Aide claims Trump very keen to join Capitol riot

WASHINGTON: Former US president Donald Trump angrily lunged at his Secret Service driver and grabbed at the steering wheel of his limousine in a bid to join the crowd as it marched on the Capitol on the day of the deadly insurrection, an aide testified on Tuesday.

In some of the most explosive testimony so far to the House committee probing the violence, Cassidy Hutchinson, an assistant to Mr Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, said the president had demanded to march with the mob.

Under the impression that he would be taken to join the crowd at the Capitol following his rally speech, he became irate when he was told it was impossible for security reasons, and he tried to wrestle the Secret Service for control of his official car, Ms Hutchinson testified.

“I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now,” Mr Trump said, according to Ms Hutchinson, who testified that the story was relayed to her by another administration official. Mr Trump, apparently watching the televised hearing, attempted to discredit Ms Hutchinson in real time in a multiple-post rant on his social media network, dismissing the episode as a “fake story” and calling the hearing a “kangaroo court”.

The congressional panel has spent a year investigating the Jan 6, 2021 riot that temporarily halted the certifying by Congress of the presidential election result.

Ms Hutchinson was a central figure in the administration and able to offer the committee its first blow-byblow account of activity inside the White House.

She testified that Mr Trump and some of his top lieutenants were aware of the possibility of violence — contradicting claims that the assault had nothing to do with the administration.

Ms Hutchinson said she recalled Mr Meadows saying four days before the insurrection: “Things might get real, real bad on Jan 6.”

Ms Hutchinson had sought out her boss, she said, after a White House meeting involving Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. As they were leaving, Mr Giuliani asked her if she was “excited” for Jan 6.

When she asked what Mr Giuliani meant, Ms Hutchinson recalled that he “responded something to the effect of, ‘We’re going to the Capitol.’”