A flurry of revelations from a House committee on Jan. 6 revealed two dueling identities of the Secret Service under former President Donald Trump — brash heroes who stopped the president from a dangerous plan to escort rioters to Capitol Hill and yes politicians who were eager to to allow his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 elections. The new portrayal of the Secret Service — which has endured a decade of controversy from a prostitution scandal and White House security lapses during the Obama years to allegations of politicization under Trump — has cast fresh doubts about its independence and credibility. legendary presidential protection service. At one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Trump unsuccessfully tricked his agents into leading him to the Capitol, where he would have joined a mob of supporters in violently descending on the great symbol of democracy. About 45 minutes later at the other end, former Vice President Mike Pence refused his security request to get into an armored car — worried, according to testimony, that his bodyguards would take him away from the Capitol and prevent him from carrying out the task of overseeing the final counting of the votes of the electoral body. ‘Take me to Capitol Hill now’: How close Trump came to joining rioters Earlier in the day, according to former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, Trump had complained that Secret Service “goons” used to check people for guns were preventing armed supporters from entering his Stop the rally. Steal’ in Ellipse. “Here you have the agency throwing down a day when things were crazy in the Banana Republic,” said Bill Gage, a former Secret Service counterintelligence agent who protected Presidents George W. Bush and Obama. “My God. What would have happened if the agents had let Trump go to Capitol Hill?” At the center of the current firestorm is a key operative — Tony Ornato — who has had a highly unusual role in Trump’s orbit. The former head of the president’s security department has temporarily left his Secret Service job to work as the White House’s deputy chief of staff. The political assignment was unprecedented in the Secret Service, as Ornato effectively transitioned from civil servant to become a key part of Trump’s re-election bid. Through a spokesman for the agency, Ornato denied Hutchinson’s claims in an affidavit Tuesday that he told her Trump had fallen behind the wheel of the Secret Service vehicle carrying the president away from his Jan. 6 rally and that he had arrived at the head. with his detail, Robert Engel, in a fit of rage at not being taken to the Capitol. Ornato and Engel had previously been questioned by the committee about that day, and both had confirmed that Trump asked to be moved to the Capitol and was furious that he was told they would not, according to people familiar with their testimony. Neither was asked about Trump’s alleged physical altercation in the car, according to two people briefed on their testimony. But the aftershocks of Hutchinson’s appearance continued. Lawmakers on the committee said Ornato had said in his original testimony that he was unable to recall other actions and statements by Trump on Jan. 6 that other witnesses had described in great detail. Both have told their superiors they would be willing to testify under oath to the committee, and people with knowledge of the committee’s deliberations said they expect the agents to be subpoenaed soon. As Ornato and Engel watched Hutchinson testify Tuesday, they immediately disputed to agency officials that Trump had fallen over the wheel and Engel, and Ornato insisted he had not told Hutchinson, according to two law enforcement officials . The Secret Service prepared a line-by-line public statement that afternoon to rebut specific points, the officials said, and they also note that the committee never asked Ornato and Engel about that claim. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified on June 28 that former President Donald Trump ran into a Secret Service agent on January 6. (Video: Reuters) But on Tuesday afternoon, officials at the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service’s parent agency, directed the Agency not to issue a public statement and to offer the agents as witnesses to testify under oath, according to three people familiar with the decision. DHS officials did not respond Friday to a request for comment. Ornato and Engel did not respond to requests for comment. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the agents did their job a day under unprecedented challenges, and yet none of the nation’s leaders were injured. “The sworn and professional men and women of the Secret Service carry out our mission in an outstanding manner with the highest levels of distinction,” Guglielmi said. “This was no exception on January 6, 2021.” Former Secret Service agents and national security officials have highlighted the even more horrific events that could have unfolded on Jan. 6 if Pence’s or Trump’s detail leaders had made different choices. They described the unimaginable scenario in which the president and vice president engaged in a violent confrontation on Capitol Hill, two leaders with opposing goals meeting, accompanied by their dueling security guards and Trump’s chaotic army of protesters. Trump, after all, was pressuring Pence to refuse to follow the final voter count, and some rioters chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” The attack: The siege of the US Capitol on January 6 was neither a spontaneous act nor an isolated event. Agents sworn to protect the lives of the president and vice president with their own made choices on the fly that day — refusing a direct order from Trump and acceding to the vice president’s wishes. Together, the agents’ game-day decisions helped keep democracy on the rails, several former agents said. “Bobby Engel did the right thing and said, ‘No, sir, this is a dangerous situation, we’re not going to take you to the Capitol,’” said Jim Helminski, a retired Secret Service official and Biden’s former security chief when he he was vice president. “If they had [taken him]there would undoubtedly be a potentially dangerous confrontation between the vice president and the president.” “If the president finds Pence and they fight, that’s really scary,” Helminski added. “Does the vice president’s detail now protect the vice president from the presidential detail?” People briefed on the leaders’ two Jan. 6 detailed reports to congressional committees said both Trump and Pence’s detail leaders were making decisions in a myopic vacuum: They focused solely on the immediate security risks to the national leader they were tasked with. to protect, and yet their choices aided a peaceful transfer of power. “Our story would be so different if things had happened differently,” Gage said. “What if Engel said, ‘Can we do this for you, Mr. President?’” But the Secret Service’s claim to be politically independent — epitomized by the agents’ well-known saying “the people elect them, we protect them” — has been tested by Trump’s tenure in the White House. Trump had relied on Ornato to carry out plans that many operatives complained put them, the public and the president at risk, according to interviews with more than a dozen Secret Service and administration officials and internal records. This included using Secret Service personnel to travel to mass campaign rallies as deadly coronavirus cases rose in the summer of 2020 and violently clearing peaceful crowds from Lafayette Square in June 2020 so Trump would appear tough on protesters. of Black Lives Matter for a photo. As of Jan. 6, Trump’s ability to make Secret Service leadership bend to his will had raised significant doubts among several Trump administration officials about the motivations of senior Secret Service agents, according to committee testimony and interviews by Washington Post with officials. With an hour-long speech on the Ellipse that ended just after 1 p.m., Trump had incited a mob-like march on Capitol Hill that he hoped would help him prevent Biden’s victory from being certified. Before he finished his speech, a small group of protesters had already begun breaking through the outer barricades at the Capitol and climbing the steps to the chambers of Congress. Pence and his team worried that his own Secret Service agents might hinder him from his goals. Despite the fact that an armed mob broke the windows of the Capitol, the vice president insisted on remaining in the Capitol so that he could complete the work of officially approving the results of the presidential election. As rioters stormed the hallways, Pence’s chief of detail insisted on transporting a reluctant Pence from a hidden office in the Capitol basement. But Pence declined his top agent’s recommendation to get into his armored limousine because he feared agents might remove him from the building. Keith Kellogg, a Trump aide who then served as Pence’s national security adviser, had stressed to Ornato that the vice president intended to stay inside the Capitol to get the job done, according to the book “I Alone Can Fix It.” He told Ornato that the Secret Service had better not try to forcibly remove Pence from the building. “I know you guys very well,” Kellogg said. “You’ll fly him to Alaska if you get the chance. Do not do it.” Ornato, through a Secret Service spokesman, has previously denied that this conversation took place. If Ornato and Engel testify before the Jan. 6 committee, they could face a wide range of questions not only about Trump’s behavior that day but more broadly about the extent to which the interests of the presidency were served — or the man who was…
