Source: Trump car argument verified
Officer confirms testimony about grabbing steering wheel
A Washington, D.C., police officer has corroborated to the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, details regarding a heated exchange former President Donald Trump had with his Secret Service detail when he was told he could not go to the U.S. Capitol after his rally, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN.
The officer with the Metropolitan Police Department was in the motorcade with the Secret Service for Trump on Jan. 6 and recounted what was seen to committee investigators, according to the source.
A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment.
The description of the angry exchange between Trump and his Secret Service detail was a striking moment during the June testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Hutchinson said that she heard a secondhand account told to her by then-White House deputy chief of staff Tony Ornato that Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol on the day of the insurrection that “he reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel” and “then used his free hand to lunge towards” his Secret Service lead agent Robert Engel. Hutchinson testified that Ornato told her the story in front of Engel and he did not dispute the account.
Neither of the agents named in the testimony have commented publicly on Hutchinson's testimony. But soon after it, a Secret
Service official who would only speak on background, said Engel would deny parts of the story regarding Trump grabbing at the steering wheel and lunging toward an agent on his detail. The agency has said the agents involved would testify to that effect, though they have not yet gone back to the committee to testify.
The committee is also engaging with the driver who was in the presidential SUV regarding possible testimony, the source said. A lawyer for the driver did not respond to a request for comment.
CNN previously has reported that two Secret Service sources have said they heard about Trump angrily demanding to go to the Capitol and berating his detail when he didn't get his way.
The House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol attack subpoenaed the Secret Service on Friday night for text messages agents reportedly deleted around Jan. 6, 2021.
Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, DMiss., said in a statement that the committee is seeking “the relevant text messages, as well as any after action reports that have been issued in any and all divisions of the USSS pertaining or relating in any way to the events of January 6, 2021.”
The subpoenas come hours after the nine-member panel received a closed briefing from the watchdog for Department of Homeland Security.
While lawmakers were tight-lipped about what they heard, the closeddoor briefing with the inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, came two days after his office sent a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security committees stating that Secret Service agents erased messages Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021 “as part of a device-replacement program.” The deletion came after the watchdog office requested records from the agents as part of its probe into events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack, the letter said.
For the Jan. 6 panel, the watchdog's finding raised the startling prospect of lost evidence.
The Secret Service insists proper procedures were followed. Agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said, “The insinuation that the Secret Service maliciously deleted text messages following a request is false. In fact, the Secret Service has been fully cooperating with the OIG in every respect.”
He said the Secret Service had started to reset its mobile devices to factory settings in January 2021 “as part of a pre-planned, three-month system migration.” In that process, some data was lost.
Federal prosecutors are seeking a 15-year prison sentence for a Texas man who was convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol with a holstered handgun, calling him a militia group member who took a central role in the pro-Trump mob's attack, according to a court filing Friday.
If a judge accepts the Justice Department's recommendation, Guy Wesley Reffitt's prison sentence would be nearly three times the length of the longest sentence among more than 200 defendants who have been sentenced.