Metro PD Asked for Records Claiming President Trump Insisted on Going to Capitol Jan. 6

President Donald Trump speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

A U.S. House subcommittee that oversees Capitol safety has asked the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department to turn over any records related to a 2022 Twitter claim that former President Donald Trump demanded to be taken from his Jan. 6 speech at the Ellipse to the U.S. Capitol.

The Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight made the request in a May 29 letter to MPD Chief Pamela Smith.

The letter said the request became necessary because the now-defunct Jan. 6 Select Committee did not properly archive hundreds of documents and more than one terabyte of digital data related to its investigation.

“Unfortunately, the Select Committee failed to properly archive their records, including as many as 900 interview summaries or transcripts, over one terabyte of digital data, and over 100 deleted or encrypted documents,” wrote Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight.

“Therefore, the subcommittee must now determine what documents were not properly archived and assess what documents are necessary to accomplish a productive investigation,” Mr. Loudermilk wrote. “The subcommittee has no choice but to repeat much of the work of the Select Committee to understand their investigative findings.”

The chairman of the former Select Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), wrote to MPD in July 2022, seeking information on President Trump allegedly demanding to be taken to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and getting into an altercation with Secret Service agents.

Mr. Thompson’s letter cited a Twitter post by an investigative journalist who said MPD officials told him about the alleged incident with President Trump.

‘No Evidence’

“There is no evidence to support the Select Committee’s narrative that President Trump planned to go to the Capitol on January 6th,” Mr. Loudermilk said in a statement. “In fact, evidence hidden by the Select Committee but published by this subcommittee proves this narrative was false.”

The claim that President Trump lunged at the steering wheel of a presidential limousine when Secret Service agents refused his demand to go to the Capitol came from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to onetime Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows.

In March 2023, Mr. Loudermilk’s subcommittee issued an initial findings report debunking the claims made by Ms. Hutchinson before the Jan. 6 Select Committee.

In a transcribed interview, the Secret Service agent who drove President Trump’s SUV on Jan. 6 said President Trump never lunged for the steering wheel or attempted to get into the front seat in a bid to be taken to the Capitol. The driver’s testimony was hidden by the Select Committee, which did not release the full transcript of his remarks, Mr. Loudermilk said.

Ms. Hutchinson’s story was also refuted by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony Ornato, the man who allegedly told her about the SUV lunging incident.

“Despite the driver of the president’s SUV testifying under oath that the Hutchinson story was false, the Select Committee chose to validate and promote Hutchinson’s version of the story as fact,” the March report said.

Mr. Loudermilk told Ms. Smith that his subcommittee does not have a record of any responses MPD might have given to the Jan. 6 Select Committee.

In the July 2022 letter, MPD was asked to identify all MPD officers “who assisted with or were positioned along the route for the former president” on Jan. 6. Mr. Loudermilk said MPD should turn over any transcripts or other records it originally provided to the Select Committee.