Soon after his speech on the Ellipse ended on Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump stepped into the back of a black Suburban bearing the presidential seal.
What happened next has become a matter of intense debate after explosive testimony on Tuesday by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who said Trump became enraged when his security detail refused to take him to the Capitol.
Speaking before the House committee investigating the attack, Hutchinson said she had been told by Anthony M. Ornato, a deputy White House chief of staff, that Trump tried to grab the wheel of his vehicle when he was told he could not go to the Capitol to join his supporters. Hutchinson also said Ornato told her the president “lunged” at his lead Secret Service agent, Robert Engel.
Hutchinson made clear in her public testimony that she did not have direct knowledge of the incident, but that Ornato recounted it to her with Engel present in the room. It remains unclear what, if anything, the committee did to corroborate it.
Secret Service officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, disputed her account.
But the officials did say Engel, Ornato and the driver of the Suburban are prepared to confirm to the committee another damning finding from Hutchinson’s testimony: that Trump demanded his agents bring him to the Capitol so he could join his supporters, even after they emphasized the dangerous scene playing out there.
The willingness of the agents to provide potentially critical details about the person they were protecting marks a rare turn for an agency that has historically prioritized the secrecy of presidents, even in the face of investigations.
On Wednesday, Jody Hunt, an attorney for Hutchinson, said his client “stands by all of the testimony she provided yesterday, under oath” and he challenged others who know of Trump’s actions during the ride to come forward to the committee.
“Those with knowledge of the episode also should testify under oath,” he said.
In an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, committee member Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., said Ornato “did not have as clear of memories from this period of time as I would say Ms. Hutchinson did.”
Asked if the panel had evidence to corroborate Hutchinson’s claims, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the committee, said on Tuesday that Hutchinson’s testimony was itself “the evidence” he was aware of. “I’m not aware of anything that contradicts the account that she just gave,” he said.
Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, said the committee did not contact the agency about Hutchinson’s account of Trump’s ride from the Ellipse to the White House before her testimony.
Ornato, who was the head of Trump’s Secret Service detail before being made deputy chief of staff, and Engel provided testimony to the committee before Hutchinson appeared, but they are willing to do so again, a Secret Service official said.
Trump’s allies are using the dispute over what happened in the presidential vehicle to call into question the credibility of Hutchinson’s testimony as a whole, which painted a portrait of a president who disregarded threats of violence from his own supporters, sympathized with those who wanted to “hang” the vice president and wanted to join the crowd that went on to attack on the Capitol.
The dispute also highlights Trump’s relationship with his Secret Service detail, which was unlike that of most previous presidents. Agents were seen as more overtly supportive and admiring of Trump than they had been under any other modern president, according to people who have spent time in the White House during multiple administrations, and Trump worked to build loyalty among them.
