Haberman: "Those Briefed Said"

Maggie Haberman. Born October 30, 1973 in New York City, the daughter of.. a longtime journalist for The New York Times, and ..., a media communications executive. Wikipedia:"In October 2016, one month before Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential election, a document was released by WikiLeaks that outlined how Clinton's campaign could induce Haberman to place sympathetic stories in Politico"

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Sat. Dec. 19---   Tweet thread by Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent for The New York Times. regarding an article in today's edition that she co-authored. The subject is alleged meeting in the Oval Office the night before. 

The meeting supposedly was attended by POTUS, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Trump's Personal Attorney Rudy Giuliani,  Sidney Powell, and (possibly) Mike Flynn. 

"The meeting got raucous, with various administration members drifting in and out and different people arguing. Powell told others they were quitters, people people briefed on the meeting"

The current White House Counsel is Pat Cipollone (born 1966) who assumed the role on December 10, 2018.

The White House Counsel is a senior staff appointee of the President of the United States and Vice President of the United States whose role is to advise the President on all legal issues concerning the President and their administration.

Although the White House Counsel offers legal advice to the president and vice president, the counsel does so in the president's and vice president's official capacity, and does not serve as the president's personal attorney.

Cipollone was named White House Counsel by President Donald Trump in October 2018. He succeeded Don McGahn who left office on October 17, 2018. Emmet Flood served as counsel until Cipollone's background security check was completed. 

"Sidney Powell was in Oval Office last night as POTUS discussed making her special counsel for election fraud.

Among those pushing back on the idea was Pat Cipollone, [White House Chief of Staff Mark] Meadows and even [Rudy] Giuliani.

"Giuliani separately pushed DHS this week to seize control of voting machines to examine them for possible fraud."

"DHS said it has no authority to do that."

The current DHS Secretary is Chad Wolf, appointed Nov. 13, 2019 by Donald Trump.

"The fact of the meeting - and Giuliani hope of seizing the voting machines - has alarmed some of the president's advisers, who see his desire to take his refusal to accept the election results as in a dangerous new place."

"Meadows and Cipollone strenuously and repeatedly objected to these suggestions, saying there was no constitutional basis, according to the people briefed"

"...[T]wo people briefed said [General Mike[ Flynn was there ..."

"...[T]he president asked about Flynn’s suggestion of deploying the military, those briefed said.

"...That was also shot down."

cf. February 16, 2017 -- "Trump: Leaks are Real, News is Fake"  (CNBC)