Anthony M. Ornart resigned from his role as an agent for the Secret Services responsible for the protection details of President Donald J. Trump in late 2019. To play an important role: Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Operations.
This title does not fully capture the importance of the work involved in ensuring the continuity of government and overseeing the logistics of the president’s movements outside the White House, security forces, and military offices. Dan Walsh, the chief of staff of First Lady Melania Trump, and Lindsay Reynolds, the Chief of Staff of First Lady Melania Trump, are quickly renowned to ensure that they reach those who are qualified and have few choices. To Mr. Trump who settled down to Mr. Ornart.
According to three former White House employees, Mr. Ornart didn’t want the job. At that point, he was having a good time working at Secret Services Headquarters. Like many agents, he served the previous administration beyond the boundaries of the party, first protecting President George W. Bush’s daughter Barbara, and later working on the details of President Barack Obama. And in any case, it would be very rare for an employee of an openly non-political institution to do a high-ranking job within the White House.
But when Mr. Trump told him he was getting him to work, he believed he had no choice but to take it, according to those officials. For the rest of Mr. Trump’s presidency, Mr. Ornart descended the corridor from the Oval Office, occupying an office adjacent to the office of the president’s son-in-law and senior Jared Kushner, in the heart of the Westwing. I was there. Advisor.
Currently, Mr. Ornart is at the center of the debate over what happened during the riots at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He is a witness to significant progress and a legitimate battle for credibility. An attempt to muddy the views of some critics, a devastating explanation of the actions of Mr. Trump and his aides, was brought to the House of Representatives on January 6 this week by another former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson. sponsored.
Hutchinson said in public testimony that he learned a wonderful scene from Ornato behind the president’s car on January 6, shortly after Trump’s speech at the ellipse outside the White House.
She testified that Mr. Ornart had told her that Mr. Trump had tried to force the Secret Service to take him to the Capitol and join his supporters. In her story, Mr. Ornart said Mr. Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of the armored vehicle.
Hutchinson also told her that Ornart had told her that the president had “plunged” into his chief secret service agent, Robert Engel. Engel and Hutchinson testified because Mr. Ornart associated the story with her and did not correct Mr. Ornart’s explanation.
Secret service officials said Mr. Ornart, Mr. Engel, and the driver of the vehicle are ready to testify that such an incident did not occur. (The Commission had already interviewed Mr. Ornart and Mr. Engel before Mr. Hutchinson appeared this week.)
Authorities do not dispute Mr. Trump’s angry demand for him to be taken to the Capitol. On the day of the riot, Trump administration officials told the New York Times that he was angry while the president was at the rally.
A secret service employee asked that his name not be used to explain potential testimony and admitted that a conversation had taken place with Mr. Hutchinson, but it was different from what she explained. He said he acted.
Committee officials on January 6 sought to strengthen Hutchinson’s credibility, saying he found a contradiction in Mr. Ornart’s testimony, although he did not publish a written record of the matter. Former colleague Alisa Farrah Griffin, Blame him on Twitter They lied about what they encountered during the 2020 protests at Lafayette Square outside the White House. Member of the Illinois Republican House of Representatives Adam Kinzinger and Committee, Written on a social media site“There seems to be a big thread here … Tony Ornart likes to lie.”
But Keith Kellogg, a former national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, publicly assured Mr. Ornart, like any other former civil servant.
“I think the guy is a straight shooter,” said John F. Kelly, a former White House chief of staff who broke up openly with Mr. Trump and worked with him when he was a special agent. .. Playing card details. “No matter where we go, I never thought in my mind that the work that the secret service needed to do was really well done.”
A former Trump administration official recalled that Mr. Trump had requested that he be allowed to attend major public events with a one-day notice, and Mr. Ornart frankly said that such a move was not possible. Informed.
During the first few years of the Trump administration, two former officials, Mr. Ornath, regularly flagged the Chief of Staff or one of his trusted aides to a type of directive or declaration called “limousine talk.” Said. .. Trump will make him expect people to act, or what Mr. Ornart thought the chief should know.
As the current assistant director of the Secret Services training office, Ornart is based at Secret Services headquarters, but people near the agency say he’s in the Maryland countryside to talk to future agents. He said he frequently visited the training facility. He has held various leadership positions in agencies, including the field office in New York.
Important revelation from the January 6 hearing
While there, he was responsible for all conservation activities at the UN General Assembly, including the prominent mission of ensuring the safety of personnel.
Originally from a town on the outskirts of New Haven, Connecticut, Ornart’s family owned a tavern in the city where local police and firefighters were infested for generations. He worked in the New Haven Secret Services office in 2000 when Mr. Bush was running for president. When Mr. Bush won, Mr. Ornart joined the details of the protection of his daughter. He stayed under Mr. Obama and was promoted several times.
The people who worked with Mr. Ornart at the Trump White House said he was his political, even when the former president sought his opinion, because Mr. Trump is rewarding with almost everyone around him. He said he had never seen him talking about his opinion.
However, some officials were uncomfortable with the decision to appoint a member of the Secret Service, who had long sought to maintain an independent image, as the White House’s Deputy Chief of Staff.
“I’ve never heard of it before,” said Rand Beers, a former Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security for the Obama administration. “The details of the secret service can be related to something quite delicate, pretty embarrassing, but keep the image of the secret service in that people generally don’t think it’s political by silence. I am. “
“What I can say is that it’s very unusual,” he said.
Luke Broadwater Report that contributed.