell was going down but were either unable or uninterested in doing anything about it. And that sliding her into the careful sequencing of testimonies was a vital strategic play.
More to the point, with D.C. basically taking a nap for another couple weeks, now was a good time to peel the scab off people like Cipollone and ex-restaurateur/voting fraudster/Trump wingman, Mark Meadows, and give them a few days to decide how far down the sewer of history they really want to get flushed for Donald Trump. The consensus suspicion being that while Meadows — the guy on his couch doom scrolling on his cellphone as the armed mob attacked the capitol — is so deep in the drain he’s beyond rescue, Cipollone, a guy with a real career and reputation might … might … finally see the wisdom in getting on the ethical side of The Big Lie.
As I read this morning, the betting line is that while Cipollone might … might … consent to a written deposition, it is unlikely he will step up to a John Dean moment and place his face on national TV for all of the world and MAGA Nation to see. Cipollone — introduced to Trump by FoxNews’ Laura Ingraham — has to be seeking advice on how to A: Maintain good standing with his ultra-Catholic/Federalist Society social and professional bases, while, B: Not getting rendered a historical stooge and sap for going down with the Trump ship of fools.
It may be a fascination unique to me, but much like John Roberts getting stampeded by a rampaging Supreme Court bearing his name, Cipollone is another old school, educated, well-mannered Republican watching his legacy getting tucked inside a flaming bag of manure and dumped on the streets of DC. Put another way, after enabling all sorts of fire-breathing, borderline unethical behavior in the name of “conservative values”, guys like Roberts and Cipollone are getting third-degree burns from vandals with neither manners or morals.
Cipollone is certainly also aware of what the House Committee has in its possession and is preparing to play next. And that would be, as ex-Republican Cong. Denver Riggleman and committee investigator told Nicole Wallace yesterday, a trove of text and e-mail messages from Meadows to … well, very likely to and from characters closely aligned with if not including the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers and other members of a carefully oreganized, armed riot.
As White House counsel who had constant interaction with sewer rats like Meadows, Cipollone has to be thinking how he can create safe distance from that kind of reckless, indictable idiocy.