Despite warnings from his top lawyers, former President Donald Trump insisted on going to the Capitol on January 6 – and he[ed]”To a Secret Service agent who told him he couldn’t,” said a former White House staffer.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former chief aide to Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, made the comments during a committee hearing on Tuesday (January 6th). She said White House adviser Pat Chipolon had repeatedly warned that Trump’s visit to the Capitol could put many people in the White House in legal danger.
“On January 3, Mr. Chipolone turned to me, knowing that Mark [Meadows] has raised the prospect of going to the Capitol on Jan. 6, “Hutchinson said.” Mr. Chipolone had a brief personal conversation in which he told me “we need to make sure this doesn’t happen, it would be a legally awful idea for us.”
“As far as I understand, Mr Chipolone thought Mr Meadows was really pushing for this with the president,” she added.
“Chipolon said something like, ‘Please make sure we’re not going to the Capitol … we’ll be charged with every crime you can imagine,'” Hutchinson said. Among the crimes, she said, were obstruction of justice and “election fraud.”
Yet, even after the White House told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, and others that Trump would not go to the Capitol, the former president said he would do so in a speech to Ellipse this morning. 6th of January. .
Trump left his speech at the rally, expecting to be taken to the Capitol, Hutchinson said.
According to Hutchinson, former Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato told her, “he was under the impression from Mr Meadows that unregistered traffic to the Capitol was still possible and likely to happen.”
But when Secret Service agents told him the news, “the president had a very strong, very angry response to that. Tony described him as angry. The president said something like, “I’m a president, take me to the Capitol now.”
Hutchinson said Ornato also told her that Trump tried to “get behind the wheel” and then threw himself at the Secret Service agent in charge at the time.
Read more from Tyler Olson of Fox News: Trump rushes against Secret Service agent after being told he can’t go to Capitol on Jan. 6: aide
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