Robert Engel is a Secret Service agent who was in charge of former US President Donald Trump‘s security detail on January 6, 2021.
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in the surprise Jan 6 hearing on Tuesday that Trump had a “very strong, very angry response” when he found out that he was not being taken to the Capitol in his Secret Service limousine on January 6, 2021.
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According to Hutchinson, Trump lunged at Engel and violently attempted to take the steering wheel from him.
“I’m the f—ing president, take me up to the Capitol now,” Trump said, Hutchinson revealed in her testimony.
“Mr Trump then used his free hand to lunge toward Bobby (Robert) Engel,” she testified, adding that former White House chief of operations Anthony Ornato later informed her that Engel continuously told Trump that it was unsafe to visit the Capitol.
Ornato, Assistant Director of the US Secret Service, resigned on Monday, marking a major departure two months after explosive testimony from a former White House aide who claimed Ornato told her then-President Donald Trump was enraged when he learned his security team would not take him to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
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Robert Engel is a recipient of the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, according to the official website of the US Bureau of Justice Assistance.
The medal is the highest state awarded annually given by the President or Vice President to officers who have displayed courage and saved a civilian’s life.
While not much is known about him, Engel made headlines when he told Congress earlier this month that Trump was keen to visit the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
According to Politico, Engel said that Trump raised the idea of visiting the Capitol after he left a rally at the Ellipse, where he had told his supporters that he was “going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” and go “to the Capitol” with them.
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Engel said that he and Trump had “different views” on the idea and he ultimately drove to the White House.
Meanwhile, in April, Trump told The Post that the “Secret Service wouldn’t let” him visit the Capitol.
“I wanted to go. I wanted to go so badly. Secret Service says you can’t go. I would have gone there in a minute,” Trump said.