Trump's official White House photographer was told 'no photographs' as the Capitol came under siege
Donald Trump's call log and daily diary were silent in the critical period between the Capitol breach and his message telling rioters to "go home."The committee's seventh public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, July 12 at 1 p.m.
© Win McNamee/Getty Images President Donald Trump speaks on the telephone via speakerphone with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in the Oval Office of the White House on August 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee/Getty Images - The January 6 Committee's eighth hearing will focus on Trump's actions on Jan. 6th.
- White House call logs from January 6, 2021 show a 7-hour gap, CBS and The Washington Post reported.
- Here's the full timeline of Trump's known phone calls as recorded in official White House records.
Reconstructing the timeline of President Donald Trump's phone calls, communications, and movements on January 6, 2021 is a key focus of the House select committee investigating January 6 — and will be the subject of its eighth hearing in primetime on Thursday.
The head of Trump's protective detail, there when the former president wanted to be taken to the Capitol on January 6, is among the 24 Secret Service members whose January 5 and 6 texts are missing
While the USSS is comprised of approximately 3,200 agents total, DHS requested communication from just two dozen agents.Robert Engel, Trump's lead agent, and James Murray, the outgoing director of the Secret Service, who is leaving on July 30 for a new role at Snapchat, are two of the 24 agents whose messages from December 7, 2020, through January 8, 2021, were requested as part of an inspector general probe into the agency's response on January 6, 2021, and whose messages cannot be found.
The Washington Post and CBS previously obtained and reported on White House call logs and records secured by the Committee, documents that provide the most comprehensive timeline of Trump's known phone calls before and after the riots at the US Capitol.
But the official White House call logs contain a more than seven-hour gap between 11:17 am and 6:54 pm, a crucial stretch of time during which Trump openly pressured Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results in Congress, the president's supporters violently breached the Capitol, and Trump put out multiple tweets and videos about the events.
Here's the full timeline of Trump's communications on January 6 as documented in official White House call logs and records obtained by the January 6 committee and reported on by The Post and CBS.
From 'an attempted coup' to chaos, Jan. 6 hearing moments
WASHINGTON (AP) — Through eight hearings, 20 live witnesses and dozens of hours of recorded testimony, the House Jan. 6 panel has focused its case squarely on former President Donald Trump. The panel has unveiled stunning evidence about the Capitol insurrection over six weeks of hearings, laying out in vivid detail what the panel calls an “attempted coup” by Trump as he desperately sought to overturn Joe Biden's election. Culling material from more than 1,000 witnesses, lawmakers have shown that officials inside the government fought Trump's schemes at every turn, calling them "nuts" and "unhinged.
© Samuel Corum/Getty Images Then-President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021. Samuel Corum/Getty Images Trump's documented phone calls on January 6, 2021:
- 8:34 am: Trump speaks to lawyer Kurt Olsen, who played a key role in legal efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
- 8:37 am: Trump speaks to adviser Steve Bannon.
- 8:45 am: Trump speaks to lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
- 8:56 am: Trump returns a call from White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
- 9:02 am: Trump places a call to Pence and leaves a message.
- 9:24 am: Trump speaks to Rep. Jim Jordan for 10 minutes, a call first reported by CNN.
- 9:41 am: Trump speaks to Giuliani for six minutes.
- 9:52 am: Trump speaks to senior adviser Stephen Miller for 26 minutes.
- 10:32 am: Trump briefly speaks to bodyman and personal assistant Nick Luna.
- 10:40 am: Trump attempts to reach Sen. Mitch McConnell and leaves a message (There's no record that McConnell returned his call). Trump attempts to reach Sen. Josh Hawley, but is unsuccessful. Hawley said he never returned Trump's calls on January 6, when he objected to election results at the joint session of Congress.
- 11:04 am: Trump speaks to former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia.
- 11:17 am: Trump speaks to "an unidentified person." A separate document turned over to the Committee from the National Archives indicates that Trump spoke to Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia for three minutes at this time.
© AP Photo/John Minchillo Insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump breach the Capitol in Washington on January 6. AP Photo/John Minchillo Trump spoke at the "Save America" rally at the Ellipse at noon and returned to the White House at 1:19 pm, according to White House records. After the Capitol was breached at around 2 pm, the next record in the president's daily diary is Trump going to the Rose Garden at 4:03 pm to record a video telling his supporters to "go home in love and peace."
