By far the most troubling moment I experienced in watching the impeachment drama unfold came toward the end, when the final leaked excerpt from John Bolton’s book revealed that lead White House counsel Pat Cipollone was in the May 2019 Oval Office meeting when Bolton witnessed Trump, VP Pence, and Secretary Perry discussing the “drug deal” to coerce Ukraine into announcing a corruption investigation into the Bidens.
A “fact witness” is any individual with first-hand knowledge about what happened in a jury case under consideration. Bolton’s book alleges Pat Cipollone was a fact witness to the whole Ukraine extortion plot. You can lose your license to practice law if you’re an attorney in a case in which you are also a witness. In this particular case, Cipollone is more than a witness but an accomplice, which is even worse.
The really grievous part is that Cipollone spoke several times after the Bolton information came out. Who could help but think: this guy is now perjuring himself in front of the Chief Justice and the Senate in a trial – has he no shame? Is this suicidal act of bravado supposed to prove that Bolton’s account is wrong?
You’d think the President would have immediately removed Cipollone from his team, or at the very least ordered him not to appear on the Senate floor anymore. Cipollone’s very appearance is yet another “contempt of Congress” incident, but in this case, not in the legal sense of contempt but in the “act of malice and hatred toward Congress” and everything Congress stands for.
Professional Engineers have a rule where we are not permitted to allow ourselves to remain in a compromising situation which causes the public to have a bad opinion of engineers. Granted, lawyers are often in an adversarial role before the public, but there are ethical rules that set reasonable limits like there are for PEs. Pat Cipollone’s mere presence, whether Bolton’s book was right or wrong, was an offense to everything the Constitution stands for. People in such a position of authority, in such a troubling debate, in front of so many people – should reasonably defer to the safe side, even if disappearing might infer some level of guilt.
Trump’s instructions to counsel, at this point, were probably to order Cipollone to remain in front of his team, in as public a capacity as possible. Trump wanted to twist the screws into the hearts of everybody in attendance – both in person and in TV land – to make them (us) feel the pain and agony of this ethical crucifixion of his lead counsel. Trump wanted us to visualize Cipollone’s “head on a pike.” Trump wanted everybody in the Senate to know with total conviction that if you cross the President, you’ll pay for it – in aces.
Hence, it was more than psychological and legal contempt for Congress but the felonious intimidation of witnesses in a jury trial.