Reports have surfaced that the January 6 House Select Committee is seeking to interview several current and former Secret Service officials.
The interview dates are yet to be set, but seem to stem from the 1 million electronic communications the Committee received from the agency, following notification to the Committee that some of the texts relating to January 6, 2021, had been “erased.”
Among the officials, the Committee is keen to interview are two men mentioned in the explosive testimony of Trump-era White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Hutchinson relayed how she had been told that the former President “lunged” at his security detail when they told him that they could not go to the Capitol on the day of the insurrection.
The two men in question are Bobby Engel, who led Trump’s security team on January 6, 2021, and Tony Ornato, who stepped away from his role within the Secret Service to become Trump’s deputy chief of staff.
Ornato was the one who, according to Hutchinson, told her what happened in front of Engel, who reportedly witnessed the event.
Ornato and Engel had appeared before the Committee shortly after Hutchinson’s headline-grabbing testimony, yet — according to reporting by CNN — the Committee is now seeking the name of Trump’s driver that day, as he had lunged toward the steering wheel.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is also one of the people the Committee wants to interview. Cheatle served as the assistant director of protective operations on January 6.
The head of former Vice President Mike Pence’s security detail Timothy Giebels and newcomer communication director Anthony Guglielmi, who only joined the Secret Service in March this year, are among the other names the Committee wishes to interview.
