The White Sox and Blue Jays have agreed to a swap of catchers, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan (Twitter link). Zack Collins is headed to Toronto, while Reese McGuire has been dealt to the Sox.
Rumors have swirled for months that the Jays were looking to move some of their catching depth, though today’s move still gives Toronto a bit more roster flexibility behind the plate while still retaining that depth. Collins has a minor league option remaining while McGuire is out of options, so the Blue Jays can now more easily stash Collins at Triple-A.
From Chicago’s perspective, the Sox now have a more established big leaguer who can work as the backup behind Yasmani Grandal. Since Grandal will get some time at the DH spot, McGuire and Seby Zavala (who is also out of options) can each get some action behind the plate, and the expanded 28-man rosters for April will allow the White Sox the luxury of carrying three catchers.
The Pirates selected McGuire with the 14th overall pick of the 2013 draft, and he was a regular on top-100 prospect lists during his time in Pittsburgh’s farm system. However, despite some good numbers in limited action in 2018-19, McGuire’s potential has yet to really manifest itself at the big league level. The 27-year-old has hit .248/.297/.390 with nine homers over an even 400 plate appearances with the Blue Jays, with McGuire often finding himself behind Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk, and Luke Maile on the catching depth chart.
Collins and McGuire share rather similar resumes — both are left-handed hitting catchers, they were born less than a month apart in 1995, and both are former first-round picks. The White Sox selected Collins 10th overall in 2016, and like McGuire, Collins has also yet to offer much production in the majors. Collins has a .195/.315/.330 slash line and seven home runs in 351 career PA, and he has struck out in 113 of those plate appearances.
Defense has been a question mark for Collins dating back to his college days at the University Of Miami, whereas McGuire is regarded as a decent defender. (Statcast gave McGuire a solid +4 in framing runs during the 2021 season.) This could be seen as something of a hitting-for-defense swap, if the Jays think they’ve seen something in Collins that can allow him to unlock his power potential.
With Collins able to be optioned, Jansen and Kirk now projects as Toronto’s regular catching tandem, and Kirk is also expected to get some DH time. It isn’t out of the question that the Jays might still deal from this catching depth, as star prospect Gabriel Moreno is starting the season at Triple-A and could be making his Major League debut before 2022 is out.
At 2.26pm on 6 January last year, Donald Trump picked up a White House phone and placed a call to Mike Lee, the Republican senator from Utah. The communication came at a very significant moment.
Thirty-seven minutes earlier, a riot had been declared by Washington DC police. Minutes after that the then vice-president, Mike Pence, was rushed out of the Senate chamber, where he had been presiding over Congress’s certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, and put into hiding.
Fifteen minutes before Trump made the call his supporters, exhorted by the sitting president to “fight like hell” against what he falsely claimed was a rigged election, broke through a window in the south front of the Capitol and entered the heart of American democracy.
The January 6 insurrection was under way.
Yet when you look for recorded details of Trump’s 2.26pm call which was made, as Hugo Lowell of the Guardian revealed, on an official White House landline, they are nowhere to be found. The Lee call was one of an unknown number that Trump made during a mysterious gap of 7 hours 37 minutes that exists in the call logs – precisely the timeframe of the Capitol attack.
Those missing call logs, disclosed by the Washington Post and CBS News, raise several burning questions – how did the records disappear? who carried out the excising? – but none more urgent than this: what was Trump trying to hide?
“A gap like this doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not a coincidence,” said Charlie Sykes, columnist at the Trump-resistant conservative outlet the Bulwark. “There is no innocent explanation here – somebody made the decision to rip up the record for the crucial hours of January 6 and there has to be a reason why.”
What Trump is trying to hide lies at the heart of the House committee investigation into the January 6 insurrection. The former president has consistently tried to block information flowing to the committee – pressuring his inner circle not to testify, tearing up documents before they were handed over.
The stakes in the tussle over evidence rose sharply this week when a federal judge said in a ruling that Trump “more likely than not … dishonestly conspired to obstruct” Congress on 6 January. That would be a criminal act.
A mob of Trump supporters storms the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. At the time Donald Trump was in the White House and made at least one phone call not recorded in official records. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters
There has never been any doubt that Trump inspired his supporters to descend on Washington on that fateful day, nor that he encouraged them to protest along the lines of the “big lie” that the election was stolen from him.
Three weeks before the insurrection he tweeted: “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
But Trump is a past master at making outrageous comments while simultaneously disguising or leaving ambiguous his actual intentions. What exactly did he mean by “will be wild!”? How far was he prepared to take that proposition? Critically, would the missing call logs covering the timeframe of the insurrection offer clues to his motivation?
