Let's remember who Anthony Ornato is..

[choie]

and his role in the Lafayette Square business:

Snip:

The Secret Service also took the unprecedented step of allowing the former detail leader to temporarily leave his job to become a White House political adviser. Anthony Ornato was hired as White House deputy chief of staff earlier this year. In that role, he helped coordinate a controversial June photo opportunity in which Trump strode defiantly across Lafayette Square to pose with a Bible after the park was forcibly cleared of peaceful protesters.

Ornato also helped coordinate numerous rallies across the country during the pandemic, per Trump’s wishes. The mass gatherings were blamed for increasing the spread of the coronavirus in some of the communities where they took place and left many in the ranks of the Secret Service infected or exposed.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-to-make-changes-to-presidential-detail-to-bring-on-agents-who-worked-with-biden/2020/12/30/d6fb8fe8-49ce-11eb-a9d9-1e3ec4a928b9_story.html

[eShirl]

1. oh shit

smell the fascism

[Kid Berwyn]

2. What Fuehrer wants, Fuehrer gets.

Fuehrer likes.

[agingdem]

3. that's why any Ornato denial testimony is tainted

with Trump's stink and becomes a she said/he said

[choie]

4. exactly.

n/t

[mountain grammy]

7. Yep!

[plimsoll]

5. Has he actually denied this?

Or have "people familiar with his thinking" denied this. As Josh Marshal has pointed out talk (on background) is cheap, and testimony under oath is the price of entry to the conversation. Neither of these to have even made the statements on their own behalf. This is plausible deniability in extremis. They can lie and deny that they lied, the journalist(s) who published this without attribution aren't suddenly going to reveal their sources (if it turns out to be the SS agents in question) because that would mean they won't get any more of these unattributed statements.

More perfidious Republicans.

[Hortensis]

6. Fwiw, of course, whether tRump tried to grab the steering wheel doesn't matter.

tRump repeatedly ordered the SES to take him to the Capitol where armed rioters, "my people," had already become violent. That orders were given and refused, and they returned him to the WH against his instructions, is officially documented and has been discussed with the investigation. Others also knew he intended to go to the Capitol and had been trying to talk him out of it, or in a few cases egging him on.

As for the titillating details these two are denying, I'm wondering if either of them by any chance discussed this amazing event informally with anyone other than Hutchison and, if so, what they said.

[choie]

12. I totally agree that this aspect

of her testimony is truly unimportant, but I thought it important to invalidate his integrity and honesty.

[Hortensis]

14. Oh, absolutely -- to highlight how powerfully he'd already done that.

He was transferred back to the SES, but far from anything to do with the presidential detail before Biden was sworn in. Highly untrusted. Wonder if anything coming out how will help further the housecleaning at the SES, including him.

[wryter2000]

8. I'm waiting to see

If he’ll testify under oath. Expect crickets.

[PatrickforB]

9. A regular brown-shirt. I always believed the Secret Service was

above any politics, and absolutely dedicated to its mission (fighting counterfeiting and guarding the First and Second families as well as former presidents).

Now, we have this, and also earlier reports they stood down the day JFK was killed.

Personally, I blame oligarchs for both - the billionaire parasites. They have a three pronged approach:

1. Provide a constant drumbeat of propaganda designed to promote fear, and to drive wedges between us.
2. Strip our treasury through tax policies, government contracts and privatization.
3. Empower dominionist 'christians' to impose a theocracy on us through the judiciary, political gerrymandering and voter supression.

It's working pretty good, I'd say, except for the fact that Trump proved a loose cannon instead of Norquist's proverbial 'dumb president who will simply sign laws given him by a Republican Congress.'

The billionaire parasites, corporate boards, and big Wall Street greed-lizards are likely furious over this whole thing, because it brings too much light and exposure on them, and on what the politicians they own are actually doing.

[Farmer-Rick]

16. I always suspected the Secret Service eversince JFK

Glad you see them for who they are now. Way to question assumptions.

I just thought it was way too easy for the assassin to murder JFK. The president was so exposed in a state that had fake wanted posters of JFK's face up in highschools. It was criminal that they allowed him to be such an easy target. They failed their job miserably back then and failed their country now.

I really think the Secret Service are traitors in waiting. They saved that weak minded Reagan but allowed criminals to kill JFK and attack our capital. Don't trust them.

[thomski64]

27. Often Presidential guards can be...

...proactively unreliable, as in the
cases of Indira Gandhi and Anwar
Sadat...

[jaxexpat]

20. I'd be surprised if US oligarchs don't tighten up their acts. At least in the short term.

I'm pretty sure their gamble with Trump hasn't played out as well as they'd hoped. But then after all, they're not the sharpest knives, even in their own drawer. In those moments when they bothered to pay attention, they probably misunderstood what was playing anyway. They could easily fall prey to their own propaganda, the over-riding perception despite the facts, that somehow "Trump was playing his role and driving between the ditches well enough".

I actually believe the billionaire types are shellshocked and were/are unprepared to understand that Trump actually undertook a coup d'état. There will be loud voices in heated discussion overheard at the polo club for the foreseeable future. For instance, "I say, Bertie, that clod you installed has made a right mess of things. Even my chauffeur is more surly than usual. Make this right or I'll see your kind blackballed for this tomfoolery." Peer pressure is a bitch.

[dchill]

10. "Let's remember..." - Thanks. I'd forgotten.

[bringthePaine]

11. this asshole is the very best they can do?!🤣

[RoeVWade]

13. ALSO, A guy embellishing a story to a 25 y/o single female is not unheard of. She was...

... relating what she said she was told.

I imagine the Secret Service also has a policy against discussing incidents outside of need to know. So the guy might want to deny he was even discussing it with her.

He's going to apply CYA to save himself.

[liberalla]

15. Thanks for the information. I don't remember reading this before, so it's new to me.

I'm just experiencing the usual head scratching confusion/disbelief of how anyone can fall for the insane drumpf schtick, and the lengths they go to to please their master.

[H2O Man]

17. Recommended.

Thank you. Indeed, thank you very much.

[Historic NY]

18. Funny how in her role as an assistant to the Chief of Staff that she

had details about the aggressive verbal exchanges with the SS but not the rest, they don't deny that. The water cooler talk had to come from those inside the SUV with Trump.

[mchill]

19. I believe this guy is reason Pence did not trust the limo driver

On 1/6–That he would likely take him to Alaska.

[2 Meow Momma]

21. K&R

[LetMyPeopleVote]

22. This idiot is a TFG fanatic and a RWNJ

[SunSeeker]

25. As is Engel. Those are the only kind of people Trump wanted in his SS detail. nt

[UTUSN]

23. K&R

[SunSeeker]

24. K & R

[dalton99a]

26. Yep, Ornato is bona fide Trump trash

[PufPuf23]

28. Thank you kr

[LiberalFighter]

29. He needs to be investigated and removed from the Secret Service.

[Icanthinkformyself]

30. We need an investigation

of every government department and agency to weed out the fascists planted by tfg's regime. They are here for one reason only. To create chaos and havoc and make Biden and his administration and all Democrats look weak and ineffective. Why is this character still getting taxpayer money? He should' been fired.