Tony Ornato, who served as deputy White House chief of staff under Donald Trump, is expected to appear Tuesday for an interview before the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the plan.
Ornato is considered a key witness to the events surrounding the Capitol riot and will likely be questioned about testimony from Star Witness Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Over the summer, Hutchinson testified that Ornato told her that Trump became angry when his Secret Service detail refused to take him to Capitol as his supporters arrived at the building. Ornato told her Trump lunged at the steering wheel of the SUV he was in, demanding to be taken down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol.
Ornato's attorney, Kate Driscoll, did not elaborate on his appearance Tuesday, but told NBC News that Ornato continues to cooperate with the January 6th select committee investigation. Committee aides didn't want to comment on the expected interview, which was first reported by The New York Times.
Some of the officials from the Secret Service have been questioned about Hutchinson's testimony, prompting the committee to bring some of them back for questioning under oath. Ornato has already testified in front of the committee, but Hutchinson's testimony prompted the committee to call him back.
After serving in the Trump White House, Ornato was an assistant secretary for the Secret Service until he left the agency in August for a job in the private sector.
Before Thanksgiving, committee investigators spoke to Bobby Engel, who led the former president's protective detail. On the day of the riot, they were to meet a Secret Service agent who was in the lead car of Trump's motorcade at the beginning of November.
Kellyanne Conway, the former Trump adviser, met with the committee for nearly five hours Monday. Conway was a senior counselor to Trump from the beginning of his term through August 2020. She decided to leave the administration because she said she needed to focus on her family. She was a campaign manager for Trump's 2016 presidential bid.
Although Conway did not work for Trump on January 6, 2021, The Washington Post, citing 15 Trump advisers, members of Congress, GOP officials and others, reported she called an aide who was with the president that day and said she was joining others in urging Trump to tell his supporters to stand down. Conway told the Post that Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser's office called her asking for help getting Trump to call up the National Guard.
The committee is expected to publish a final report about its investigation before the end of the year, before the new Congress convenes in January. The panel is not expected to exist in the new, GOP-controlled House next year.