A key House panel on Thursday released previously hidden testimony from a Trump-era Secret Service agent refuting the story of a star witness for the Jan. 6 committee, who had testified that President Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle to drive to the Capitol prior to the 2021 riot.

The Committee on House Administration’s subcommittee on Oversight released transcripts showing that the Secret Service agent who drove Mr. Trump’s SUV testified the president did not grab the steering wheel when told that they were not driving to the Capitol after a pro-Trump rally near the White House.

“I did not see him reach. He never grabbed the steering wheel,” the unnamed driver told Rep. Liz Cheney, Wyoming Republican who was vice chair of the now-defunct Jan. 6 committee. “I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.”

The driver also said, “What stood out was the irritation in [Mr. Trump’s] voice more than his physical presence, which would have been pretty obvious if he was trying to insert himself between the two front seats.”

Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi corroborated the agency driver’s testimony in his own interview with the Jan. 6 committee, which was chaired by Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi Democrat.

The testimony contradicts former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified publicly at a televised hearing in June 2022 that she overheard two Secret Service officials describing how Mr. Trump tried to grab the steering wheel and lunged at agent Robert Engel in the car after being told he couldn’t proceed to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

News outlets characterized her testimony as “explosive” and a “damning inside account of Mr. Trump’s actions.” 

But Rep. Barry Loudermilk, Georgia Republican and chairman of the House Administration subcommittee on Oversight, said the previously hidden testimony of the Secret Service driver shows that Ms. Cheney and other members of the Jan. 6 committee were interested in promoting a sensationalized anti-Trump narrative. 

“They hid transcripts of firsthand witnesses who directly refuted their ‘star witness’ Cassidy Hutchinson’s sensational story, which Cheney had personally procured,” Mr. Loudermilk said.

He said, “Cheney claims the Select Committee’s report was based on the testimony of hundreds of witnesses, whose testimony was made public. However, Cheney and Thompson did not make all transcripts public.”

Mr. Loudermilk said Americans can see for themselves “firsthand accounts and evidence” that “directly refute Hutchinson’s story.”

Mr. Guglielmi said Secret Service official Anthony Ornato told him he never had a conversation with Ms. Hutchinson “about the president attempting to assault Bobby Engel.”

Mr. Loudermilk said Ms. Cheney and Mr. Thompson’s committee conducted the interviews and had this information, but “chose not to release it publicly.”

Mr. Thompson, in a statement to The Washington Times, said Mr. Loudermilk “has failed to discredit the work of the January 6th Select Committee.”

“His so-called ‘report’ is filled with baseless, conclusory allegations rather than facts. That’s because there’s no escaping the reality that Donald Trump bears the responsibility for the deadly January 6th attack no matter how much Mr. Loudermilk would love to rewrite history for his political purposes,” Mr. Thompson said.

“The Select Committee followed all House Rules, and it did not withhold or destroy any record that was required to be archived. Moreover, every record the Select Committee had was turned over to the Department of Justice, which was in turn provided to the former president’s defense team through the discovery process during his criminal proceedings,” he said.

“Most of those records are publicly available through the Government Publishing Office’s online repository. The Members of the Select Committee and the witnesses who came before us—who were mainly Republicans from the Trump administration—acted honorably and out of patriotic duty to the Constitution,” Mr. Thompson said.

The Washington Times reached out to Ms. Cheney for comment.

Mr. Loudermilk slammed the leaders of the Jan. 6 Select Committee for their criticism of his panel’s investigation into the 2021 Capitol riot.

Mr. Loudermilk’s subcommittee has scrutinized the nine-person Democrat-dominated Jan. 6 panel. The transcripts’ release comes just days after Mr. Loudermilk and his committee on Tuesday said they want a criminal prosecution against Ms. Cheney after they released an interim report on the committee that condemned the “failures and politicization” of the panel and accused Ms. Cheney of witness tampering.

“Liz Cheney and Benny Thompson are trying to say that my investigation has disregarded the truth of Jan. 6, pointing to their Select Committee’s ‘tremendous weight of evidence,’” Mr. Loudermilk said. “We evaluated that exact weight based on their records and found it slimmer than claimed.”

“Former Chairman Thompson might not be aware of these transcripts, which refute the narrative put forward by his committee, so I understand his confusion. I encourage him to read these transcripts taken by his select committee,” he said. “I also invite Chairman Thompson to explain why the vice chair of his committee, Liz Cheney, was having secret conversations with the committee’s ‘star witness’ behind his back.”