White House counsel Pat Cipollone is a Trumpie through and through. In fact, he signed on with the president way before the election., prepping him for debates and advising the campaign. He is also good friends with Bill Barr and is a right-wing Catholic activist.
And he is a very, very willing Trump henchman:
The counsel’s office had hoped Trump would move on after the Senate trial and the president would focus on reelection, the economy or the business of governing, now that he no longer faced the intense pressure of impeachment and the sense that Democrats were out to hurt him and his family.
But Trump had his own ideas. In the days since that acquittal he has engaged in a full-bore revenge victory lap. Now the lawyers, who helped to secure that big victory, are watching the emboldened president push the boundaries of their profession in ways that could reshape the office of the presidency for decades to come.
Trump has fired or pushed out White House staffers who testified against him in the House proceedings, while elevating or re-hiring key aides who he views as loyal. He reminded the attorney general over Twitter that he believes he has the right to interfere in judicial matters — an awkward situation for Cipollone, who remains close to Bill Barr. Trump said in a radio interview he may stop the longstanding practice of having aides listen in on phone calls with foreign leaders since he distrusts so much of his national security staff.
Trump’s expansive view of executive power, long supported by conservatives like Cipollone, is now being put to the test. Trump survived both the Mueller probe and impeachment. He has received almost no pushback from Republican lawmakers. And the White House’s stonewalling of congressional investigations has proven to be politically effective.
“It is beyond anything the presidency has achieved yet and beyond anything Nixon could have imagined,” said Michael Gerhardt, a professor of jurisprudence at the University of North Carolina School of Law whose work centers on constitutional conflicts between presidents and Congress. “There is literally no way to hold the president accountable in Pat Cipollone’s worldview.”
This is not theoretical anymore for these people. They are engaged in helping this authoritarian imbecile enact his revenge:
In meetings with senior staff in recent weeks, Trump has asked repeatedly for updates on the Durham investigation into pre-election federal probes of Trump and has expressed frustration it’s not moving along at a faster clip. He wants anyone associated with the origins of the Mueller investigation to be brought to justice.
“Brought to justice?” What the hell, Politico? Are they criminals now? Sheesh …
This presidential meddling is no longer even considered unusual, apparently. And there is no evidence that Pat Cipollone has even the slightest problem with this.
He is MAGA:
Cipollone supported the Trump candidacy early on during the 2016 election. But he first came to the attention of Trumpworld late in the cycle when he helped the candidate prepare for debates. The Trump transition also considered him for the job of deputy attorney general under Jeff Sessions, a position that never materialized because Sessions instead wanted to install career prosecutor Rod Rosenstein.
In the fall of 2018, Cipollone left a lucrative partnership in private practice to take the job of White House counsel because he liked Trump’s policy positions and felt he wanted to serve the country that had welcomed his Italian immigrant parents. “The latter may sound hokey but it’s how he feels,” said Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host and close friend of Cipollone’s.
These people obviously just make fatuous comments like this to make people like me feel as if we are losing our minds. They cannot be this lacking in self-awareness. It’s impossible.
Anyway, he’s a very, very good Trumpie:
Inside the White House, Cipollone quickly established himself as the opposite of Trump’s first White House counsel, Don McGahn — standing out as an affable presence who enjoyed spending time in the Oval Office and who tried to help implement the president’s wishes as much as he could.
Whereas McGahn focused intently on judicial nominations and deregulation during his time leading the counsel’s office, Cipollone did not enter the job with set policy preferences. Instead, he followed the president’s lead. Cipollone helped develop the rationale for an emergency declaration that allowed the president to shift money around to fund the border wall. He worked with the president to prepare tariffs on Mexico until the U.S. and Mexico cut a deal to avoid them, and he led the counsel’s office through multiple investigations and eventually the all-consuming Senate impeachment trial.
Trump especially liked Cipollone’s TV performance during the trial very much, especially when he got mad at Jerry Nadler.
People say he’s supposedly guided by his faith to make career decisions (!) so he might stay on with the president when he wins a second term. Seriously.
After all, he has proven that he can get the most important job in the government done:
Cipollone’s legacy may be staying in the president’s good graces for an extended period of time. Maintaining a good and consistent relationship with the president inside the White House has bedeviled other top staffers — including former chief of staff John Kelly, former national security adviser John Bolton and Cipollone’s predecessor, McGahn, who liked to call Trump “King Kong” behind his back.
It’s easy if you just give yourself up to Dear Leader, lick his boots and have absolutely no integrity. It looks like Pat Cipollone has it all.