Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig Outlines Trump Deputy Tony Ornato’s Troubling History With the Truth: ‘Not So Great’

Washington Post investigative journalist Carol Leonnig offered a meticulous breakdown of how the January 6 Committee’s most shocking revelations have centered around Cassidy Hutchinson’s word against Tony Ornato’s.

Leonnig appeared on Morning Joe to talk about how Donald Trump’s allies are defending him from the explosive testimony of former Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Hutchinson testified that Trump had a violent altercation with Secret Service agents as he demanded to go to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, though Ornato, Trump’s former security chief, and agent Bobby Engel are reportedly preparing to dispute Hutchinson’s side of the story.

Asked about the Trump defenders seizing upon this “denial” as Joe Scarborough put it, Leonnig said Ornato’s “situation is not so great” because he broke the usual conventions of his position in order to function as an “acolyte” and right-hand man to Trump.

“This is a person who worked as President Trump’s security detail leader, the number one guy protecting the boss. And the boss liked him so much, he installed him in a political White House job,” Leonnig explained. “That broke every Secret Service tradition in the book, because he stayed as a Secret Service employee, but Trump essentially had him directing the Secret Service to make sure that all of its campaigns events, all of his photo ops, everything that he wanted to do to get re-elected went off without a hitch.”

As Leonnig continued to delve into Ornato’s fealty to Trump, she noted that even if he tries to claim Hutchinson’s recollection of events didn’t happen, “Tony Ornato has said a lot of things didn’t happen.”

“He has tried to say to the press and to me indirectly that the clearing of Lafayette Square was not done for President Trump’s photo on. Well, that’s not true. He was at the center of that,” Leonnig said. She also referred to former Trump officials Olivia Troye and Alyssa Farah, who’ve both painted Ornato as a liar.

“The Secret Service often tries to deny things that are unflattering and then when the rubber hits the road, we learn there is a little bit more to it,” Leonnig said. She added that it will be up to Ornato to testify on whether he exaggerated the Trump altercation story to Hutchinson before she laid it out in her testimony.

The conversation went on with Leonnig describing Engel as a Trump supporter, but also “a professional agent who…made the right call” by not taking the ex-president to the Capitol. When asked if the Secret Service is trying to bury the Trump story, Leonnig said “I will just caution everybody. I’ve heard the Secret Service deny a lot of things that turned out to be true.”

If Bobby Engle and the GS13 limo driver are the only people in this vehicle, and there may have been a third, but those are the two key people in this vehicle, it is Bobby Engle’s decision to report whether he’s been assaulted by the president. It is a crime to assault a federal officer, but Bobby Engle is under no obligation to say ‘I feel like I was assaulted.’ If he had a hand placed on his shoulder, on his clavicle, maybe he just said, ‘hey, Mr. President, settle down.’ We don’t know yet, but it is not incumbent on him to record that, and I have to say, every detail leader that I’ve talked to, former detail leader that I’ve talked to in the last day, has said if the president came at me, I don’t think I would report that as an assault on a federal officer. A detail leader basically would not do that.

Watch above, via MSNBC.