Testimony Fleshes Out Account of Trump’s Demand to Go to Capitol on Jan. 6
But a newly released transcript of an interview of the Secret Service agent who drove Donald Trump’s vehicle that day disputes that he tried to grab the steering wheel or lunged at another agent.
“The president was insistent on going to the Capitol,” recounted the driver, whose name was not disclosed. “It was clear to me he wanted to go to the Capitol. He was not screaming at Mr. Engel. He was not screaming at me. Certainly his voice was raised, but it did not seem to me that he was irate — certainly not, certainly didn’t seem as irritated or agitated as he had on the way to the Ellipse.”
But, the driver said, Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel or physically accosted the agents, contradicting the most sensational and hotly disputed elements of testimony given to the House Jan. 6 committee by a White House aide. The transcript of the driver is the first extensive eyewitness account of what happened in the armored vehicle to be made public.
“I did not see him reach,” the Secret Service driver told investigators for the House panel. “He never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all. You know, what stood out was the irritation in his voice, more than his physical presence.”
The driver’s transcript adds detail to one of the most scrutinized episodes of Jan. 6, 2021. The transcript was never released publicly by the House Jan. 6 committee, which entered into an agreement with the Secret Service regarding 12 interviews to avoid disclosing “privacy information, for-official-use-only information, intelligence and law enforcement sensitive records and raw intelligence information.”
