Past hoax · Filed Oct 16, 2026
Trump Assaulted Secret Service Agents and Grabbed Steering Wheel of Beast Hoax
Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent and grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential limousine on January 6.
The claim
Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent and grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential limousine on January 6.
What it was
Cassidy Hutchinson said she heard it. The agents who were in the vehicle said it did not happen.
Timeline
Jan 6, 2021
Trump is in the presidential limousine after the Ellipse speech. What happens in the car is not on video.
Jun 28, 2022
Cassidy Hutchinson says she heard Tony Ornato say Trump lunged at an agent and grabbed the wheel. She was not in the car.
The days after
Ornato and the driver, Bobby Engel, tell investigators it did not happen.
Who was in the car
Hutchinson was not. The two men who were tell investigators the lunge and the grab did not happen. Her telling of what she heard stays the clip.
What aired
On June 28, 2022, Cassidy Hutchinson told the January 6 committee she had heard that Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent and grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential limousine when he was told he could not drive to the Capitol. She said Tony Ornato, the deputy chief of staff, had described it. CNN played the testimony like an eyewitness account.
The record
She was not in the vehicle. She did not see it. Ornato and the agent who was driving, Bobby Engel, told investigators it did not happen. There is no video from inside the car. A secondhand story, relayed from a hallway conversation, was broadcast as a scene with a steering wheel and a throat.
Left out
Left out was the chain of the story: heard it, from him, about them. Also left out was what the agents would have had to do, and failed to do, if a president had assaulted them in the car. That is not a small omission. An assault on a Secret Service agent is a crime with witnesses who carry guns. Those witnesses denied the crime.
Why it stuck
It stuck because the picture is cinematic and the hearing was built for cinema. A lunge is better television than a phone call. When the people in the car denied it, the denial was insider ball. The lunge was already the clip.