Former United States President Donald Trump may have used "burner phones," which are disposable mobile devices, to communicate with other people during the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot as documents show a seven-hour gap in the phone logs during the insurrection.
The House Select Committee, which is responsible for investigating the details and events leading up to the violent protest, acquired internal White House records from the day of the attack. However, the gap in the documents, which was seven hours and 37 minutes, was missing and includes the time when Trump supporters assaulted the Capitol building.
Missing Phone Logs
The missing timeframe means there was a lack of official White House notation of any calls placed to or by Trump from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. The time included the moments when supporters of the former president overwhelmed Capitol police and stormed the building, forcing lawmakers, including former Vice President Mike Pence, to flee for their safety.
The documents were 11 pages long and included records of the president's official daily diary and the White House switchboard call log. They were handed over by the National Archive earlier this year after Trump's attempts to block the move were rejected, as per CBS News.
The House Select Committee has now started its investigation of determining whether or not the records they have of phone calls are complete. Part of the probe includes finding out if former President Trump used backchannels, phones of aides, or burner phones, to avoid having his conversations recorded.
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The acquired records already showed that the Republican businessman was active on the phone for the better part of the day, with documented conversations with at least eight people in the morning and 11 others in the evening. The seven-hour gap also comes in contrast to extensive public reporting that he was on the phone with several of his allies during the Jan. 6 attack.
According to the Washington Post, the list of individuals Trump called at the time includes Utah Sen. Mike Lee, an attempt to communicate with Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, and a phone conversation with White House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.
Trump's Futile Attempts
Investigators who have looked into the records have not found evidence that the call logs were tampered with or deleted. The former president is widely known for routinely using his personal cell phone and those of his aides to talk with other aides, congressional allies, and outside confidants.
Three former officials who worked under the Trump administration said that the Republican businessman mostly used the switchboard operator for outgoing calls whenever he was in the residence. They said that he would occasionally use it from the Oval Office but would more often make calls through the assistants sitting outside the office.
People who wanted to communicate with Trump sometimes had to call the cellphone of Scavino Jr. Despite the missing timeframe within the call logs, the documents show how personally involved the former president was in his last-ditch attempt to remain in office, the New York Times reported.
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