Gap In Phone Records Raises Fresh Questions About Trump's Handling Of Capitol Riot

As the investigation into the events of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol continues, a seven-hour gap in the White House phone records on that day raises fresh questions about former President Donald Trump's conduct that day.

On Tuesday, CBS News and the Washington Post reportedly acquired a copy of the White House’s phone logs from Jan. 6. In it, they discovered a gap of seven hours and 37 minutes that appear to contradict previous reporting about Trump’s contacts with members of Congress before and during the riot.

According to the log, no phone calls were made between 11:17 a.m. and 6:54 p.m., but Trump was reportedly in touch with Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., before the vote to certify the results of the November 2020 presidential election was set to take place at about 1:05 p.m.

Part of the gap may be due to Trump’s presence at the Stop the Steal rally at the Ellipse at noon that day, but not why his calls to Lee and Tuberville were excluded. Also missing was a frantic phone call from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to Trump during the storming of the Capitol urging the president to call off his supporters.

Lawmakers on the committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot are asking why this gap exists and whether the Trump White House may have engaged in a cover-up. The 11-page call log, which consist of the president's official daily diary and the White House switchboard records, was turned over by the National Archives earlier this year after Trump initially removed it and other public records at the end of his presidency.

Trump denied ever doing so through "burner phones" and a spokesperson said that the ex-president assumed all his calls were preserved or recorded. This leaves open the possibility that the president relied on official phone lines to reach members of Congress, but it does not exclude the use of non-official phones.

This revelation has been the second blow to Trump over his handling of the events of Jan. 6. A federal judge on Monday said that Trump “more likely than not” committed a federal crime in trying to obstruct the congressional count that day in a ruling on whether emails belonging to one of his lawyers, John Eastman, could be turned over to congressional investigators.