Former President Donald Trump acknowledged Wednesday that he told the Secret Service he wanted to go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, depicting a different tone of an event that became a contentious detail of a former White House aide's testimony before the House committee that investigated the attack.
In remarks at a campaign rally Wednesday afternoon in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Trump blasted the account of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide to ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Hutchinson was a key witness during closely watched committee hearings in 2022.
"Remember the person that said I attacked a Secret Service agent in the front of the car?" Trump said, referring to Hutchinson's testimony. "It’s not my deal. I’m a lover, not a fighter."
Hutchinson testified that staff members told her about Trump's trying to grab the steering wheel in an armored SUV and lunging toward his security detail when he learned that he would not be taken to the Capitol, where a mob of his supporters was gathering.
"This is crazy stuff," Trump said Wednesday. "I sat in the back, and you know what I did say? I said, 'I’d like to go down there because I see a lot of people walking down.' They said, 'Sir, it’s better if you don’t.' I said, 'Well, I’d like to. ... Whatever you guys think.'"
"That was the whole tone of the conversation," he added.
Shortly after Hutchinson testified in 2022, Trump disparaged her in posts on Truth Social, saying he “hardly” knew her, “other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and ‘leaker.’)”
Hutchinson's account drew scrutiny after sources said a pair of witnesses could testify under oath that the incident had not occurred.
A Republican-led House panel investigating the Jan. 6 committee released a report in March accusing it of downplaying testimony from other witnesses who did not corroborate Hutchinson's account.