Former President Donald Trump reportedly used the White House phone to call Republican Sen. Mike Lee on Jan. 6, but there was no record of the call in the official logs turned over to the House committee investigating Jan. 6.
The Washington Post and CBS News reported earlier his week that White House logs turned over to the committee have a seven hour gap in Donald Trump’s phone records on Jan. 6. There were no notation of any calls placed to or by Trump from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m., while his supporters stormed the Capitol.
Absent from those logs were phone conversations that reportedly occurred with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Utah Republican senator Mike Lee, who Trump called in order to get in touch with Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), to get him to stall the certification of the votes.
On Wednesday, the Guardian reported that Trump’s call to Mike Lee should have been reflected in the logs since the call was placed using a White House phone.
According to call detail records reviewed by the outlet, Trump called Lee at 2:26 pm on Jan. 6 through the official 202-395-0000 White House number. Sources confirm that the number recorded is a placeholder number that shows up when a call is incoming from a number of White House department phones.
The fact that Trump’s call to Lee was routed through an official White House phone with a 202-395 prefix means details of that call should have been on the call log. The absence of Trump’s call to Lee suggests a serious breach in protocol and possible manipulation, officials told The Guardian.
The committee is reportedly investigating whether Trump communicated that day through backchannels, phones of aides or burner phones.
But, the Guardian noted that if used the phone of one of aides to make calls, the details of those calls would at least be in the presidential daily diary, a compilation of the presidential call log, the president’s daily schedule and the presidential line-by-line document.
Since the presidential daily diary and call log needs approval by a senior White House official before they can be sent to the White House office of records management, it is possible for the records to be tampered with in this stage.
