A select congressional committee investigating that January 6th, 2021 riots at the Capitol building fell victim to false stories about former President Donald Trump lunging for the wheel of his Secret Service vehicle during the chaos.
That's one of the conclusions reached by the U.S. Office of the Inspector General, which last week released a long-awaited report on how Secret Service reacted on J6 as protestors breached the Capitol building while members of Congress were present and preparing to certify the results of the 2020 election. Witnesses who spoke with the OIG rebuffed the story of Cassidy Hutchinson, a star witness for the J6 committee. Shortly after the riots, Hutchinson, an employee of ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that she heard from presidential security official Tony Ornato that Trump lunged for the wheel of "the Beast," the presidential state car where he while traveling as the day unfolded. In her telling, the former president became physically confrontational after learning from Secret Service agents that he was being driven back to the White House instead of the Capitol.
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Hutchinson's retelling is at odds with testimony from witnesses who told the OIG that they never saw Trump behave aggressively in the Beast, according to the Daily Caller. "We also interviewed [redacted] Secret Service agents in the limousine with the President. The limousine driver said that the President was angry when his request to go to the Capitol was denied, whereas the President's detail lead, who was seated in front of the President, said he did not recall if the President was angry," reads a footnote in the report. "We asked [redacted] agents whether the President reached for the steering wheel or lunged toward the detail lead when his request to go to the Capitol was denied, and [redacted] witnesses said those actions did not occur."
The disclosure provides more ammunition to Trump allies like Congressman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), who previously subpoenaed Hutchinson and asked her to explain why her previous testimony failed to mention the story about Trump lunging for the wheel of the vehicle. "On June 28, 2022, you testified during one of the Select Committee's primetime hearings. During this hearing you asserted that former President Donald Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel from one United States Secret Service employee driving the vehicle and lunged at another," Loudermilk wrote in his January letter. "You subsequently testified that you spoke with [Trump spokeswoman] Alyssa Farah Griffin in order to orchestrate the third interview with the Select Committee on May 17th without your attorney's knowledge. Despite this, you did not recount this attention-grabbing series of events during the May 17th interview."
Even more startling is an admission by Ornato that he does not remember the incident as it was repeated by Hutchinson. "I do not recall being made aware of any details about the President's return trip to the White House and, as such, I do not recall speaking with anyone about it," he said, according to the OIG report. In her testimony, Hutchinson said Ornato "described [Trump] as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, 'I am the f-ing president. Take me up to the Capitol now.'" A significant number of mainstream media outlets reported on Hutchinson's testimony, adding to the presumptive nature of the charge against President Trump.
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