Less than 48 hours from the start of the Jan. 6 hearings, The Washington Post detonated one of what will likely be many bombshells. It turns out that when Donald Trump wailed that the Secret Service wouldn’t let him follow through on his vow to join the MAGA horde as they marched to the Capitol, he wasn’t just blowing smoke.
According to Post sources briefed on witness accounts to House investigators, Trump had been badgering the Secret Service for some time before Jan. 6 to make a way for him to join the march. They resisted—only to have their hand forced when Trump made his now-infamous promise that when the insurrectionists walked to the Capitol, he would walk among them. This announcement set off a mad scramble for a way to secure a route for Trump—one that was abandoned in part because the Metropolitan Police were too busy tamping down the “wild” situation Trump himself had sparked.
According to witness accounts, Trump, through several of his aides, began pressing the Secret Service to find a way for him to join the march as early as New Year’s Eve. They initially reached out to Tony Ornato, a Secret Service official who was serving as acting deputy White House chief of staff. Ornato was somewhat cool toward the idea, based on what happened after Trump dropped in at a “Stop the Steal” rally on Nov. 14. When Trump’s motorcade came rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue that morning, Ornato and several of his colleagues feared for the worst “because of how close Trump’s limo came alongside unscreened members of the public.” According to one of the sources, Trump’s Secret Service detail “really, really did not want him to go” to that rally.
Nevertheless, apparently knowing Trump’s nature, Ornato suggested that the aides reach out to the head of Trump’s Secret Service detail. The detail chief was equally cool toward a Jan. 6 motorcade, believing there was no way they could safely get Trump to the Capitol. The detail chief told the Trump aides in no uncertain terms that a Jan. 6 motorcade was not safe.
But on Jan. 6, Trump threw his detail a nasty curveball.
On the morning of Jan. 6, many Secret Service detail members believed they were doing an “in and out” — taking Trump to the Ellipse stage and then back to the White House, according to witness accounts. They were caught off guard when Trump made what they considered a surprise announcement, according to a senior law enforcement official.
“We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said, later adding. “So we are going to — we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we are going to the Capitol.”
When the agents heard that, they began madly calling their contacts at the Metropolitan Police about blocking intersections. However, the Metropolitan Police were themselves scrambling to help the Capitol Police with a growing mob near the Capitol. As a spokeswoman for the Washington, D. C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice, who oversees the Metropolitan Police, said: “We were asked, and the response was ‘no.’” Trump’s detail chief ultimately kiboshed the marching plan, deeming it far too risky.
According to The Post, this testimony suggests that the Jan. 6 Committee is taking a serious look at whether Trump tried to make the Secret Service an unwitting accomplice in his effort to steal another term. The Post also notes that this development shows that Trump knew more about the march on the Capitol than had previously been publicly reported. Yet no permit had ever been granted for this march.
If this reporting and testimony are accurate, the Secret Service may have very well helped avert an even greater disaster by refusing to give in to Trump’s demands.