The story of the altercation between former President Donald Trump and members of his Secret Service on the day of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was widely repeated and discussed by Secret Service agents and other law enforcement officials when it happened, according to multiple reports.
According to CNN, two Secret Service sources say they have heard about the incident, which was described by former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson in bombshell testimony before a special House committee on January 6 on Tuesday. During the reported episode, Mr Trump berated his security chief Robert Engel and the driver of his armored SUV after being told he could not go to the US Capitol to join the rowdy crowd that was called in Washington the other day
Those sources told the network they heard of an “angry confrontation” between Mr. Trump and his bodyguards stemming from their refusal to transport the president to the Capitol. Their accounts are said to “concur” with what Ms Hutchinson told the select committee.
On Tuesday, the former White House aide said that Mr. Engel and then-Deputy White House Chief of Staff Tony Ornato, himself a Secret Service agent, informed her that Mr. Trump had shouted “I’m the fucking president of the United States” and demanded to be taken to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, where an armed mob of his supporters attacked police officers and breached security in hopes of preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Ms. Hutchinson also said she was told that the then-president grabbed the wheel of the armored car and lunged at Mr. Engel’s throat when he was told to take his hand off the wheel.
After her testimony, multiple sources close to Mr. Trump, including those who said they had spoken to Mr. Ornato, said he was prepared to testify that there was no such dispute.
But one source told CNN they heard Mr Trump “lashed forward” in anger after being told he couldn’t go where he wanted.
“It was not clear from the conversations I had that he actually made physical contact, but he may have. I don’t know,” the source said. “Nobody said Trump attacked him; they said he tried to throw himself through the seat — for what reason, no one had a clue.”
Another agent told CNN that he had been told about Mr. Trump’s verbal outburst, but nothing more.
Investigative reporter Hunter Walker, who covered the White House for Yahoo! News at the time of the attack on January 6 took to Twitter to report that another source, this one from the Metropolitan Police Department, had told him a similar story to what Ms Hutchinson said.
“Back in April, a law enforcement source told me they heard D.C. Metropolitan Police officers connected to the presidential motorcade share a story about Trump requesting a ride to the Capitol and getting into an argument with the Secret Service on January 6 he wrote. “I heard this story months before Cassidy Hutchinson went public with these allegations. At the time, I believed the story was credible because of the source.”
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