Left: Donald Trump (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File) Right: Voting machine in Marietta, Georgia. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
When former President Donald Trump’s top legal advisors think your big idea is totally ludicrous, it might be time to pause and reflect. That’s what White House Counsel Pat Cipollone thought about a plan to seize voting machines pitched to Trump during a wild meeting on Dec. 18, 2020, which included crackpot lawyer Sidney Powell, pro-MAGA activist and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. “That’s a terrible idea for the country. That’s not how we do things in the United States. There’s no legal authority to do that. There is a way to contest elections, you know, that happens all the time,” Cipollone said in a striking piece of taped testimony played during Tuesday’s Jan. 6 Congressional hearing.
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During the meeting, Powell sought to have herself appointed as special counsel, with the power to investigate alleged voter fraud, bring criminal charges, and seize voting machines, according to sworn testimony and a written copy of a never-issued draft presidential order. The debate over these ideas played out in a screaming White House meeting that stretched late into the night. But Cipollone, whose testimony has been hotly anticipated, didn’t mince words about his opinion. He seemed almost surprised to even be asked why he thought seizing voting machines would be a bad idea. “But the idea that the federal government could come in and seize election machines? No. That, that’s, I don’t, I don’t understand why we even have to tell you why that’s a bad idea for the country. It’s a terrible idea.” Powell, for her part, seemed to think that Trump had actually agreed to appoint her special counsel during the chaos of the meeting, Cipollone testified, although he said she also seemed to think the appointment had not technically gone through and that it should be finalized. In recorded testimony to the committee presented on Tuesday, Powell said that if she had been in charge, she would have ordered the president’s straight-laced lawyers, including Cipollone, out of the building. “I would have fired all of them that night and had them escorted out of the building,” she said, referring to Cipollone and others who opposed seizing voting machines. Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.