Donald Trump is “terrified” that his former White House counsel is cooperating with the House select committee investigating last year’s insurrection, his niece Mary Trump said in an interview Saturday.
“To say that Donald is terrified is accurate — and also an understatement,” Mary Trump told Katie Phang on MSNBC. “I think this might be the first time in his entire life that even he can’t deny that the walls may indeed be closing in.” (Watch the interview below.)
The “amount of evidence that we’ve seen coming out of these committee hearings is overwhelming,” she added. But what’s “even more troubling for him is the witnesses now coming forward are increasingly important … and they’re unimpeachable,” Trump said.
Attorney Pat Cipollone spent nearly eight hours on Friday being interviewed under oath by members of the Jan. 6 committee. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said on CNN Friday that Cipollone didn’t “contradict” any other witnesses who have testified before the committee. She called the Cipollone interview “well worth it,” and said “new information” was revealed that the committee plans to soon share.
Cipollone figured most dramatically in testimony last week by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. She characterized Cipollone as nearly frantic in his efforts to block Trump from joining his supporters at the Capitol, warning that if he did, “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” Hutchinson quoted the attorney as saying.
Hutchinson said she also heard Cipollone telling Meadows that the mob was “literally calling” for then-Vice President Mike Pence to “be f-ing hung.”
When Meadows replied that Trump believes “Mike deserves it,” Hutchinson testified, Cipollone replied: “This is f-ing crazy.”
Mary Trump believes “the motivating factor” behind any decision by her uncle to run for the presidency in 2024 would be an attempt to dodge prosecution for a lengthening list of potential criminal charges against him.
In the past “Donald has used two methods” to escape accountability, she said. “He’s run out the clock, or he’s outspent his opponents. That shouldn’t be allowed here. On top of those two things to use as an excuse that he’s running for office again? I think that [would] answer the question: ‘Is anybody above the law?’”
Not to indict or prosecute her uncle “would be an insult to the rule of law,” she added.
