Trump taps 'strong, silent type' to lead impeachment defense

Pat Cipollone doesn’t seem like Donald Trump’s kind of fixer.

His manner is unassuming. He hasn’t spent much time playing a lawyer in court or on TV.

But president has turned to Cipollone, his White House counsel, when it matters most — to le his defense in his impeachment trial.

Cipollone, 53, spent most of his career in commercial litigation and doesn’t have extensive experience with trials. son of Italian immigrants, devout Catholic and far of 10 is more likely to be caught on edge of a camera’s frame than behind mic.

“He's strong, silent ,” Trump said of Cipollone at a recent White House event marking 150th judicial appointment of his presidency. White House declined to make Cipollone as well as or ministration officials available to comment for this story.

In correspondence with House Democrats during impeachment saga, Cipollone has shown a knack for channeling president’s provocative rhetoric.

Cipollone (prounced SIP-uh-loan-ee) has forcefully defended Trump’s right to executive privilege and argued that congressional investigators have right to question White House visers about conversations with president on withholding military aid from Ukraine. Democrats say Trump withheld aid to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

One former GOP congressional attorney was so taken aback by over--top tone of an eight-p letter that Cipollone sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in October that he described approach as “bananas.” In letter, Cipollone flatly refused to allow White House cooperation with House impeachment probe.

Or critics say letter deepened Democrats' case that Trump h committed an abuse of power and obstructed justice in his pursuit of dirt on Biden.

“Pat’s approach has essentially led to Article 2 (obstruction of justice) of articles of impeachment,” said Neil Eggleston, who served as White House counsel during Obama ministration and briefly worked with Cipollone at a law firm. “I suspect his style is driven by his client.”

But Cipollone’s backers counter that he’s proven a capable defender of Trump’s view on executive power.

“Pat Cipollone will be defending executive power from time to time during Senate proceedings, which will be swimming upstream from certain segments of media,” said Leonard Leo, a conservative attorney who has consulted with Trump ministration on judicial minations and was among those who recommended Cipollone for White House counsel post.

“He has cour and determination to make those points and t be cowed by whatever criticism re might be," Leo said. "Those are kind of attributes that brought him to job. Those are things that mattered to me when asked what I thought of him.”

Yet, tapping unassuming Cipollone is in some ways a departure for Trump, who over years has turned to a series of flashy lawyers to help him get out of legal jams.

Roy Cohn, of McCarthy-era infamy, fought Justice Department on fair housing discrimination charges lodged against Trump Organization in 1970s. Michael Cohen, w serving a federal prison sentence for financial crimes committed while working on behalf of Trump, was an explosive defender of Trump and bought silence of women who claimed that y once h affairs with president.

And Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor w serving as Trump’s outside legal counsel, sought damaging material on Biden from Ukrainian officials and expatriates. Democrats pointed to Giuliani’s efforts as y me ir case to impeach Trump.

Cipollone has been involved in plenty of high-profile cases in private practice, building a career around complex litigation. He was among lawyers who sued credit reporting company Equifax in 2017 on behalf of consumers affected by a massive data breach. In 2015, he brought a lawsuit against drug store chain CVS for overcharging insurers for generic pharmaceuticals.

Also while in private practice, he oversaw a team of lawyers defending “Jackie,” a University of Virginia student featured in a 2014 Rolling Stone article that was later retracted. Jackie h claimed she was victim of a gang rape at a fraternity house.

Early in his career, Cipollone worked with Attorney General William Barr during George H.W. Bush ministration. Barr was appointed by Trump last year to again serve as attorney general, soon after Cipollone was tapped to be White House counsel.

Trump has also chosen Jay Sekulow, a Trump personal attorney, to have a major role on his defense team. Sekulow has argued before Supreme Court at least a dozen times and represented president during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in 2016 election.

Trump hasn’t ruled out ding to team Harvard University constitutional law scholar Alan Dershowitz, who has regularly vised Trump during his presidency.

Cipollone's friends and colleagues say he has alrey proven himself a legally sharp and politically astute counsel to president throughout impeachment probe.

“He has legal skills, but he also understands political ramifications of proceedings and decisions that are me on floor,” Sekulow said. “He gets it.”

Dershowitz said Cipollone "brings great judgment and lawyerly skills to defense of President Trump. He’s very calibrated, very low-keyed and has excellent judgment. It’s exactly what’s needed.”

Trump critics have labeled Cipollone a Trump sycophant whose vocacy for an expansive view of executive authority is at odds with Constitution. He faced an avalanche of criticism after October letter to Pelosi, in which he argued that impeachment inquiry “lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation.”

Twenty-one of Cipollone's classmates from his 1991 gruating class at University of Chicago responded with an open letter accusing him of flouting “tritions of intellectual honesty or rigor” taught at ir alma mater.

Gregg Nunziata, a former attorney for Republicans on Senate Judiciary Committee, described letter as “bananas” and a “barely-lawyered temper tantrum.” George Conway, a lawyer married to Trump viser Kellyanne Conway, called it “hackery” that “disgraces profession.”

Cipollone entered president’s orbit through Leo, conservative legal vocate, and Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham. She has described Cipollone as her spiritual godfar as she converted to Catholicism.

Leo and Cipollone have worked toger at influential Washington-based Catholic organizations, including as founders of National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and on board of Catholic Information Center. latter group calls itself an “intellectual hub” of Catholic thinkers and is affiliated with ultraconservative order Opus Dei.

In her book “Power to People,” Ingraham recalled Cipollone giving her a pep talk and encouraging her to lean on her faith as she battled breast cancer.

“I understood why he h reputation as one of top litigators in Washington legal circles--he could give one heck of a closing argument,” Ingraham wrote.

Melanie Sloan, an attorney with liberal group American Oversight who attended law school with Cipollone, said y agree on little politically. But Sloan called him a person of integrity and generosity.

Sloan reconnected with Cipollone a few years ago, when she called him to ask for assistance on a legal matter and he was er to help. She called to congratulate Cipollone t long after Trump picked him to serve as his White House counsel. Sloan said she told Cipollone that she was surprised that he would want to take a job with Trump, someone she saw as out-of-step with Cipollone’s character.

“He told me that he saw president differently than I did,” Sloan recalled.

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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.