Jared Kushner testified he thought White House counsel's threat to resign was just 'whining'

Jared Kushner, White House Senior Advisor, talks on his cellphone as he arrives for trade talks at the office of the US Trade Representative in Washington, DC, August 29, 2018. SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

• Video of former White House advisor Jared Kushner's testimony was shown at Thursday's hearing.
• Kushner told the House committee he thought the White House counsel's threat to resign was "whining."
• The Trump son-in-law explained that threats to resign were a relatively common occurrence.

Jared Kushner told the House committee investigating the Capitol riot that he didn't think White House counsel Pat Cipollone was serious when he threatened to resign over the January 6, 2021, violent insurrection.

"I know that him and the team were always saying, 'We're gonna resign, we're not gonna be here' if this happens, that happens," Kushner, a top Trump White House aide and the former president's son-in-law, testified during an on-camera deposition before the House panel. "I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you."

Kushner's remarks were one of several new videos shown at Thursday night's hearing on January 6, 2021. 

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Cipollone described Trump's last-ditch efforts to overturn the election as a "murder-suicide pact," according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report on how the former president pressured officials following his loss in 2020.

Trump's plan to oust then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with a loyalist who would pursue his disproven election fraud claims, Jeffrey Clark, is what pushed Cipollone to the brink, according to the Senate report and House committee testimony.

Cipollone ultimately did not resign. He served through the end of the Trump administration after a two-plus year stint that included a prominent role defending the Republican president during his first Senate impeachment trial in early 2020.

The Justice Department investigated Trump's voter fraud allegations and found no evidence to support his claims. Still, the former president wanted Clark to assume the role as attorney general and send a letter to five battleground states declaring DOJ had found election irregularities in their vote counts and that they should consider appointing a new slate of electors certifying him as the winner of the 2020 White House race.

House January 6 investigators displayed the draft letter at Thursday night's committee hearing. 

Richard Donoghue, the acting attorney general at the time, also testified to the committee that Trump's request amounted to "nothing less than the Department of Justice meddling in the outcome of a presidential election."