Pat Cipollone - the strongest 'warrior' protecting President Trump

The mysterious figure of the White House

When Pat Cipollone stepped onto the blue carpet of the Senate chamber during the opening session of the President’s impeachment trial, it was a “step from darkness to light” moment in his 30-year legal career. Indeed, before he was appointed to lead the defense team for President Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial, very few people knew the name Pat Cipollone, even though he joined Trump’s legal team during the 2016 presidential campaign and then joined the White House in 2018.

The press also “whispered” to each other that some reporters even mispronounced Pat Cipollone’s name during interviews with Donald Trump’s associates at the White House! Therefore, the fact that Pat Cipollone was chosen by the President to be the head of the Senate defense team was a surprise to the public.

Pat Cipollone was once the “mysterious figure” of the White House. Photo: The Atlantic

Those who have worked with Pat Cipollone all commented that he is the type of person who loves privacy and rarely shows himself, and that has unintentionally created a mysterious aura for the character who is becoming the focus of attention in the American media these days.

People are excitedly searching for information about his background and career to understand why he was chosen by President Donald Trump, and it was clearly not a random decision. Born in 1966 to an Italian immigrant family, Pat Cipollone studied economics at Fordham University, then studied law at the University of Chicago. After graduating, Pat Cipollone worked as a clerk for a federal judge, before moving to the Department of Justice as an assistant to Mr. William Barr - who is currently the Attorney General under former President George Bush. When George Bush left office, Pat Cipollone moved to work for Kirkland & Ellis - a prestigious law firm in the US with headquarters in Chicago.

Cipollone entered the “Trump circle” during the 2016 campaign after being introduced by Fox News host Laura Ingraham and immediately became Donald Trump’s “hidden assistant” in live debates, actively supporting the President during former special counsel Robert Mueller’s previous investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. With the positions he has held, few can doubt Pat Cipollone’s professional ability when becoming the head of President Trump’s defense team.

But people familiar with the White House story say that Cipollone has something more than legal acumen: loyalty, which President Donald Trump has always valued. After joining the White House, Pat Cipollone developed a very good personal relationship with the President, and by some “mysterious power,” he also received unusual trust from those closest to the President, such as son-in-law Jared Kushner, lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other family members.

Donald Trump appreciates Pat Cipollone's loyalty. Photo: The Journal

The power of the "warrior"

While President Donald Trump’s legal team regularly appears on Fox News or host Jay Sekulow’s daily radio show with many arguments defending the President, Pat Cipollone remains “missing”. That makes many people curious about the “fighting power” of the “warrior” who holds the most important position in the circle defending President Trump at the impeachment trial in the Senate.

But staying out of the media doesn’t mean Pat Cipollone is “sitting still.” Instead, he is said to have built a clear strategy to protect the President and personally carried out the plans in that strategy. When he joined the White House Counsel’s Office shortly after the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in late 2018, Pat Cipollone anticipated the Democratic investigation into the President and was ready. He immediately nearly doubled the number of lawyers working in the office, sought advice from predecessors from both parties, and met with the two figures leading the impeachment investigations, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler. Pat Cipollone assigned a team of White House lawyers to accompany witnesses to Congress to prevent witnesses from revealing information that would damage the President.

Pat Cipollone is believed to be the author behind Donald Trump's explosive letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Photo: The Hill

Pat Cipollone is the one who established a hard line in defending President Donald Trump, which is to firmly refuse to cooperate with the Democratic investigators. Pat Cipollone is believed to be the real author behind the 6-page "blockbuster" letter that President Donald Trump sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before the vote in the House of Representatives last month. Previously, in early October 2019, Pat Cipollone also sent a harshly worded letter to the Democratic Party. In it, he criticized the impeachment proceedings conducted by the Democrats as unconstitutional and illegal, and declared that the entire executive branch would not cooperate in the impeachment investigation. Cipollone asserted that it was a way to protect the President's power, against the increasing partisan pressure in American politics. Throughout the impeachment investigation, he showed no signs of compromise.

So far, Pat Cipollone’s tough approach has been effective as the Democrats have not been able to find a loophole to launch a “decisive attack” on President Donald Trump. Moreover, Pat Cipollone knows very well that they are holding the advantage thanks to the Republican majority in the Senate. But although the possibility of the President being impeached is very low, Pat Cipollone’s important task is to maintain a clean image for the President before the important election later this year. That is why people see Pat Cipollone repeatedly declaring that the Democrats’ accusations are baseless, there is nothing that can be brought against Donald Trump, and that “the President has done absolutely nothing wrong!”.