One call that it is known Trump made within the black hole of those missing hours between 11.17am and 6.54pm was to Pence. Late on 6 January the incumbent president made one final attempt to persuade his deputy to commit an illegal act – to delay certification of Biden’s win in contravention of his constitutional duties.
According to a leaked account of the call to the New York Times, Trump cajoled Pence with the immortal words: “You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy.”
Pence went down in history as a patriot – by doing his constitutional duty and certifying the legitimate result. But that phone call marked an important point in the chronology of Trump’s coup attempt: it amounted to a point of no return – his last move to hang on to power through political persuasion.
Had Trump strayed beyond that point, he would have entered much darker territory. As Sykes put it: “When he got off the phone to Mike Pence, who did he call next? Once he knew the vice-president was not going to do his bidding, what next?”
David Frum, a former White House speechwriter for George W Bush, writing in the Atlantic, said there were two major lines of inquiry: did Trump give a go-ahead to the Capitol insurrection in advance, and did he coordinate in any way with the attackers.
The January 6 committee has its focus firmly locked on the so-called “War Room” – the gaggle of Trump’s close aides that gathered at the Willard hotel in Washington as the “command centre” of Trump’s efforts to subvert the election. They included his former strategist Steve Bannon, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, the conservative law professor who prepared a detailed plan of how Trump could hold on to power illegitimately.
The Willard hotel in Washington where a ‘War Room’ of Trump allies formed the ‘command centre’ of efforts to subvert the election. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
As the Guardian has reported, Trump conveyed to the group Pence’s refusal to go along with the coup plot. But beyond that we remain in the dark.
As a result of the missing logs it is unclear whether the then president remained in touch with the Willard Hotel group as the insurrection unfolded. Nor is it known whether they discussed any further tactics.
The gap in official records could also hamper the committee’s attempt to ascertain whether there were direct contacts between Trump and January 6 organisers. Ali Alexander, who instigated the “Stop the Steal” movement and who planned a “One Nation Under God” rally in the Capitol grounds that was canceled amid the violence, has been a figure of interest to the committee.
Before the insurrection he spoke to Kimberly Guilfoyle, the partner of Trump’s son Don Jr. CNN has reported that he also said in videos posted before the attack that he planned to reach out to the far-right groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to request they provide security for his rally.
Both organisations have members who are being prosecuted for criminal acts on January 6. Earlier this month the leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was arrested on conspiracy and other charges. The founder of the Oath Keepers and 10 other members have been charged with seditious conspiracy.
Alexander testified before the January 6 committee in December. In his opening remarks, he said: “I had nothing to do with any violence or lawbreaking that happened on January 6. I had nothing to do with the planning. I had nothing to do with the preparation. And I had nothing to do with the execution.”
Those words could easily have come from the mouth of Donald J Trump. The challenge facing the committee, in the absence of the vanishing phone logs, is to establish are they true.
11:11am: The Dodgers and White Sox are in agreement on a trade sending outfielder AJ Pollock to Chicago in exchange for reliever Craig Kimbrel, reports Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter link).
It’s a fairly stunning blockbuster involving two high-profile and highly paid veterans. Pollock is earning $10MM this season and is owed at least a $5MM buyout on a $10MM player option for the 2023 season. Kimbrel, meanwhile, is slated to earn $16MM this coming season after the ChiSox picked up a 2022 club option despite a poor performance following the trade that sent him from Chicago’s north side to the south side last summer.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweets that there is no money changing hands in the deal, which means the Dodgers are effectively adding an extra million dollars in financial commitments (assuming Pollock declines his player option at a net $5MM and tests free agency next winter). The Dodgers will also see their luxury ledger tick upward a bit as a result of the trade. Pollock’s contract was a four-year, $55MM deal but counted as five years and $60MM for luxury tax purposes, as the player option on the end of the contract was considered guaranteed money. Thus, the contract carried a $12MM luxury hit. As Matt Gelb of The Athletic recently reported, the new CBA stipulates that a traded contract’s remaining actual dollars will count toward the luxury tax. As such, Kimbrel will now represent a $16MM luxury hit for the Dodgers (rather than the $14.5MM he’d have represented under previous rules).
Setting aside the financial component of the blockbuster swap, the trade fills a need for both teams. The Dodgers’ bullpen was lacking a shutdown option late in the game, and Kimbrel restored his credibility as a dynamic ninth-inning option through the first four months of the 2021 season while closing games for the Cubs. He’ll now join Blake Treinen, Daniel Hudson and young flamethrower Brusdar Graterol at the back of the Los Angeles bullpen.
