Two former Trump White House aides are accusing a top Secret Service official and key defender of the then-president’s actions during the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection of being a political loyalist with a history of lying.
Former aides Olivia Troye and Alyssa Farah Griffin have criticized the Secret Service official, Anthony Ornato, amid reports he is disputing that an angry Donald Trump grabbed the steering wheel of his presidential SUV limousine and lunged at a Secret Service agent in the front seat that day. Those explosive allegations were leveled last week by another ex-Trump aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, before the Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack.
Hutchinson testified that Trump wanted to join thousands of his followers who marched up to the Capitol after a speech he gave near the White House, and that he became “irate” after his Secret Service detail told him he had to be driven back to the White House for security reasons. On the way back, Hutchinson testified, the president physically accosted an agent and tried to turn the limo toward the Capitol, according to what Ornato told her immediately after the incident.
At the time, Ornato was the White House deputy chief of staff in charge of operations. Trump had personally appointed Ornato to that position in December 2019, an apparent first for a Secret Service official, because of his loyalty to the President. A 25-year veteran of the Secret Service, Ornato is now back at the agency as its assistant director in charge of the Office of Training.
Hutchinson’s testimony came under scrutiny last week after both Ornato and Robert Engel – the agent who was allegedly accosted by Trump – told the Secret Service the president did angrily demand to be taken to the Capitol but that he never grabbed Engel or the steering wheel.
Hutchinson testified that Engel, who was in charge of Trump’s protective security detail, also was in the room at the White House when Ornato recounted the story and never tried to correct his version of events.
Troye, the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism advisor to then-Vice President Mike Pence, told USA TODAY Saturday that Ornato has a history of changing his story when it becomes politically troublesome for Trump.
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‘There seems to be a pattern here’
“There seems to be a pattern here of conversations that happen that are inconvenient conversations for Tony and then he comes back and says that they never happened,” Troye said. “That really speaks to Tony’s character and credibility, and whether he has a history of doing [Trump’s] bidding, and then denying it to protect him.”
In riveting testimony last week, Hutchinson – a former top aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows – said Trump wanted to let armed supporters into his rally because he knew ‘they’re not here to hurt me.’ “
She also disclosed for the first time that Trump demanded to be driven to the Capitol, and said it was because he allegedly wanted to give a second speech outside the Capitol or perhaps inside the complex while lawmakers were certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
When Engel first told him no, Trump yelled, “I’m the effing president, take me to the Capitol now,” Hutchinson quoted Ornato as telling her.
When he was again told they were returning to the White House, “the President reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel,” Hutchinson testified. “Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And when Mr. Ornato had recounted this…