Former President Donald Trump is suspected of using disposable so-called burner phones as the Jan. 6 attack unfolded after official White House logs reportedly show a shocking more than a seven-hour gap in his official communications that day.
No calls were placed or received by Trump on his official phones from 11:17 am to just before 7 p.m., the Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing documents turned over to the congressional committee investigating the attack.
Trump is known to have called several allies during that time as a violent mob of his extremist supporters stormed the Capitol, raising suspicions that the logs were altered or he deliberately used other phones to cover his tracks.
Lawmakers on the committee suspect the White House log reflecting such a significant gap of official phone calls is evidence of a “possible cover-up” and is of “intense interest” to the panel, the paper reported.
The 11-page White House log handed over to the committee after a court order shows that Trump made several calls to officials and supporters in the morning before he spoke at a rally where he urged thousands of supporters to “fight like hell” to keep him in power.
It also includes several calls in the evening after law enforcement was able to repel the bloody attack, which was designed to block Congress from certifying President Biden’s win in the presidential election.
But for 456 minutes, the logs show no calls to or from Trump. Previous testimony revealed that he spoke to several lawmakers by phone during that period, raising the possibility that many other communications were also omitted.
Under the law, records of presidential calls and messages must be preserved. Trump refuses to use email, so the only official records of his communications are the logs that White House aides are required to maintain.
In a statement to the paper, Trump said that he does not even know what a “burner phone” is and assumed that all his calls were correctly logged.
“They call it the Big Lie, but the Big Lie is the exact opposite,” he said in an email message deriding the congressional committee. “They are the liars, they are the cheaters, and they are the ones who are destroying our Country.”
Story by Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News.