Secret Service agents vow to testify that Hutchinson’s Trump “lunge” claim is not true

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Tony Ornato told her that President Trump made a “lunge” at Secret Service agents to try to get to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
• According to Hutchinson, Trump’s deputy chief of staff told her that the former president tried to grab the steering wheel and said “I’m the effing president!”
• Several media outlets have reported that agents and the driver are willing to testify that Hutchinson’s story about Trump lunging at them and grabbing the wheel is not true.

The Secret Service said it would soon testify before the Jan. 6 House select committee as a response to former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s story.

Hutchinson, a top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, claimed former President Donald Trump made a “lunge” at his protection officer and tried to grab the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle when he learned he could not join his supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“The United States Secret Service has been cooperating with the Select Committee since its inception in spring 2021 and will continue to do so, including by responding on the record to the Committee regarding the new allegations surfaced in [Tuesday’s] testimony,” spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement. 

Hutchinson told the Jan. 6 panel that White House deputy chief of staff for operations Tony Ornato told her about a clash inside the presidential vehicle after the “Stop the Steal” rally.

“I looked at Tony, and he said, ‘Did you f—ing hear what happened in the Beast?’” Hutchinson said, using the nickname for the presidential vehicle.

Hutchinson said Trump was in the vehicle with Secret Service agent Bobby Engel.

“So when the president had gotten into the vehicle with Bobby, he thought that they were going up to the Capitol. And when Bobby had relayed to him, ‘We’re not, we don’t have the assets to do it, it’s not secure, we’re going back to the West Wing,’ the president had a very strong and very angry response to that,” Hutchinson testified.

“Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of ‘I’m the f—ing president! Take me up to the Capitol now!’ To which Bobby responded, ‘Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing.’”

According to Hutchinson, Ornato told her that Trump reached toward the front of the Beast to grab the steering wheel and “then used his free hand to lunge toward Bobby Engel.”

Trump issued a response stating that Hutchinson told a “Fake story” and that her testimony about him grabbing the steering wheel of the White House Limousine is ‘sick’ and fraudulent, very much like the Unselect Committee itself – Wouldn’t even have been possible to do such a ridiculous thing.”

A source close to the Secret Service also denied Hutchinson’s story to multiple news outlets, confirming that both Engel and the driver were willing to testify under oath.

Source: New York Post