Trump wanted to march on Capitol with mob, January 6 committee hears

Donald Trump clashed with the Secret Service as he tried to head to the Capitol with his mob of supporters on January 6 last year, even after being told they were carrying weapons, according to new revelations from the congressional panel investigating the attack.

At a hearing about the attempted insurrection that was abruptly called for Tuesday afternoon, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, testified that the former president wanted to join the rioters as they moved to storm the halls of Congress and overturn the results of the 2020 election.

However, Trump was stopped by the Secret Service, leading to an altercation inside the presidential vehicle in which he tried to grab its steering wheel.

“Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel,” Hutchinson recalled an agent telling the president.

Earlier in the hearing, Hutchinson described how Trump had dismissed warnings that his supporters on the National Mall that day were armed.

“They’re not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here,” the former president said, according to Hutchinson.

Mags is a reference to magnetometers, metal detectors that were being used to prevent armed supporters from entering the pro-Trump rally.

Hutchinson also said that Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, had warned her that “things might get real, real bad” on January 6, highlighting how the former president’s inner circle was well aware of the potential for violence ahead of the attack on the US Capitol.

The bipartisan panel had not expected to hold any hearings this week but changed its plans to “present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony”, it said.

Hutchinson opened her testimony by describing meeting Rudy Giuliani in the White House on January 2. She said the former mayor of New York and Trump lawyer told her to expect that on January 6, “we’re going to the Capitol”.

When she asked Meadows what that might be referring to, Trump’s chief of staff responded that “things might get real, real bad”. “That evening was the first moment that I remember feeling scared and nervous about what could happen on January 6,” Hutchinson said. “I had a deeper concern with what was happening with the planning aspects.”

She also told the panel how White House lawyer Pat Cipollone confronted Meadows as the riot was unfolding. “Mark, something needs to be done or people are going to die. The blood is going to be on your effing hands,” he said, according to Hutchinson. However, Meadows allegedly pushed back, saying that Trump did not want to do anything to stop the assault.

Since they began this month, the public hearings of the January 6 committee have proven more damaging to Trump than expected. They are showing the lengths to which he went in pressuring state officials, his own justice department and vice-president Mike Pence, as well as a violent mob, in order to stop Joe Biden’s victory being certified.

Hutchinson had testified privately to the committee previously, and parts of her deposition were aired during a hearing last week. In one of the clips, she named some of the Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives who asked Trump for pardons in connection with their efforts to overturn the election. Hutchinson was a former Republican aide in the House of Representatives before moving to the White House.

The committee has sought not only to reconstruct the events of January 6 2021, but also to capture what led to the riot and Trump’s actions during that period.

As the panel has laid out its case, calls have grown for the justice department to prosecute Trump for trying to stop Biden’s victory. It is far from clear, however, whether attorney-general Merrick Garland will take that step.