Sources tell CNN that stories about the incident — including details similar to how former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson described it to the House special committee investigating Jan. 6 — circulated in the months immediately following the Capitol attack in US and before testifying this week.
Although details from those who heard the accounts differ, Secret Service sources say they have been told there was an angry confrontation. And their accounts match significant portions of Hutchinson’s testimony, which has been attacked as hearsay by Trump and his allies, who have also sought to discredit her entire testimony.
Like Hutchinson, one source, a longtime Secret Service official, told CNN that agents passing on the story described Trump as “demanding” and that the former president said something along the lines of, “I’m the fucking president of the United States, you can’t telling me what to do.” The source said he initially heard that kind of language being used shortly after the incident.
“He had kind of lunged forward – it wasn’t clear from the conversations I had that he actually made physical contact, but he may have. I don’t know,” the source said. “No one said Trump attacked him; they said he tried to throw himself through the seat — for what reason, no one had a clue.”
The official said he heard about the incident multiple times as far back as February 2021 from other agents, including some who were part of the president’s bodyguard during that period, but none of them were involved in the incident.
The source added that agents often recounted stories of Trump’s temper tantrums, including the former president throwing and breaking things.
“Not just plates,” the source added, a reference to how Hutchinson testified this week that she saw ketchup on the wall and a china plate smashed on the floor in the White House dining room after Trump threw his lunch at the wall after hearing about that then-Attorney General William Barr told the media that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
The other Secret Service source, who spoke with the driver and another agent who was not there, said he heard about Trump verbally lashing out at his detail, but not a physical altercation. None of the sources told CNN they had heard of Trump trying to grab the wheel.
Three of the people attending the meeting in the president’s SUV, a modified armored version of a Chevrolet Suburban, were Trump, chief of staff Robert “Bobby” Engel and the driver, whose identity has not been publicly released at this time.
Hutchinson herself did not see the incident firsthand. She testified during Tuesday’s special committee hearing that she was told about it by then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato. She said Ornato told her the story in front of Engel.
She testified that Ornato told her that Engel repeatedly informed Trump on the way back to the White House after Trump’s speech on the Ellipse that it was not safe to walk to the Capitol.
According to Hutchinson, Ornato recounted Trump yelling, “I’m the fucking president. Take me to the Capitol now.’ Trump then “reached toward the front of the vehicle to grab the steering wheel,” Hutchinson recalled Ornato saying. She added that, according to Ornato, Trump used his other hand to “lash out” at Engel.
Hutchinson also testified that Trump and her boss, then-chief of staff to the president Mark Meadows, were aware of the possibility of violence on Jan. 6, 2021, and that Trump supporters had guns when they gathered at the Ellipse that day.
Both Engel and Ornato testified before the committee behind closed doors, but their statements were not used during Tuesday’s hearing.
Neither Engel nor Ornato has commented publicly on Hutchinson’s testimony.
A separate Secret Service official previously told CNN that Engel denies Trump grabbed the steering wheel or lunged at an agent on his line, and that Ornato denies saying the same thing to Hutchinson. The official did not dispute that Trump ordered his agents to take him to the Capitol.
Ornato has a close relationship with Trump and his team, having previously served as his head of security and then taking an unusual leave of absence from his Secret Service duties to be sent to the White House as deputy chief of staff for operations.
Hutchinson’s account of the alleged incident was among the most shocking parts of Tuesday’s hearing — adding to an already damning portrait of how Trump was desperately trying to reach the Capitol at the time.
Democrat Zoe Lofgren of California, a committee member, said the agents could come before the panel and dispute the allegations under oath.
“No one is denying that the president wanted to go to the Capitol where this armed mob was attacking Congress and trying to overturn the election,” Lofgren said in an interview with CNN’s AC360 Wednesday night. “That’s the main point, as shocking as the story about the limousine rolling was. The real legal meaning was that he wanted to go there, and no one disputes that.”
Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, another Democratic member of the committee, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press NOW” that “Mr. Ornato didn’t have as clear a memory of that time period as I would say Ms. Hutchinson “.
“But we’re always happy people remember things to come back and talk to us,” she added.
CNN’s Josh Campbell contributed to this report.
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