About half a dozen Secret Service agents have testified before the grand jury that will decide whether to indict former President Donald Trump for his alleged role in the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol and attempts to interfere with the peaceful transfer of the presidency. , according to two sources familiar with his testimony.
About five or six officers have turned up, the sources said, in compliance with the subpoenas they received. It is not known how close the agents were to Trump on January 6 or what information they may have provided to the grand jury.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the events of January 6 is separate from the investigation that led to Trump’s recent indictment in Florida for handling classified documents. Sources told NBC News that about 24 Secret Service agents appeared before the grand jury considering that case in Washington before the case moved to Florida.
A Secret Service spokeswoman declined to comment.
While the exact content of his subpoenas and appearances is unknown, Secret Service agents who were around Trump on January 6 can confirm, deny, or provide more details about a story former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told. for the first time to the now extinct committee of January 6 in Congress.
A year ago, Hutchinson told the committee that he heard secondhand that Trump wanted Secret Service agents to take him to the Capitol to join the rioters, tried to grab the car’s steering wheel, then reached for the driver’s “collarbones,” Secret Service agent. Bobby Engel. Trump later denied this account.
Hutchinson said she learned about the incident from Tony Ornato. Ornato took a leave of absence from the Secret Service to serve as Trump’s deputy chief of staff beginning in 2019, then returned to the Secret Service when Trump left office. Both Engel and Ornato have since left the Secret Service and it is not known if they have testified before the grand jury.
Also of interest is what the agents knew and discussed before and during the Capitol insurrection. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General notified Congress last year that all agent-to-agent text messages on January 5 and 6, 2021, were lost. The agency said it was part of a previously planned software upgrade. Their communications, and anything the agents can remember, could inform the grand jury about how much Trump knew about the potential for violence on January 6 and how he responded to threats against then-Vice President Mike Pence.
