According to CNN, two Secret Service sources say they heard about the incident described by former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson in bombshell testimony before the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 on Tuesday. During the reported incident, Trump reprimanded the head of his security detail, Robert Engel, and the driver of his armored SUV after being told he could not go to the US Capitol to join the riotous mob he had invited in Washington that day. Those sources told the network they heard of an “angry confrontation” between Mr Trump and his bodyguards over their refusal to transport the president to the Capitol. Their accounts are said to be “in line” with what Ms Hutchinson told the select committee. On Tuesday, the former White House aide said that Mr. Engel and then-Deputy White House Chief of Staff Tony Ornato, who was a Secret Service agent, informed her that Mr. Trump shouted “I am the president of the United States States” and demanded they be driven across Pennsylvania Avenue, where an armed mob of his supporters attacked police officers and breached security defenses in hopes of preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Hutchinson also said she was told the then-president grabbed the wheel of the armored car and lunged at Mr Engel’s neck when he was told to take his hand off the wheel. Since her testimony, multiple sources close to Mr. Trump, including those who say they have spoken with Mr. Ornato, claim he is willing to testify that there was no such altercation. But a source told CNN they heard Mr Trump “fell forward” in anger after being told he couldn’t go where he wanted. “It wasn’t clear from the conversations I had that he actually had physical contact, but he might have. I don’t know,” the source said. “Nobody said Trump attacked him. they said he tried to fall over the seat — for what reason, no one had any idea.” Another operative told CNN he had been told about Mr. Trump’s outburst, but nothing more. Investigative reporter Hunter Walker, who covered the White House for Yahoo! News at the time of the Jan. 6 attack, said on Twitter that another source, that of the DC Metropolitan Police Department, had told it a similar story to what Ms. Hutchinson told. “In April, a law enforcement source told me they overheard DC Metropolitan Police officers attached to the presidential motorcade sharing a Trump story that called for him to be driven to the Capitol and fight the Secret Service on January 6,” he wrote . . “I heard this story months before Cassidy Hutchinson went public with these allegations. I thought the story was credible at the time because of the source.”
