By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel during the Trump administration, appeared at federal court on Friday to testify before a grand jury probing events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Cipollone and his attorney were greeted in the hallway by Thomas Windom, the lead prosecutor investigating the fake electors plot. They proceeded to the third floor, where the grand jury meets.
Former White House Deputy Counsel Pat Philbin also was expected at the federal courthouse in Washington; he and Cipollone were subpoenaed earlier this year.
The two men are the two most high-profile witnesses to date to appear before the grand jury. Others who have appeared to testify include former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, and Greg Jacob, who was Pence’s top counsel.
The grand jury, which convenes each Friday in the federal courthouse in Washington, is known to be specifically probing a failed plot by Trump’s allies to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election by submitting batches of phony slates of electors to the U.S. National Archives, according to copies of subpoenas seen by Reuters.
Electors are people chosen to formally cast a state’s electoral votes in the U.S. Electoral College system used in presidential elections. (This story has been refiled to fix a typo in Cipollone’s name in the 3rd paragraph)
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; writing by Doina Chiacu; editing by Susan Heavey and Jonathan Oatis)
