Trump impeachment lawyer worked for Conn. Knights of Columbus
WASHINGTON — Before he defended the president, White Counsel Pat Cipollone spent years fighting for Christian expression in Connecticut.
Cipollone was one of the top lawyers representing the Trumbull Knights of Columbus in a 1995 case against the town of Trumbull that was appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
From 1996 to 2001, Cipollone did legal work for the New Haven-based Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization and insurance company. He lived in Cheshire.
Since 2001, Cipollone’s legal work has reshaped its focus from religion to business to politics. Now, he is the lead lawyer defending Donald J. Trump, the fourth U.S. president to be impeached. He has spent hours in the U.S. Senate chamber arguing and strategizing in favor of Trump’s acquittal.
“He’s well-known and respected in legal circles,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “We probably see eye-to-eye on 1/100 of our politics.”
A devoted Catholic, Cipollone, 53, is a founding member of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and reportedly participates in the anti-abortion March for Life . the Trumbull case to be remanded to the lower courts, which then supported the Knights’ right to place a creche on the green.
After the Trumbull case concluded, Cipollone took a job with the Knights of Columbus in New Haven as assistant supreme advocate in 1996. In 1998, he was added to the Knights of Columbus Board of Directors (Cipollone no longer holds this position). In 1999, he was made supreme advocate and general counsel of the Knights of Columbus. He left their employ in 2001.
With his wife Rebecca, Cipollone lived in Cheshire from 1997 to 2002, town land records show. The Cipollones have 10 children.
Cipollone then left Connecticut to rejoin Kirkland and Ellis and then take a position with corporate litigators Stein, Mitchell, Beato and Missner in Washington, D.C. Cipollone has been known in D.C. legal circles for years, before he joined the Trump administration.
Blumenthal spoke with Cipollone briefly before the start of the Senate trial on the first day of the Senate impeachment trial on Jan. 21.
“He’s not a social friend, but I’ve run into him professionally,” said Blumenthal.
Blumenthal and Cipollone did not know each other when Cipollone worked and lived in Connecticut, Blumenthal said.
Cipollone advised Trump in an outside role during presidential debates in 2016 and then during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Trump hired him as White House Counsel in December 2018.
Now, Cipollone is heading up of Trump’s legal team that has spent the past two weeks arguing for the president’s acquittal in the Senate. He made headlines last week when House Democrats informed Cipollone they believed he was a “material witness” to the president’s actions toward Ukraine and he should disclose what events he has first-hand knowledge of to reveal any conflicts of interest in his arguments. The White House shrugged off this challenge and Cipollone has continued his work on the case without such disclosures.