Jan. 6 White House logs given to House show 7-hour gap in Trump calls
The House select committee is investigating whether it has the full record and whether Trump communicated that day through backchannels, phones of aides or personal disposable phones
"Internal White House records from the day of the attack on the US Capitol... show a gap in Trump’s phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the building was being violently assaulted"
"The seven-hour gap also stands in stark contrast to the extensive public reporting about phone conversations he [Trump] had with allies during the attack..."
"The House panel is investigating whether Trump communicated that day through backchannels, phones of aides or personal disposable phones, known as “burner phones,”...
"In a recent court filing, the Jan. 6 committee asserted it has “a good-faith basis for concluding that the President [Trump] and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States” and obstruct the counting of electoral votes by Congress."
"A federal judge said in a ruling Monday that Trump “more likely than not” committed a federal crime in trying to obstruct the congressional count of electoral college votes on Jan. 6."
"Those records were given to the committee by the National Archives earlier this year after the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s request for the court to block the committee from obtaining White House documents from Jan. 6."
"In January, The Post first reported that some of the Trump White House records turned over to the committee were potentially incomplete, including records that had been ripped up and taped back together."
"The call to the vice president was part of Trump’s attempt to put into motion a plan, advocated by Bannon and outlined in a memo written by conservative lawyer John Eastman, that would enable Trump to hold on to the presidency"
"Trump’s final call with Pence is not listed in the call log, even though multiple people close to both men said that call occurred sometime in the late morning before Trump headed to the “Save America” rally on the Ellipse."
"Trump then placed calls to Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the Republican leader, and Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), but... McConnell declined Trump’s call. Hawley, a Trump ally, was the first senator to declare he would object to the certification"
"Stephen Miller – who told Fox News in December 2020 that an “alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote” – spoke with Trump for 26 minutes on the morning of Jan. 6"
"At 11:17 am, the WH daily diary states, “The President talked on a phone call to an unidentified person.” That vague call listing, with no notes on duration, is the last official record of a phone conversation that Trump had until the evening of Jan. 6."
"Trump’s supporters breached the Capitol building shortly after 2 pm...
According to the logs, Trump made his first phone call in more than seven hours at 6:54 p.m., when he instructed the operator to call aide Daniel Scavino Jr."
"Journalists often quote his incendiary language from the speech: “Fight like hell”; “We will not take it anymore.” But Trump also laid out a precise plan of action for the crowd:"
"Trump promised the crowd that if they did as he urged—if they marched on Congress, if they showed strength—they could force a change of the election result."
"To the dismay of many Democrats, Biden remains wedded to the futile goals of “bipartisanship” and “lowering the temperature.” Frustrated Democrats make the point that there can be no real bipartisanship with a party that plays to QAnon ..."
"By remaining so studiously above the fray and refusing to identify Republicans as the threat to our democracy, he has sapped his own base of energy and allowed Republicans free rein to light up their voters."
~@JRubinBlogger
"Biden and the rest of the party must paint an accurate picture of what a Republican-led Congress would look like. Chaos. Vicious partisanship. Gridlock."
"They [journalists] are supposed to invoke neither fear nor favor. How do they navigate the sticky wicket of a two-party system in which only one party seems to value the truth?"
"this coming election will include many state-level positions, and that many of those candidates are running on the Big Lie.
...
Hard to treat a person as a normal candidate when one of his main positions is undermining democracy."
“The mainstream press (the reality-based press, to distinguish them from the right-wing press) should focus on what's good for citizens and not the horse race aspect of the midterms, and they should call out lies clearly.”
~@Sulliview
“I hate this whole thing, and I am very afraid. They told us that if we don’t go it’s going to be very strict this time. No explanations will be accepted. We would be fired right away.
"“They stuck me on a bus & brought me here,” another woman told SOTA Vision, an independent media outlet. Two photographers from the outlet were arrested trying to cover the rally, and a journalist & another photographer from the outlet were detained."
In the courtyard outside, scores of black & green body bags were stacked along 2 of its walls. On the other side, dozens more victims of Russia’s assault on this eastern city lay exposed to the elements."
“All American companies must leave Russia. … Leave their market immediately, because it is flooded with our blood … Peace is more important than income.”
~Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine