A top Secret Service agent for former President Donald Trump is allegedly ready to testify that a former White House staffer’s testimony on June 29th before the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 is false.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, said Trump on the day of the Jan. 6 rally tried to convince the Secret Service to take him to the U.S. Capitol, and that he became furious when they wouldn’t because the area was not secured.
Hutchinson said Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel of the armored presidential limousine and Bobby Engel, who was the lead security officer, had to tell him, “Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel.” Hutchinson said Trump then lunged at the officer and assaulted him.
Chief White House correspondent for NBC News, Peter Alexander, tweeted, “A source close to the Secret Service tells me both Bobby Engel, the lead agent, and the presidential limousine/SUV driver are prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.”
The Secret Service responded to the claims of Hutchinson in a statement, “U.S. 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 today’s testimony.”
Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey wrote on Twitter that the January 6 select committee “has Secret Service testimony that would seemingly corroborate or dispute what Cassidy Hutchinson said today, but it wasn’t played.”
Trump responded to these allegations and wrote on social media: “I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and ‘leaker’), and when she requested to go with certain others of the team to Florida after my having served a full term in office, I personally turned her request down.”
“Why did she want to go with us if she felt we were so terrible?” Trump continued. “I understand that she was very upset and angry that I didn’t want her to go, or be a member of the team. She is bad news!”
Trump’s claim that Hutchinson sought to work for him after leaving the White House was somewhat corroborated by a Jan. 14, 2021 tweet from Bloomberg News reporter Jennifer Jacobs.
Later, Trump added that he did not “want or request that we make room for people with guns to watch my speech. Who would ever want that? Not me!”
“Besides, there were no guns found or brought into the Capitol Building,” Trump added. “So where were all of these guns?”
He went on to say that what she reported about him trying to grab the wheel was “fake” and that the allegation was “sick and fraudulent, very much like the Unselect Committee itself.”
“Wouldn’t even have been possible to do such a ridiculous thing,” he added.