House Republicans’ report contradicts witness account of Trump’s wheel-grab

US House Republicans on Monday released a report they said contradicted sensational January 6 committee testimony in which a former aide to Donald Trump described being told that as the attack on Congress unfolded, the then president was so eager to join supporters at the Capitol he tried to grab the wheel of his car.

“The testimony of … four White House employees directly contradicts claims made by Cassidy Hutchinson and by the select committee in the final report,” read the report by the House administration subcommittee on oversight, which searched for alleged bias or malpractice in the January 6 investigation.

“None of the White House employees corroborated Hutchinson’s sensational story about President Trump lunging for the steering wheel of the Beast,” the report said, referring to the colloquial name for cars that carry the president.

“Some witnesses did describe the president’s mood after the speech at the Ellipse. It is highly improbable that the other White House employees would have heard about the president’s mood in the SUV following his speech at the Ellipse, but not heard the sensational story that Hutchinson claims Anthony Ornato, the White House deputy chief of staff for operations, told her after returning to the White House on January 6.”

Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump and his final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, testified before the January 6 committee in private and in public.

In public, her testimony about Trump’s anger at his inability to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden made her a star witness, compared by some to John Dean, the White House counsel whose testimony sealed Richard Nixon’s fate in the Watergate scandal.

In especially memorable testimony, Hutchinson described what she said Ornato told