January 6 Committee Hearing Raises More Questions To Be Answered

I have more questions that I want answered after last night’s damning January 6 Committee hearing.

It is my understanding that the official White House photographer, an executive appointment, is ever present and records almost everything the president does during the day.

Last night we were told that Donald Trump dismissed his official photographer, Shealah Craighead, from the dining room where he sat for 187 minutes while watching the insurrection he planned and incited play out on FOX News for 187 minutes. So there are no photos of presidential aids and family members making entreaties to him to tell his violent mob to stop and to go home. This is a serious gap in the historical record during this crtical period.

Sending away the White House photographer exhibits a consciousness of guilt that Trump did not want anyone making a photographic record of him committing a coup d’état which could be entered in evidence against him at trial. I would like to see portions of the video deposition of Shealah Craighead.

Even more disturbing is the lack of any White House phone logs and White House diary entries during this crtical period.  These are record that are required by law to be produced and maintained, and turned over to the National Archives. There are executive department employees specifically tasked with this assignment. If they have been deposed by the January 6 Committee, I would like to see portions of their depositions – did they prepare these records, which were then later destroyed (or disappeared)? Or were they complicit by failing to prepare these records? In other words, were they part of the seditious conspiracy?

The lack of critical records for 187 minutes screams purposeful cover-up of a crime far worse than the 18 minute gap in the Watergate tapes.

Huffington Post reports, There’s No Official Record Of What Trump Was Doing During Capitol Riot:

The Jan. 6 House select committee revealed Thursday that there is no official record of President Donald Trump’s actions during more than 2½ hours while a violent mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
No calls in the log. No photographs of the president. And no notes about his activity.

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), a member of the House committee, detailed the gap in information during Thursday night’s hearing.

“As you can see, there is no official record of President Trump receiving or placing a call between 11:06 [a.m.] and 6:54 p.m.,” Luria said, displaying the White House call log. “As to what the president was doing that afternoon, the presidential daily dairy is also silent. It contains no information for the period between 1:21 p.m. and 4:03 p.m.”

“There are also no photos of President Trump during this critical period between 1:21 in the Oval Office and when he went outside to the Rose Garden after 4 o’clock,” she added. “The chief White House photographer wanted to take pictures because it was, in her words, ‘very important for his archives and for history.’ But she was told, quote, ‘no photographs.’”

Jan. 6 committee displays presidential call log and presidential diary from January 6, both of which have gaps during crucial afternoon hours. https://t.co/owxAGW2Qhw pic.twitter.com/DKLhiWELyU

— ABC News (@ABC) July 22, 2022

Though the official record does not detail Trump’s actions or movements, witnesses told the committee that Trump was watching his favorite cable channel FOX News in the White House dining room.

“Witnesses told us that on Jan. 6, President Trump sat in his usual spot, at the head of the table facing a television hanging on the wall,” Luria said. “We know from the employee the TV was tuned to Fox News all afternoon.”

During that time, Trump never called to request law enforcement to respond to the rioting or to check on administration staff, testimony given to the committee showed.

“We have confirmed in numerous interviews with senior law enforcement and military leaders, Vice President Pence’s staff and D.C. government officials, none of them — not one — heard from President Trump that day,” Luria said. “He did not call to issue orders. He did not call to offer assistance.”

“So if President Trump wasn’t calling law enforcement or military leaders, what did President Trump spend his time doing that afternoon while he first settled into the dining room?,” Luria asked. “He was calling senators to encourage them to delay or object to the certification” of the Electoral College count.

Calls not entered into the White House call log. Who were these senators? We know from media reports that there were at least 14 Republican senators prepared to object to the Electoral College’s certification prior to the sacking of the Capitol building by Trump’s violent mob. “The current roster of objecting senators is”:

• Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO)
• Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
• Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA)
• Sen. James Lankford (R-OK)
• Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) (Perdue’s term expired before the runoff election, so he is no longer a member of Congress and therefore not able to cast a vote)
• Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT)
• Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA)
• Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
• Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN)
• Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
• Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS)
• Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN)
• Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL)

Following the sacking of the Capitol by Trump’s violent mob, “Sens. Steve Daines (R-MT), Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), and James Lankford (R-OK) indicated that they will no longer object to the vote certification. Additionally, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) indicated that there should be no more objections.”

In the end, eight of these Senators went forward with objecting to certification of the electoral college results, even after the sacking of the Capitol by Trump’s violence mob. They are accessories who provided aid and comfort to insurrectionists:

• Ted Cruz (TX)
• Josh Hawley (MO)
• Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS)
• Cynthia Lummis (WY)
• John Kennedy (LA)
• Roger Marshall (KS)
• Rick Scott (FL)
• Tommy Tuberville (AL)

Here’s the thing: while there is no White House call log, there are telephone carrier records for each of these senators which would show when calls were made or received by their phone. Have those phone records been subpoenaed? I know that House members had their phone records subpoenaed.

One complication that I posted about some time ago, Were Donald Trump And His Co-Conspirator Coup Plotters Using Burner Phones For The January 6 Insurrection?.

HuffPost continues:

Luria then played video testimony of Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s former White House press secretary, acknowledging she’d given Trump a list of senators and their contact information. She also noted that lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s phone records show Trump spoke to his then personal attorney for approximately four minutes during that of time.

Also not entered into the White House call log. Giuliani also was reportedly calling this group of Republican Senators. The January 6 Committee played a recording of a message Giuliani left for one Senator.

Also not entered into the White House call log, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s call to Donald Trump:

We know that numerous others called the White House to speak to Donald Trump or text his Chief of Staff Mark Meadows from the presentation by the January 6 Committee. None of these calls were entered into the White House call log during this critical period between 1:21 p.m. and 4:03 p.m.

And then there are the text messages from the Secret Service which were supposedly innocently “erased” in the days after January 6. This is now the subject of a criminal probe.

All of this has the obvious appearance of Donald Trump trying to cover his tracks and those of his Coup Plotter co-conspirators.

Where or where is the Department of Justice in pursuing these insurrectionist Coup Plotters?