Meanwhile, the White Sox have yet to address a glaring hole in right field all offseason. The closest the Sox had come to bolstering the right field position was a recent trade for the Phillies’ Adam Haseley, but the Sox announced that Haseley was optioned to Triple-A just minutes before word of today’s trade broke. Pollock will now step right into the outfield mix, giving the Sox a quality option to pair with center fielder Luis Robert and left fielder Eloy Jimenez. The Sox went much of the 2021 season with first basemen Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets masquerading as corner outfielders, so bringing Pollock into the fold will give them a true outfielder — and a solid defensive one at that.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki is in exclusive talks with MSNBC to join the network after she leaves the White House around May, according to a source close to the matter.
Why it matters: It’s been speculated for weeks that Psaki would leave the White House for a TV gig. White House communications staffers often negotiate TV jobs once they leave an administration.
Details: Psaki has been in close consultation with the White House counsel’s office about her departure, according to two sources familiar with the plans. She’s been treading carefully on the ethics and legal aspects of her plans.
No contracts have been signed. Government ethics rules have stipulations about how public employees can pursue private sector job opportunities while in office.
She’s also told some senior officials at the White House about her departure and her plans to join MSNBC, according to two sources.
Psaki has not yet formally told the White House press team about her departure, an administration source tells Axios.
MSNBC has been working with its compliance lawyers to make sure their conversations didn’t violate any government regulations, according to a source close to the matter.
Psaki is now in exclusive talks with MSNBC, and the deal is nearly final. It was reported by Puck last month that Psaki also had conversations with CNN and that other networks had expressed interest in signing her.
Psaki will host a show for MSNBC on NBCUniversal’s streaming platform, Peacock.
She will also be a part of live programming on MSNBC’s cable network as a voice on different shows, but she will not be hosting the 9 p.m. hour replacing Rachel Maddow, which has been speculated.
Between the lines: Psaki’s deal is similar to that of Symone Sanders, a former adviser and senior spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sanders signed an exclusive deal with MSNBC in January to host a show on Peacock and to participate in live programming on MSNBC.
Her new show, called Symone, will air at 4 p.m. ET on weekends on MSNBC and will stream on Mondays and Tuesdays on Peacock, per Deadline.
The big picture: The streaming era has afforded networks more opportunities to poach top talent and give them their own shows.
NBC News in particular has several outlets for talent looking to host their own programs. In addition to MSNBC’s hub on Peacock, it also has a 24/7 news streaming network called NBC News Now.
Political spokespeople are often prime targets for cable networks, whose audiences tend to be political junkies.
Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany joined Fox News as a commentator last March. Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has his own show on Newsmax.
Former Bush administration official Nicolle Wallace hosts a show on MSNBC.
CBS News recently signed former Trump administration official Mick Mulvaney as a paid on-air contributor.
Donald Trump used an official White House phone to place at least one call during the Capitol attack on January 6 last year that should have been reflected in the internal presidential call log from that day but was not, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The former president called the phone of a Republican senator, Mike Lee, with a number recorded as 202-395-0000, a placeholder number that shows up when a call is incoming from a number of White House department phones, the sources said.
The number corresponds to an official White House phone and the call was placed by Donald Trump himself, which means the call should have been recorded in the internal presidential call log that was turned over to the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.
Trump’s call to Lee was reported at the time, as well as its omission from the call log, by the Washington Post and CBS. But the origin of the call as coming from an official White House phone, which has not been previously reported, raises the prospect of tampering or deletion by Trump White House officials.
It also appears to mark perhaps the most serious violation of the Presidential Records Act – the statute that mandates preservation of White House records pertaining to a president’s official duties – by the Trump White House concerning January 6 records to date.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump called Lee at 2.26pm on January 6 through the official 202-395-0000 White House number, according to call detail records reviewed by the Guardian and confirmation by the two sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The call was notable as Trump mistakenly dialed Lee thinking it was the number for Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville. Lee passed the phone to Tuberville, who told Trump Mike Pence had just been removed from the Senate chamber as rioters stormed the Capitol.
But Trump’s call to Lee was not recorded in either the presidential daily diary or the presidential call log – a problem because even though entries in the daily diary are discretionary, according to several current and former White House officials, the call log is not.
The presidential daily diary is a retrospective record of the president’s day produced by aides in the Oval Office, who have some sway to determine whether a particular event was significant enough to warrant its inclusion, the officials said.
But the presidential call log, typically generated from data recorded when calls are placed by the White House operators, is supposed to be a comprehensive record of all incoming and outgoing calls involving the president through White House channels, the officials said.
