A House panel reviewing the work of the illegally established and since disbanded Select Committee on Jan. 6 released testimony previously concealed by lawmakers for contradicting the committee’s star witness.
On Thursday, the Washington Times reported the House Administration’s subcommittee on Oversight released the transcripts of a Secret Service driver for President Donald Trump who pushed back on claims Trump tried to violently hijack a presidential vehicle to riot at the Capitol.
“I did not see him reach. He never grabbed the steering wheel,” the driver told then-Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney during an interview. “I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.”
The agent’s testimony flew directly in opposition to what lawmakers were told by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who worked for Trump’s final first-term chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Hutchinson sensationalized the televised show trials of the Jan. 6 Committee when she claimed an “irate” president assaulted Secret Service agents to try to drive himself to Capitol Hill.
“The president said something to the effect of ‘I’m the f’ing president, take me up to the Capitol now,’” Hutchinson publicly testified in the summer of 2022. “The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel,” she added, but he was stopped by the head of his security detail.
According to the Washington Times reporting on the newly unveiled transcript, the Secret Service driver said, “What stood out was the irritation in [Mr. Trump’s] voice more than his physical presence, which would have been pretty obvious if he was trying to insert himself between the two front seats.”
