Testimony shapes the narrative of Trump’s demand to go to the Capitol on January 6

President Donald J. Trump had just delivered his fiery speech at the Ellipse early in the afternoon of January 6, 2021, initiating his supporters’ attack on the Capitol.

As he climbed into his armored vehicle after the speech, Mr. Trump immediately brought up a topic he often broaches after his public appearances: How big was the crowd?

But within 30 seconds, his conversation with his lead Secret Service agent took a more controversial turn, according to a transcript released Monday of an interview by House investigators of another Secret Service agent who drove the car. Mr. Trump wanted to go to the Capitol, but his lead agent, Robert Engel, said no and told him there was no plan.

“The president insisted on going to the Capitol,” said the driver, whose name was not released. “It was clear to me that he wanted to go to the Capitol. He didn’t yell at Mr. Engel. He didn’t yell at me. Sure, his voice was raised, but it didn’t seem to me that he was angry – certainly not, certainly not as irritated or excited as he was on the way to the Ellipse.

But, the driver said, Mr. Trump never grabbed the steering wheel or physically confronted the officers, contradicting the most sensational and hotly contested testimony given by a White House aide to the House committee. had taken on January 6. The driver’s transcript is the first comprehensive eyewitness account of what happened in the armored vehicle to be made public.

“I didn’t see him coming,” the Secret Service driver told House panel investigators. “He never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn’t see him lunge at all to try to get into the front seat. You know, what stood out was the irritation in his voice, more than his physical presence.”

The driver’s transcript adds details to one of the most scrutinized episodes of January 6, 2021. The transcript was never publicly released by the January 6 House committee, which entered into an agreement with the Secret Service for twelve interviews to to prevent “privacy data” from being made public. information, information for official use only, sensitive data of intelligence and law enforcement agencies and raw intelligence information.”

Republicans have suggested that the panel did not release the transcript because it contradicts parts of a public account of the incident from a prominent witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, who served as an aide to Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff. Ms Hutchinson testified in June 2022 that she had heard second or third hand from others what had happened. Republicans have criticized the panel’s decision to promote its account of Trump’s behavior in the car.

A letter from Department of Homeland Security general counsel Jonathan E. Meyer provided a reason the driver’s transcript had not been released. The House committee asked the department to review the transcripts for sensitive information that needed to be protected from disclosure so that the rest could become “part of the historical record.”

More than a year after the driver was interviewed in November 2022, the agency was still reviewing the transcripts, Mr. Meyer wrote to House Republicans in February. He said the agency has decided it can release redacted versions of six interviews, including the driver’s, to Republicans investigating the committee’s work and looking for irregularities or signs of bias.

Republicans planned to release a copy of their report to the committee’s proceedings Monday afternoon.

“This firsthand testimony directly contradicts Cassidy Hutchinson’s story and the story of the former J6 Committee,” said Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the Georgia Republican who has led the Republican Party’s efforts to to investigate the work of the January 6 committee for bias. “Although the select committee had this crucial information, they still promoted Ms Hutchinson’s third-hand version of events in their final report.”

Former aides to the select committee counter that the panel’s final report included details of interviews with the driver and that there was no cover-up. The final report also refers to Mr. Engel’s testimony, even though no transcript was released at the time.

“Engel did not characterize the in-vehicle exchange in the manner in which Hutchinson described the story she heard from Ornato, and indicated that he did not remember President Trump gesturing toward him,” the committee’s Jan. 6 report said, citing to Anthony M. Ornato, the White House deputy chief of staff and an active Secret Service agent, who cited Ms. Hutchinson as a source of the story she told.

The panel report added: “The driver testified that he did not remember what President Trump was doing and that he did not remember if there was any movement.”

“It is difficult to fully reconcile the accounts of several witnesses who provided information with what we heard from Engel and Ornato,” the report concluded. “But the key factual point here is clear and undisputed: President Trump specifically and repeatedly requested to be taken to the Capitol. He was persistent and angry, and continued to insist on traveling to the Capitol even after returning to the White House.”

The driver’s transcript is the most detailed firsthand account to date of how Trump conducted himself that day in his presidential motorcade as he traveled the short distance from the White House to the Ellipse.

Trump had already started the morning in a “pretty excited, pretty irritated” mood on the way to the Ellipse, the driver testified. The president’s voice contained a “tinge of anger” as he spoke to Mr. Engel, who was riding in the vehicle with him.

The driver said Mr. Trump was angry with Vice President Mike Pence, who had opposed Mr. Trump’s efforts to block congressional certification on the day of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. at the Electoral College.

“I don’t remember exactly how he worded it, but I remember him being angry because the vice president was unwilling to not certify the Electoral College,” the driver testified.

After the speech, in which Mr. Trump repeated his baseless claims of election fraud, attacked Mr. Pence and inflamed the crowd of his supporters, he got back into the armored SUV and began demanding to join the crowd at the Capitol to protest the congressional certification.

“Probably within about 30 seconds, if not less than that of getting into the car, after asking about the size of the crowd,” the driver testified. He added that the size of the crowd was a constant source of interest for Mr. Trump: “That was pretty typical of that president.”

Mr. Trump, he said, seemed unconvinced that an unplanned trip posed a security risk since the crowd at the Capitol would be his supporters.

“I don’t remember exactly what prompted it or how that part of the conversation grew organically, but he made a pretty good effort,” the officer testified. He added: “What stood out most was that he kept asking why we couldn’t go, why we couldn’t go, and he didn’t worry about the people who were there or refer to them as Trump people or Trump supporters. .”

At some point during the trip to the Ellipse or on the way back, the driver testified. Mr. Trump and Mr. Engel discussed why people in the crowd were being kept away from the speech venue, with Mr. Engel telling the president that she had “some form of prohibited items.”

Mr Trump’s behavior in the motorcade was highlighted in Ms Hutchinson’s blockbuster testimony. She said Mr. Ornato told her that Mr. Trump tried to grab the wheel of his vehicle when he was told he could not go to the Capitol to join his supporters, some of whom had been told they were armed. Ms. Hutchinson also said that Mr. Ornato told her that the president was “lashing out” at Mr. Engel.

Secret Service officials have long disputed parts of that account. Agency officials have said that Mr. Engel, Mr. Ornato and the driver of the Suburban were able to confirm that Mr. Trump demanded that his agents take him to the Capitol, even after they emphasized that it was too dangerous for him to to go.

Still, the driver said he did not expect the violence at the Capitol and was surprised by what he saw.

“What happened at the Capitol was mind-bogglingly bad and horrible,” he said. “At that point, it was clear what was happening in the city and in the Capitol, and it just defied expectations in a civilized society.”