The fact that Trump’s call to Lee was routed through an official White House phone with a 202-395 prefix – either through a landline in the West Wing, the White House residence or a “work” cellphone – means details of that call should have been on the call log.
The only instance where a call might not be reflected on the unclassified presidential call log, the officials said, would be if the call was classified, which would seem to be unlikely in the case of the call to Lee. The absence of Trump’s call to Lee suggests a serious breach in protocol and possible manipulation, the officials said.
It was not immediately clear how a Trump White House official might obfuscate or tamper with the presidential call log, or who might have the authority to make such manipulations.
Trump’s calls on January 6 might not have been recorded in the presidential call log if he used his personal phone or the cellphones of aides, the officials said, and Trump sometimes called people with the cellphone of his then White House deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino.
But multiple current and former White House officials have noted that a copy of the call log – alongside the president’s daily schedule and the presidential line-by-line document – might be provided to Oval Office operations to help compile the presidential daily diary.
That could lead to a situation where records are vulnerable to tampering, 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, the officials said.
And by the time of January 6, two former Trump White House officials said, there was scope for political interference in records preservation, with no White House staff secretary formally appointed after Derek Lyons’ departure on 18 December.
The White House Communications Agency has also not been immune to political influence, the select committee revealed last year, when it found evidence the agency produced a letter that was intended to be used to pressure states to decertify Joe Biden’s election win.
Trump’s call to Lee was not the only call missing from an unexplained, seven-hour gap in the presidential call log that day. Trump, for instance, also connected with House minority leader Kevin McCarthy as the Capitol attack unfolded.
The presidential daily diary and presidential call log were turned over to the select committee by the National Archives after the supreme court refused a last-ditch request from Trump to block the release of White House documents to the panel.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol has identified an almost 8-hour gap in official White House records of then-President Donald Trump’s phone calls as the violence unfolded and his supporters stormed the building, according to two people familiar with the probe.
The gap extends from a little after 11 a.m. to about 7 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, and involves White House phone calls, according to one of the people. Both spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation.
The committee is investigating the gap in the official White House log, which includes the switchboard and a daily record of the president’s activities. But it does not mean the panel is in the dark about what Trump was doing during that time.
The House panel has made broad requests for separate cell phone records and has talked to more than 800 witnesses, including many of the aides who spent the day with Trump. The committee also has thousands of texts from the cell phone of Mark Meadows, who was then Trump’s chief of staff.
The committee’s effort to piece together Trump’s day as his supporters broke into the Capitol underscores the challenge that his habitual avoidance of records laws poses — not only to historians of his tumultuous four years but to the House panel, which intends to capture the full story of the former president’s attempt to overturn the election results in hearings and reports later this year.
The committee has trained a particular focus on what the president was doing in the White House as hundreds of his supporters beat police, broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory. The missing records raise questions of whether Trump purposefully circumvented official channels to avoid records.
Trump was known to use other people’s cell phones to make calls, as well as his own. He often bypassed the White House switchboard, placing calls directly, according to a former aide who requested anonymity to discuss the private calls. It is not unusual for presidential calls to be channeled through other people.
It is unclear whether the committee has obtained records of cell phone calls made that day. The panel issued a broad records preservation order in August to almost three dozen telecommunications and social media companies, demanding that the companies save communications for several hundred people in case Congress decided to issue subpoenas for them. Individuals included in that request included Trump, members of his family and several of his Republican allies in Congress.
The committee also is continuing to receive records from the National Archives and other sources, which could produce additional information and help produce a full picture of the president’s communications.
While hundreds of people have cooperated with the probe, in some cases the panel has been hampered by Trump’s assertions of executive privilege over material and interviews. Courts have overruled his efforts to block some documents, but many witnesses who are still close to the former president — and several who were in the White House that day — have declined to answer the committee’s questions.
Biden, who has authority as the sitting president over his predecessor’s White House privilege claims, said Tuesday he would reject Trump’s claims concerning the testimony of his daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner.
Kushner, who was one of Trump’s top White House aides, is scheduled for an interview with the panel on Thursday. The committee has requested an interview with Ivanka Trump as well, but has not said whether she will comply.
During the roughly eight hours on Jan. 6, Trump addressed a huge crowd of supporters at the nearby Ellipse, repeated falsehoods about his election defeat and told them to walk to the Capitol, make their voices heard and “fight like hell.” He then returned to the White House and watched as the mob broke into the Capitol. More than 700 people have been arrested in the violence.
