Maggie Haberman Praises Secret Service for Keeping Trump from Going to the Capitol: ‘That is Not a Yes-Man’

New York Times correspondent and noted “Trump Whisperer” Maggie Haberman defended Secret Service amid the deleted text scandal by pointing out they did tell then-President Donald Trump they wouldn’t bring him to the Capitol with the rioters.

On Tuesday’s edition of The Lead, host Jake Tapper spoke with Haberman and CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins about the suspicions raised by the Secret Service’s deletions of text messages from Jan. 5th and 6th, 2021.

The text scandal has led to chatter of a cover-up, and to that point, Tapper and Collins noted the unusual political nature of Tony Ornato‘s role in the Trump administration. But Haberman came to the defense by pointing out that Ornato and Trump’s protective detail refused to take him to the Capitol:

JAKE TAPPER: We should just point out how unusual it is for a Secret Service agent to be asked to join the political staff of a White House, which is what happened with Tony Ornato, who became one from head of the president’s detail to deputy White House chief of staff, which is a political job.

KAITLAN COLLINS: And if you speak to people who worked in the West Wing at that time, Tony Ornato was very central to all of this in a way that you have not seen people in that position before be central in the way that I mean of West Wing planning. And he was someone that Trump often said, “Get Tony for me.” Things of that nature. That was the kind of nature of their relationship. And I think that’s why it’s put so much focus on it, and so much scrutiny, based on what he has said. What Cassidy Hutchinson testified he told her. The denials that have come as a result of that. And it’s just raised more questions, I think, than it’s answered.

MAGGIE HABERMAN: I think that’s true. But I do want to say, Jake, to be to be fair, I think there has been this question about yes-men, quote unquote, and whether some of these agents became that. What we know of what those agents did on January 6th, anyway, was tell Trump, “We’re not taking you to the Capitol.”.

JAKE TAPPER: Right.

MAGGIE HABERMAN: That is not a yes-man. That is somebody saying no to something that we know that Trump raised not just that day, but several days before that. And so I just think that that’s, for the totality of the picture, is worth bearing in mind.

Haberman is referring to the bombshell testimony of former top White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, in which she described a wild fracas in an armored SUV when the Secret Service refused to take Trump to the Capitol.

Watch above via CNN.

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