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger says he felt 'dirty' voting for Trump in 2020, but at the time he wanted to 'have credit with the base'
Kinzinger told The Post he cast a ballot for Trump so he could "say with a straight face" that he voted for him, explaining his thinking at the time.The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot has hosted six public hearings so far revealing their findings, which also included public damning testimony from former staffers in the Trump administration.
Trump "returned to the Oval Office" at 4:07 pm, according to the records, and "went to the Second Floor Residence" at 6:27 pm.
- 6:54 pm: Trump asks to return a call from White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino.
- 7:01 pm: Trump speaks with White House counsel Pat Cipollone for six minutes.
- 7:08: Trump speaks with Scavino for seven minutes.
- 7:16 pm: White House switchboard informs Trump of pending calls from Olsen, Hawley, Sen. Bill Hagerty, and lawyers Mark Martin and Cleta Mitchell.
- 7:17 pm: Trump speaks to Olsen for 11 minutes.
- 7:30 pm: Trump speaks to Martin for nine minutes.
- 7:40 pm: Trump speaks to Olsen again for 10 minutes.
- 7:53 pm: Trump speaks to Mitchell for two minutes.
- 8:39 pm: Trump speaks to Giuliani for nine minutes.
- 9:14 pm: Trump places a call to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
- 9:23 pm: Trump speaks to adviser Jason Miller for 18 minutes.
- 10:19 pm: Trump and Bannon speak again for seven minutes.
- 11:23 pm: Trump speaks to John McEntee, director of presidential personnel, for 17 minutes.
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Here are all the people who sought preemptive pardons from Donald Trump after the Capitol riot, per January 6 committee witnesses
- At least nine people close to Donald Trump reportedly requested preemptive pardons following Jan. 6.
- Former Trump aides named six GOP lawmakers while testifying before the Jan. 6 panel this month.
- A former aide also said Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani asked the then-president for pardons.
At least six Republican members of Congress requested preemptive pardons from former President Donald Trump in the wake of the Capitol insurrection, according to testimony from former Trump aides last Thursday.
Adam Kinzinger says he 'got super drunk' when Trump visited Republicans at a legislative retreat in January 2017: 'How do we deal with this?'
Long before breaking with the former president and serving on the January 6 committee, Kinzinger worked to cope with Trump's influence on the party.The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot has hosted six public hearings so far revealing their findings, which also included public damning testimony from former staffers in the Trump administration.
The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot has hosted six public hearings so far revealing their findings, which also included public damning testimony from former staffers in the Trump administration.
GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene were among the six GOP lawmakers also asked Trump to pardon them for their efforts in trying to overturn the 2020 election.
During a surprise hearing on Tuesday, June 28, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, also testified that former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows were among those who asked the former president for a preemptive pardon after the pro-Trump mob descended upon the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Hutchinson also previously testified that former Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio had discussed pardons with the White House but never asked for one.
On Sunday, Jordan responded to his mention during the hearing, accusing the January 6 House panel of "misrepresenting" a video clip of him saying "the ultimate date of significance is Jan. 6 in a presidential election in determining the winner."
"This committee, I think the country understands, is purely partisan," Jordan said. "And they're frankly not paying much attention to what's being said."
Justice Department doesn't need a House referral to charge Trump — and might not want one anyway, legal experts say
The House January 6 panel is weighing a criminal referral of Donald Trump, but such a move could easily backfire.But in an appearance on CNN, Rep. Liz Cheney said the House January 6 committee had yet to resolve a rare internal spat that spilled into public view last month over whether to make a criminal referral, formally recommending that the Justice Department prosecute the former president.
Here are all of the people who sought a pardon from Trump following the Capitol riot, per testimony:
Read the original article on Business Insider
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Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows
Hutchinson, who served as a top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows at the time of the insurrection, testified on Tuesday that her former boss asked the president for a preemptive pardon in the wake of the Capitol siege.
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Rudy Giuliani
In the surprise public hearing on Tuesday, Hutchinson also alleged that Giuliani asked Trump for a pardon over the January 6 attack.
Media outlets previously reported that Giuliani had also requested a preemptive pardon ahead of the siege in December 2020 related to a criminal probe into whether the former New York City mayor violated foreign lobbying laws through his business dealings in Ukraine.
Giuliani did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
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Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified in a previous video deposition that Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona was among six GOP lawmakers who requested a pardon from Trump for any connection to the January 6 Capitol attack.
The select committee in May requested that Biggs testify about any communications he'd had with Trump, Trump administration officials, and Stop the Steal rally organizers regarding efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The lawmaker refused to cooperate with the probe and accused the committee of engaging in a "baseless witch hunt."
