Trump Used White House Phone For Call Not On Official January 6th Log
A new report from The Guardian reveals Donald Trump used an official White House phone to place at least one call during the Capitol attack on January 6th last year that should have been added to the internal presidential call log from that day but was not, another piece to the puzzle of nearly eight hours of missing calls from that day.
Trump made a called to Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah from a number recorded as 202-395-0000, a placeholder number that shows up when a call is incoming from a number of White House department phones, sources told The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell. Trump called Lee at 2.26pm on January 6 through the official 202-395-0000 White House number, according to call detail records reviewed by the Guardian.
Lowell writes that Trump himself made the call from an official White House phone, which means the call should have been included in the phone records that were turned over to the January 6th House Select Committee. The call was considered notable, as Trump mistakenly dialed Sen. Lee thinking it was the number for Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville. Lee then passed the phone to Tuberville, who told Trump Mike Pence had just been removed from the Senate chamber as rioters stormed the Capitol.
Trump’s call was not recorded in the presidential daily diary or the call log – a problem bc even though the daily diary entries are discretionary, per current and former White House officials, the call log is not. https://t.co/QY1VKHpt2O
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) March 30, 2022
Trump’s call to Lee wasn’t entered into either the presidential daily diary or the presidential call log, which is a problem, Lowell writes. Even though entries in the daily diary are discretionary, according to several current and former White House officials, the call log is not. But the call to Lee wasn’t the only one missing from the Committee’s collection.
And we get a step closer. Who tampered w the White House logs? Where are Sen Mike Lee’s call logs? https://t.co/lh9BtmvvR9
— Cliff Schecter (@cliffschecter) March 30, 2022
The now-infamous call from then-House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to Trump during the siege was also missing from the records. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) was in McCarthy’s office with him when he called Trump to beg him to tell his followers to stop the attack on Congress. “Well Kevin,” Trump said, “I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
We know Trump was on the phone during that 7-hour gap in his call logs on Jan. 6. For example, it has been established that he spoke with other GOP officials, including Sen. Mike Lee (whom he called mistakenly, while trying to reach Sen. Tommy Tuberville) and Kevin McCarthy. pic.twitter.com/ivgn4pg64O
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) March 30, 2022
Read the full report at The Guardian.