Coverups: Watergate – An 18-Minute Gap; January 6 MAGA/QAnon Insurrection – A 7 1/2-Hour Gap

Update to Were Donald Trump And His Co-Conspirator Coup Plotters Using Burner Phones For The January 6 Insurrection? (Feb. 12, 2022):

The AP reports, Records obtained by Jan. 6 panel don’t list Trump’s calls:

White House call logs obtained so far by the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol do not list calls made by then-President Donald Trump as he watched the violence unfold on television, nor do they list calls made directly to the president, according to two people familiar with the probe.

The lack of information about Trump’s personal calls presents a new challenge to investigators as they work to create the most comprehensive record yet of the attack, with a particular focus on what the former president was doing in the White House as hundreds of his supporters violently beat police, broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. The people were granted anonymity to discuss records that have not yet been released by the committee.

There are several possible explanations for omissions in the records, which do not reflect conversations that Trump had on Jan. 6 with multiple Republican lawmakers, for example. Trump was known to use a personal cell phone, or he could have had a phone passed to him by an aide. [Or he could have been using a burner phone, just say it. The man is a third-rate mob boss.] The committee is also continuing to receive records from the National Archives and other sources, which could produce additional information.

It’s starting to look like my litigator’s intuition is correct.

Robert Cosata and Bob Woodward at the Washington Post follows up on this earlier reporting today. Jan. 6 White House logs given to House show 7-hour gap in Trump calls (see below). Their reporting partner CBS News reports, White House records turned over to House show 7-hour gap in Trump phone log on Jan. 6:

Internal White House records from the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol that were turned over to the House select committee show a gap in President Donald Trump’s phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the building was being violently assaulted, according to documents obtained by CBS News’ chief election & campaign correspondent Robert Costa and The Washington Post’s associate editor Bob Woodward.

The lack of an official White House notation of any calls placed to or by Trump for 457 minutes — from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. — on Jan. 6, 2021 means there is no record of the calls made by Trump as his supporters descended on the U.S. Capitol, battled overwhelmed police and forcibly entered the building, prompting lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to flee for safety.

The “gap in President Donald Trump’s phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the [Capitol] was being violently assaulted” makes the infamous 18-minute gap in Nixon’s tapes look like nothing in comparison https://t.co/5IeZNbdjd6

— Laurence Tribe 🇺🇦 ⚖️ (@tribelaw) March 29, 2022

The 11 pages of records — which consist of the president’s official daily diary and the White House switchboard call log — were turned over by the National Archives earlier this year to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

The records show that Trump was active on the phone for part of the day, documenting conversations that he had with at least eight people in the morning and 11 people that evening. The gap also stands in stark contrast to the extensive public reporting about phone conversations he had with allies during the attack.

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1508765266016149506

1) Kevin McCarthy said he was on the phone with Trump during the Jan. 6 riot
2) He publicly threatened phone companies not to turn call logs over to the Jan. 6 committee
2) We now learn that McCarthy's call doesn't show up in White House recordshttps://t.co/tD75jtBxr8 pic.twitter.com/ZtKrGtN3Na

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 29, 2022

More: Kevin McCarthy’s phone call to Trump doesn’t show up in Jan. 6 call logs:

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has confirmed he spoke to Donald Trump on the phone during the Jan. 6 insurrection, but that call doesn’t show up in records obtained by the House select committee.

The California Republican was among a group of GOP lawmakers whose phone records were of interest to the House select committee, but his conversation with the former president doesn’t show up in call logs turned over to the panel by the House select committee.

“What I talked to President Trump about, I was the first person to contact him when the riot was going on,” McCarthy told Fox News in April 2021.”

During the interview, “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace repeatedly pressed McCarthy on the nature of his call with Trump:

Wallace: “During the Trump impeachment in February … a Republican congresswoman said this. I want to put it up on the screen. She said that while the Jan. 6th riot was in full force, you phoned President Trump and asked him to call off his supporters. And according to you, she said, the president responded, ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election then you are.’ Is she right? Is that what President Trump said to you?”

McCarthy: “What I talked to President Trump about, I was the first person to contact him when the riot was going on. He didn’t see it. What he ended the call was saying — telling me, he’ll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that’s what he did, he put a video out later.”

Wallace: “Quite a lot later. And it was a pretty weak video. But I’m asking you specifically, did he say to you, ‘I guess some people are more concerned about the election than you are?’”

McCarthy: “No, listen, my conversations with the president are my conversations with the president. I engaged in the idea of making sure we could stop what was going on inside the Capitol at that moment in time. The president said he would help.”

McCarthy’s “Fox News Sunday” comments about Trump contradicted public statements by U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera-Beutler, reporting by CNN and Trump’s tweets on that day.