Federal prosecutors have reviewed Trump officials' phone records and questioned witnesses as the DOJ's Jan. 6 probe zeroes in on the former president: report
Investigators are focused on the extent to which Trump was involved in his attorneys' efforts to mobilize fake electors, The Washington Post reported. Prosecutors have reportedly asked witnesses about Trump's communications and meetings. Attorney General Merrick Garland said this week that he hasn't ruled out charging Trump. The Justice Department's criminal investigation into the January 6 attack has become increasingly focused on former President Donald Trump's conduct related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to The Washington Post.
Following Hutchinson's public allegation that he sought a presidential pardon for January 6, Biggs denied the accusation in a Twitter statement and said the former aide was "mistaken" in her testimony. He accused the panel of "deceptively" editing Hutchinson's words to "make it appear as if I personally asked her" for the pardon.
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Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama
In the days following the insurrection, Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama requested a blanket pardon not only for himself, but for all 146 GOP members of Congress who objected to the certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 win, per the January 6 committee.
In an email to Molly Michaels, Trump's former White House executive assistant, Brooks asked for "all purpose pardons" for the lawmakers. The January 6 panel earlier this month shared an image of the email with a subject line reading "Pardons."
In the correspondence, Brooks specifically said he was writing on behalf of Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, as well.
In a statement to Insider last week, Brooks confirmed the legitimacy of the email and said he had made the request because there was "concern" that Democrats would prosecute and jail Republicans following January 6.
"Fortunately, with time passage, more rational forces took over and no one was persecuted for performing their lawful duties, which means a pardon was unnecessary after all," he said.
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Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida
Former Trump aides also named Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida as one of the lawmakers who sought a preemptive pardon related to the Capitol siege and efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election.
Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said Gaetz's pardon request covered "from the beginning of time up until today, for any and all things," asking for a pardon similar to the one received by President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal.
Justice Department staffs up team investigating efforts to overturn Trump's loss
A top public corruption prosecutor will supervise the team investigating former President Donald Trump and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images A corruption prosecutor is helping with "investigatory efforts" in the sprawling January 6 inquiry. JP Cooney previously oversaw the prosecutions of Trump allies Steve Bannon and Roger Stone. The staff move offers one more sign that the Justice Department is ramping up its inquiry into Trump.
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson also testified that Gaetz's requests for a pardon dated back as early as December 2020 — weeks before a mob of Trump supporters laid siege to the US Capitol.
Following the aides' testimony, Gaetz did not deny having asked for a pardon. Instead, he attacked the select committee as "an unconstitutional political sideshow" in a Twitter statement.
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Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas
After former Trump aides testified last Thursday that Gohmert sought a pardon from Trump, the Texas lawmaker denied doing so and accused the January 6 committee of spreading "propaganda."
"I have never sought a pardon for myself and anybody who says otherwise is a liar and possibly a lot worse," Gohmert tweeted last Friday.
Ahead of the Capitol riot in January 2021, GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert attempted to overturn the 2020 election by filing a suit maintaining that former Vice President Mike Pence, not US voters, had the power to decide the presidency.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide, testified that she heard that Greene had asked for a pardon from the White House Counsel's Office following the Capitol riot.
In response, Greene tweeted a clip of Hutchinson's testimony, writing "Saying 'I heard' means you don't know."
"Spreading gossip and lies is exactly what the January 6th Witch Hunt Committee is all about," she wrote in the tweet.
Greene, a staunch Trump ally, has been vocal about disputed claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, though in July 2021 she was among those who rejected the conspiracy theory that Trump will be reinstated as president in August.
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Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania
GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who serves on the January 6 House panel, said during a hearing that Perry had requested a pardon for his role in seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Perry, along with several other Republican lawmakers, has refused to testify before the committee.
According to the January 6 committee, the Pennsylvania Republican played a significant role in the then-president's efforts to stay in power by introducing Trump to sympathetic DOJ official Jeffrey Clark and pushing then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to set in motion a plan to keep Trump in power.
In response, to the allegation, Perry tweeted: "The notion that I ever sought a Presidential pardon for myself or other Members of Congress is an absolute, shameless, and soulless lie."
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Lawyer John Eastman
Conservative lawyer John Eastman, who pushed a plan to overturn the 2020 election results, asked Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to put him on a pardon list following the insurrection, the House Select Committee revealed earlier this month.
"I've decided I should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works," Eastman wrote in an email to Giuliani. The committee read the email out loud during a June 16 hearing.
When Eastman was deposed by the committee, he ultimately pleaded the Fifth Amendment 100 times, the panel said.
