Tag: Pat Cipollone

rump’s expansive view of executive power gets a post-impeachment surge

After defeating impeachment, Trump is displaying the full extent of his legal authority — creating a challenge for White House counsel Pat Cipollone.

Pat Cipollone took only a short post-impeachment break.

The White House’s top attorney and other members of President Donald Trump’s legal team attended a private party at the Trump International Hotel to celebrate, just hours after the Senate voted largely along party lines to acquit the president.

Then Cipollone and his team of roughly 40 lawyers returned to their routine business — much of which had been put on pause as the top lawyers defended the president from an effort to oust him from office. Continue reading.

White House infighting flares amid impeachment inquiry

Washington Post logoA dispute erupts between the Mulvaney and Cipollone camps over how to counter House Democrats’ impeachment push

The White House’s bifurcated and disjointed response to Democrats’ impeachment inquiry has been fueled by a fierce West Wing battle between two of President Trump’s top advisers, and the outcome of the messy skirmish could be on full display this week, according to White House and congressional officials.

Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has urged aides not to comply with the inquiry and blocked any cooperation with congressional Democrats. Top political aides at the Office of Management and Budget, which Mulvaney once led, have fallen in line with his defiant stance, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk freely about the behind-the-scenes developments.

Mulvaney’s office blames White House counsel Pat Cipollone for not doing more to stop other government officials from participating in the impeachment inquiry, as a number of State Department officials, diplomats and an aide to Vice President Pence have given sworn testimony to Congress.

View the complete November 11 article by Erica Werner, Josh Dawsey, Carol D. Leonnig and Rachel Bade on The Washington Post website here.

Prominent legal scholar rips Trump anti-impeachment letter to House Democrats: ‘The White House counsel was sick the day they taught law at law school’

AlterNet logoWhite House Counsel Pat Cipollone last week sent an angry letter to four prominent House Democrats — including Speaker Nancy Pelosi — attacking their impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. Legal experts have been tearing that letter apart, including conservative attorney George Conway— who denounced Cipollone’s arguments as “garbage” during an appearance on former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara’s podcast. And prominent legal scholar Ilya Somin has been highly critical of the letter as well, posting on Facebook that his “initial reaction” was “to wonder whether the White House counsel was sick the day they taught law at law school.”

Somin added, “Yes, it’s that bad. If one of my students made those arguments in a paper, I don’t think I could give that person a passing grade.”

Somin is by no means a Democratic Party operative. A law professor at George Mason University, Somin is a right-wing libertarian who has been active in the Cato Institute (a libertarian think tank) and holds many conservative views.

View the complete October 15 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.