McCarthy issued a threatening statement in August to telecommunications companies that complied with the committee’s request for lawmakers’ phone records, warning that a future GOP congressional majority would “not forget” their actions. McCarthy threatens companies that comply with Jan. 6 probe’s phone records requests.

CBS News continues:

The House panel is now investigating whether Trump communicated that day through backchannels, phones of aides or personal disposable phones, known as “burner phones,” according to two people with knowledge of the probe, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. The committee is also scrutinizing whether it received the full log from that day.

[In] a statement Monday night, Trump said, “I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term.”

The criminals Trump surrounded himself with, e.g., Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, and Trump’s private militia organizations – the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys, etc. – sure as hell all know what a burner phone is. Don’t gaslight me, old man.

The Washington Post reports, Jan. 6 White House logs given to House show 7-hour gap in Trump calls:

Internal White House records from the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol that were turned over to the House select committee show a gap in President Donald Trump’s phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the building was being violently assaulted, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

The lack of an official White House notation of any calls placed to or by Trump for 457 minutes on Jan. 6, 2021 – from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. – means the committee has no record of his phone conversations as his supporters descended on the Capitol, battled overwhelmed police and forcibly entered the building, prompting lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to flee for safety.

The 11 pages of records, which consist of the president’s official daily diary and the White House switchboard call logs, were turned over by the National Archives earlier this year to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

The records show that Trump was active on the phone for part of the day, documenting conversations that he had with at least eight people in the morning and 11 people that evening. The seven-hour gap also stands in stark contrast to the extensive public reporting about phone conversations he had with allies during the attack, such as a call Trump made to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — seeking to talk to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) — and a phone conversation he had with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

The House panel is now investigating whether Trump communicated that day through backchannels, phones of aides or personal disposable phones, known as “burner phones,” according to two people with knowledge of the probe, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. The committee is also scrutinizing whether it received the full logs from that day.

One lawmaker on the panel said the committee is investigating a “possible coverup” of the official White House record from that day. Another person close to the committee said the large gap in the records is of “intense interest” to some lawmakers on the committee, many of whom have reviewed copies of the documents. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal committee deliberations.

* * *

Trump was known for using different phones when he was in the White House, according to people familiar with his activities. Occasionally, when he made outbound calls, the number would show up as the White House switchboard’s number, according to a former Trump Cabinet official. Other times, he would call from different numbers – or no number would appear on the recipient’s phone, the official said.

* * *

Five of the pages in the White House records obtained by the House committee are titled “THE DAILY DIARY OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” and detail some of Trump’s phone calls and movements on Jan. 6. The remaining six pages are titled “PRESIDENTIAL CALL LOG” and have information provided by the White House switchboard and aides, including phone numbers and notes on the time and duration of some calls.
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.

Read the White House Daily Diary from Jan. 6, 2021

Read the Presidential Call Log from Jan. 6, 2021

[T]he New York Times first reported in February on the committee’s discovery of gaps in the White House phone logs from Jan. 6, but it did not specify when or for how long on that day. CNN first reported that “several hours” in Trump’s records provided to the committee lacked any notation of phone calls.

The documents obtained by the committee show Trump having several previously unreported exchanges on Jan. 6, including brief calls with Bannon and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that morning, before Trump had a final call with Pence, in which the vice president told him he was not going to block Congress from formalizing Biden’s victory. 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, as first reported in the book “Peril.”

According to White House records, Bannon and Trump spoke at 8:37 a.m. on Jan. 6. Trump spoke with Giuliani around 8:45 a.m. At 8:56 a.m., Trump asked the White House switchboard to return a call from chief of staff Mark Meadows. Then, at 9:02 a.m., Trump asked the operator to place a call to Pence. The operator informed him that a message was left for the vice president.

Bannon’s first Jan. 6 call with Trump lasted for about one minute, according to the documents. During that conversation, Bannon asked Trump whether Pence was coming over for a breakfast meeting, according to two people familiar with the exchange. Bannon hoped Trump could pressure the vice president over breakfast to agree to thwart the congressional certification of Biden’s victory, the people said.

But Trump told Bannon that Pence was not scheduled to come to the White House following a heated meeting Trump and Pence had the previous evening, Jan. 5, in the Oval Office. Bannon quickly pressed Trump that he needed to call Pence and tell him again to hold off on doing anything that would enable certification. Trump agreed, the people said.

According to the White House phone logs, Bannon and Trump spoke again late on Jan. 6 in a call that began at 10:19 p.m. and ended at 10:26 p.m.

Bannon, a central player in a group of Trump allies who met at the Willard hotel [Coup Command Center] near the White House on Jan. 5 to discuss their strategy for Jan. 6, was indicted last year by the Justice Department for refusing to cooperate with the House committee, which is seeking more documents and testimony about his conversations with Trump.

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.