Eastman did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
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Several of Trump's previously reported communications from January 6, including a call with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Trump attempting to reach Sen. Tommy Tuberville but calling Sen. Mike Lee instead, do not appear in the official White House call logs, per CBS and The Post.
The Guardian also reported on Thursday that Trump called Lee from an official White House phone number at 2:26 pm, during the seven-hour gap in call log records, but the call was not properly documented and recorded in the White House call logs.
New reports in CNN and Axios indicate, however, that the missing seven hours of records was perhaps not due to a deliberate coverup or tampering, but a function of Trump's phone habits and the Trump White House's inconsistent and shoddy record-keeping practices.
CNN reported that Trump developed a habit of placing calls directly from a landline or cell phone and not through the official White House switchboard while in the Oval Office. That tendency could explain why his calls from the Oval Office on the afternoon of January 6, unlike those later placed from the residence, didn't show up on the official White House call logs.
Axios further reported that Trump's then-executive assistant Molly Michael, who played a key role in documenting and keeping handwritten notes and records of Trump's daily schedule, calls, and meetings, was also out of office for most of January 6 — and when she arrived at work in the afternoon, the White House was already embroiled in chaos.
The Committee is probing whether Trump may have used aides' phones, burner phones, and other back channels to place and receive calls on January 6 that aren't documented in the official White House call logs and records from that day.
Trump, for his part, said in a statement to the Post and CBS that "I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term."
Read the original article on Business Insider
Justice Department staffs up team investigating efforts to overturn Trump's loss .
A top public corruption prosecutor will supervise the team investigating former President Donald Trump and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images A corruption prosecutor is helping with "investigatory efforts" in the sprawling January 6 inquiry. JP Cooney previously oversaw the prosecutions of Trump allies Steve Bannon and Roger Stone. The staff move offers one more sign that the Justice Department is ramping up its inquiry into Trump.
Donald Trump's call log and daily diary were silent in the critical period between the Capitol breach and his message telling rioters to "go home."The committee's seventh public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, July 12 at 1 p.m. 
While the USSS is comprised of approximately 3,200 agents total, DHS requested communication from just two dozen agents.Robert Engel, Trump's lead agent, and James Murray, the outgoing director of the Secret Service, who is leaving on July 30 for a new role at Snapchat, are two of the 24 agents whose messages from December 7, 2020, through January 8, 2021, were requested as part of an inspector general probe into the agency's response on January 6, 2021, and whose messages cannot be found. 
WASHINGTON (AP) — Through eight hearings, 20 live witnesses and dozens of hours of recorded testimony, the House Jan. 6 panel has focused its case squarely on former President Donald Trump. The panel has unveiled stunning evidence about the Capitol insurrection over six weeks of hearings, laying out in vivid detail what the panel calls an “attempted coup” by Trump as he desperately sought to overturn Joe Biden's election. Culling material from more than 1,000 witnesses, lawmakers have shown that officials inside the government fought Trump's schemes at every turn, calling them "nuts" and "unhinged. 
Kinzinger told The Post he cast a ballot for Trump so he could "say with a straight face" that he voted for him, explaining his thinking at the time.The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot has hosted six public hearings so far revealing their findings, which also included public damning testimony from former staffers in the Trump administration. 
Long before breaking with the former president and serving on the January 6 committee, Kinzinger worked to cope with Trump's influence on the party.The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, riot has hosted six public hearings so far revealing their findings, which also included public damning testimony from former staffers in the Trump administration. 
The House January 6 panel is weighing a criminal referral of Donald Trump, but such a move could easily backfire.But in an appearance on CNN, Rep. Liz Cheney said the House January 6 committee had yet to resolve a rare internal spat that spilled into public view last month over whether to make a criminal referral, formally recommending that the Justice Department prosecute the former president. 
Investigators are focused on the extent to which Trump was involved in his attorneys' efforts to mobilize fake electors, The Washington Post reported. Prosecutors have reportedly asked witnesses about Trump's communications and meetings. Attorney General Merrick Garland said this week that he hasn't ruled out charging Trump. The Justice Department's criminal investigation into the January 6 attack has become increasingly focused on former President Donald Trump's conduct related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to The Washington Post. 
A top public corruption prosecutor will supervise the team investigating former President Donald Trump and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images A corruption prosecutor is helping with "investigatory efforts" in the sprawling January 6 inquiry. JP Cooney previously oversaw the prosecutions of Trump allies Steve Bannon and Roger Stone. The staff move offers one more sign that the Justice Department is ramping up its inquiry into Trump. 
