A minute-by-minute accounting of the President’s movements has been a central focus of the House select committee investigating January 6, and sources tell CNN that several members of the Secret Service have testified.
“Secret Service personnel assigned to the President’s detail told administration officials that proposed travel plans to visit the Capitol on January 6 would not be feasible,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Tuesday.
Guglielmi says after Trump publicly expressed an interest in traveling to the Capitol during the January 6 speech, the agency asked the Metropolitan Police Department to figure out if a motorcade route would be possible.
“After further discussions at senior levels, no motorcade route to the Capitol was selected or secured by the Secret Service,” he said.
On Tuesday, a DC official confirmed that the US Secret Service asked DC police for help with a presidential motorcade but that request was turned down.
“We were asked, and the response was no,” said Dora Taylor-Lowe, a spokeswoman for the DC deputy mayor that oversees the police department.
The Washington Post was first to report the discussions that ultimately ended without a trip to the Capitol.
The head of Trump’s protective detail, Robert Engel, Vice President Mike Pence’s detail, Tim Giebels, and a deputy chief of staff for Trump, Tony Ornato, all spoke to the committee, a source told CNN. The source added conversations have occurred regularly including as recently as this week.
Guglielmi said the agency has cooperated fully with the investigation, including handing over documents.
CNN has reached out to Trump for comment.
Building a timeline of Trump’s day has been a challenge for the House committee due to missing or incomplete records normally kept by White House staff.
In its letter to Ivanka Trump seeking her cooperation back in January, the House panel revealed it had received testimony and notes from a former senior White House official who shared that former Trump “genuinely” wanted to march to the Capitol in some fashion after his speech at the ellipse on January 6. The committee said the testimony provided by this individual contradicted the account of Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows who stated that Trump never intended to walk to the Capitol.
“The testimony and contemporaneous notes of a former senior White House official contradict Mr. Meadows’ account; that former senior official explained that the President genuinely did wish to walk or drive with the protestors to Capitol Hill at the close of his speech on January 6th,” a footnote in the subpoena reads.
This story has been updated with additional developments Tuesday.
CNN’s Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.