During their conversation, Pence told Trump, “When I go to the Capitol, I’ll do my job” and not block Biden’s certification, enraging Trump, according to “Peril.”

Trump said, “Mike you can do this. I’m counting on you to do it. If you don’t do it, I picked the wrong man four years ago,” he added, according to the book. “You’re going to wimp out!”

[T]he White House logs also show that Trump had conversations on Jan. 6 with election lawyers and White House officials, as well as outside allies such as then-senator David Perdue (R-Ga.), conservative commentator William J. Bennett and Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Hannity and Perdue did not respond to requests for comment. Bennett, in a brief interview on Tuesday, said he did not recall the conversation.

According to the documents, Trump spoke with other confidants and political advisers that morning ahead of the rally. At 8:34 a.m., he spoke with Kurt Olsen, who was advising Trump on legal challenges to the election.

Trump then placed calls to Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the Republican leader, and Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), but it is unclear whether he reached them, according to the documents. A McConnell aide said Monday that McConnell declined Trump’s call. Hawley, a Trump ally, was the first senator to declare he would object to the certification, a decision that sparked other GOP senators to say they too would object.

The records show that Trump had a 10-minute call starting at 9:24 a.m. with Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who worked closely with the Trump White House and was a key figure in pushing fellow GOP lawmakers to object to the certification of Biden’s election.

Jordan has declined to cooperate with the House committee. The 10-minute call Trump had with Jordan was first reported by CNN.

Giuliani and Trump spoke on Jan. 6 at 9:41 a.m. for six minutes, and at 8:39 p.m. for nine minutes, according to the White House logs. According to the documents, Giuliani called from different phone numbers.

Trump senior adviser 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, the records show. That call started at 9:52 a.m. and ended at 10:18 a.m.

At 11:17 a.m., the White House 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.

The first member of Congress to object to certification of the election results was Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, with the support of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who put the so-called “Greenbay Sweep” (Coup Plot) into motion. The insurrectionists stormed the capitol as Gosar was speaking. My spidey senses tell me to start with these two as to the source of this unidetified phone caller. Just checking In boss: “It’s go time!”

The records of Trump’s activity throughout the day are very limited. The daily diary notes that he addressed supporters at a rally at the Ellipse midday and returned to the south grounds of the White House at 1:19 p.m.

“The President met with his Valet,” the records note of Trump’s activity at 1:21 p.m. on Jan. 6.

Trump’s supporters breached the Capitol building shortly after 2 p.m.

The next documented event in the president’s diary comes at 4:03 p.m., when “The President went to the Rose Garden” to record, for four minutes, a video message for the pro-Trump mob that had stormed the Capitol. The video, posted on Twitter at 4:17 p.m., begins with Trump falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen, then asks the rioters to “go home.” He added, “We love you. You’re very special.”
“The President returned to the Oval Office” at 4:07 p.m., the records state. The next listed action comes at 6:27 p.m.: “The President went to the Second Floor Residence.”

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. [His comms guy who does his tweets for him. Twitter had already suspended his account by that time.]

At 7:01 p.m., the records show, Trump spoke with Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, for six minutes, and later spoke with press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

At 9:23 p.m., Trump spoke with political adviser Jason Miller for 18 minutes. Miller has engaged with the committee and sat for a deposition, parts of which were excerpted in the committee’s filing alleging a criminal conspiracy was advanced by Trump and his allies.

That night, Trump also spoke with lawyers supporting his election fight, such as former North Carolina Supreme Court chief justice Mark Martin and Cleta Mitchell, a veteran conservative Washington attorney who worked closely with Trump on contesting Biden’s victory in Georgia, according to the records.

His final listed call came at 11:23 p.m. and lasted 17 minutes. It was with John McEntee, then the director of presidential personnel.

Trump’s former personal attorney and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, adds some intrigue. Michael Cohen claims riot committee witness purchased three burner phones at a CVS:

Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen tweeted Tuesday in response to the bombshell Washington Post report that so-called “burner phones” may have been used to communicate with the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. According to Cohen’s tweet, someone did purchase the burner phones and they are about to tell Congress about it.

Raw Story spoke to Cohen, who said that he has been in contact with the person who will testify to the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack and what led up to it in the coming weeks. That person will reveal, according to Cohen, that they were given $400 in cash and instructed to purchase the burner phones.

Those phones were then “delivered to two individuals who were engaged in conversations with Mark Meadows and others in the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 coup,” said Cohen.

Cohen added that the individual who instructed the person to purchase the phones to ask for a receipt. [Stupid Criminal of The Century.] However, as any person who shops at CVS knows, a shopper may enter their phone number to earn CVS rewards. Even if one pays cash, the purchase may be recorded in their system.

The committee is now obtaining the receipts for the burner phone, according to Cohen.

If true, this will prove to be very interesting testimony.