Jan. 6 panel IDs 8-hour gap in official Trump phone logs
WASHINGTON — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has identified a roughly 8-hour gap in official White House records of then-President Donald Trump’s phone calls as the violence unfolded and his supporters stormed the building, according to two people familiar with the probe.
The gap extends from a little after 11 a.m. to about 7 p.m. Jan. 6, 2021, and involves White House phone calls, according to one of the people. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation.
The committee is investigating the gap in the official White House log, which includes the switchboard and a daily record of the president’s activities. But it does not mean the panel is in the dark about what Trump was doing during that time.
The House panel has made broad requests for separate cell phone records and has talked to more than 800 witnesses, including many of the aides who spent the day with Trump. The committee also has thousands of texts from the cell phone of former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The committee’s effort to piece together Trump’s day as his supporters broke into the Capitol underscores the challenge that his habitual avoidance of records laws poses — not only to historians of his tumultuous four years but to the official panel, which intends to capture the full story of the former president’s attempt to overturn the election results in hearings and reports later this year.
The panel has trained a
particular focus on what the president was doing in the White House as hundreds of his supporters beat police, broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory. The missing records raise questions of whether Trump purposefully circumvented official channels to avoid records.
Trump was known to use other people’s cell phones to make calls, as well as his own. He often bypassed the White House switchboard, placing calls directly, according to a former aide who requested anonymity to discuss the private calls. In fact, it is not unusual for presidential calls to be channeled through other people.
It is unclear whether the committee has obtained cell phone records related to Trump after issuing a broad records preservation order in August to almost three dozen telecommunications and social media companies. The individuals included in that request included Trump, members of his family and several of his Republican allies in Congress.
The committee also
is continuing to receive records from the National Archives and other sources, which could produce additional information and help produce a full picture of the president’s communications.
During the eight hours on Jan. 6, Trump addressed a huge crowd of supporters at the nearby Ellipse, repeated falsehoods about his election defeat and told them to walk to the Capitol, make their voices heard and “fight like hell.” He then returned to the White House and watched on TV as the mob broke into the Capitol. More than 700 people have been arrested in the violence.
Several of Trump’s calls that day are already publicly known. He spoke to Vice President Mike Pence between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., according to a person familiar with that conversation, as he had been lobbying Pence publicly and privately to object while presiding over the certification. He also spoke with several GOP members of the House and Senate as his allies in Congress were preparing to challenge the official vote count.
The exact length of time of the gap was first reported by The Washington Post.