Trump tried to grab limo steering wheel on day of riot: Aide

WASHINGTON • Mr Donald Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of his presidential limousine on Jan 6, 2021, when his security detail declined to take him to the US Capitol where his supporters were rioting, a former aide has testified.

Then-President Trump dismissed concerns that some supporters gathered for his fiery speech outside the White House that day carried AR-15-style rifles, instead asking security to stop screening attendees with metal-detecting magnetometers so the crowd would look larger, the aide testified on Tuesday.

"I don't effing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the mags away," Ms Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a top aide to Mr Trump's then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, said she overheard Mr Trump saying that morning.

Ms Hutchinson - in testimony on the sixth day of the House of Representatives hearings into the deadly Jan 6 Capitol assault by Mr Trump's followers - also shared a conversation about the steering-wheel-grabbing incident related to her by Mr Tony Ornato, a senior Secret Service official who was Mr Trump's deputy chief of staff for operations.

The New York Times and NBC, citing sources in the Secret Service, said the head of Mr Trump's security detail, Mr Robert Engel, and the limousine driver were prepared to testify under oath that Mr Trump never lunged for the steering wheel. Mr Engel was in the room when Mr Ornato relayed the story, Ms Hutchinson said.

The New York Times and CNN, citing unnamed sources, said Mr Ornato also denied the story and was willing to testify.

Citing her conversation with Mr Ornato, Ms Hutchinson testified that Mr Trump struggled with Secret Service agents who insisted he return to the White House rather than join supporters storming the Capitol where Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election. Mr Trump's supporters were roused by his false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud.

"'I'm the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now,'" Ms Hutchinson said Mr Ornato quoted Mr Trump as saying.

She said Mr Trump tried from the back seat to grab the steering wheel of the heavily armoured presidential vehicle and lunged in anger at a Secret Service official.

Mr Trump, a Republican, denied her account of his actions.

"Her Fake story that I tried to grab the steering wheel of the White House Limousine in order to steer it to the Capitol Building is 'sick' and fraudulent," Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media app.

The Secret Service said it was cooperating fully with the House committee and "planned on responding formally and on the record". Ms Hutchinson's lawyer Jody Hunt wrote on Twitter that she had "testified, under oath, and recounted what she was told".

Dozens of courts, election officials and reviews by Mr Trump's own administration rejected his fraud claims.

Four people died the day of the attack, one fatally shot by police and the others of natural causes. More than 100 police officers were injured, and one died the next day.

Four officers later died by suicide. Tuesday's hastily called hearing marked the first time this month, in six hearings, that a former White House official appeared for live testimony.

Ms Hutchinson, 26, painted a picture of panicked White House officials bristling at the possibility of Mr Trump joining what was to become a violent mob pushing its way into the Capitol.

The officials' worries focused on the potential criminal charges Mr Trump and others could face.

"We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable," Ms Hutchinson said White House counsellor Pat Cipollone told her.

"'We have serious legal concerns if we go up to the Capitol that day.'"

Ms Hutchinson, who sat doors away from Mr Trump's Oval Office, testified that days before the attack on the US Capitol, Mr Meadows knew of the looming violence that could unfold.

"'Things might get real, real bad on Jan 6,'" she quoted him as saying with her boss on Jan 2.

She testified that Mr Trump's former attorney Rudy Giuliani had said of Jan 6: "'We're going to the Capitol, it's going to be great. The President's going to be there; he's going to look powerful.'"

This month's hearings by the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans featured videotaped testimony from figures including Mr Trump's oldest daughter Ivanka and his former attorney-general William Barr.

They and other witnesses testified that they did not believe Mr Trump's false claims of widespread fraud and tried to dissuade him of them.

Before resigning, Mr Barr told the media that there was no evidence of fraud. That angered Mr Trump so much that he threw his lunch at a White House wall, breaking a porcelain dish and leaving ketchup dripping down the wall, according to video testimony from Ms Kayleigh McEnany, Mr Trump's White House press secretary at the time.

REUTERS