Several of Trump’s calls that day are already publicly known. He spoke to Vice President Mike Pence between 11 a.m. and 11:30, according to a person familiar with that conversation, as he had been lobbying Pence publicly and privately to object while presiding over the certification. He also spoke with several GOP members of the House and Senate as his allies in Congress were preparing to challenge the official vote count.
He had a tense conversation with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, who asked him to call off the mob, according to Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington state, who shared McCarthy’s account shortly after the insurrection. Trump responded that the rioters must be “more upset about the election than you are,” according to Herrera Beutler.
Trump also talked to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, among other lawmakers. Tuberville has said he spoke to the president while the Senate was being evacuated. Utah Sen. Mike Lee has said that Trump accidentally called him when he was trying to reach Tuberville.
The White House log does show calls Trump made before that time period, as he was preparing to speak at the rally. That log shows calls with his former aide Steve Bannon, conservative commentator William Bennett and Sean Hannity of Fox News, according to one of the people familiar with the records.
The gap in the phone records was previously reported by the AP. The exact length of time of the gap was first reported jointly by The Washington Post and CBS News.
Trump had no immediate comment Tuesday, but he has previously disparaged the investigation and sued to stop records production.
___
Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
Internal White House records from the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol that were turned over to the House select committee show a gap in President Donald Trump’s phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the building was being violently assaulted, according to documents obtained by CBS News’ chief election & campaign correspondent Robert Costa and The Washington Post’s associate editor Bob Woodward.
The lack of an official White House notation of any calls placed to or by Trump for 457 minutes — from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. — on Jan. 6, 2021 means there is no record of the calls made by Trump as his supporters descended on the U.S. Capitol, battled overwhelmed police and forcibly entered the building, prompting lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to flee for safety.
The 11 pages of records — which consist of the president’s official daily diary and the White House switchboard call log — were turned over by the National Archives earlier this year to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
The records show that Trump was active on the phone for part of the day, documenting conversations that he had with at least eight people in the morning and 11 people that evening. The gap also stands in stark contrast to the extensive public reporting about phone conversations he had with allies during the attack.
White House records turned over to House show over 7-hour gap in Trump phone log on Jan. 6
05:30
The House panel is now investigating whether Trump communicated that day through backchannels, phones of aides or personal disposable phones, known as “burner phones,” according to two people with knowledge of the probe, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. The committee is also scrutinizing whether it received the full log from that day.
The records show that former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon — who said on his Jan. 5 podcast that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow” — spoke with Trump twice on Jan. 6.
A spokesman for the committee declined to comment.
In a statement Monday night, Trump said, “I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term.”
A Trump spokesperson said that Trump had nothing to do with the records and had assumed any and all of his phone calls were recorded and preserved.
For more, read The Washington Post story co-written by Costa and Woodward.
Here are your FOX Business Flash top headlines for March 29.
The White House’s fiscal year 2023 budget proposal seeks nearly $26 billion for NASA.
The number marks a $2.7 billion, or 11.6%, increase from the 2021 enacted level.
JEFF BEZOS’ BLUE ORIGIN EXPRESSES INTEREST IN NASA’S SECOND ARTEMIS LUNAR LANDER CONTRACT
The 2023 budget would provide $7.5 billion for U.S. human spaceflight leadership under the agency’s Artemis program. That number is a $1.1 billion increase.
It also invests $2.4 billion in Earth-observing satellites and climate-related research.
The budget would support the development of commercial space stations, allocating $224 million to use for future space stations as well as the operation of the International Space Station (ISS).
Invited guests and NASA employees take photos as NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with the Orion spacecraft aboard, is rolled out for the first time, Thursday, March 17, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
More than $480 million would be used for lunar robotic missions and $822 million would fund the Mars Sample Return mission.
Funding for the human exploration of Mars would dip to $161 million, according to the budget proposal.
More than $1.4 billion would spur NASA’s Space Technology research and development – an increase of $338 million.
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Lastly, the budget provides $150 million for NASA’s Office of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Engagement “in order to attract diverse groups of students” to the field.
“This effort includes targeted engagement of underserved populations, including underserved students and people of color,” the administration wrote.
The White House’s funding request for NASA is an increase of $1.93 billion over the $24.041 billion the agency received in the final fiscal year 2022 omnibus spending bill earlier this month.
Sierra Nevada Corporation founders Fatih and Eren Ozmen discuss the future of space on ‘The Claman Countdown.’
NASA no longer plans to provide funding for other missions, like the international Mars Ice Mapper mission, according to the budget proposal.
“Budgets are statements of values, and the budget I am releasing today sends a clear message that we value fiscal responsibility, safety and security at home and around the world and the investments needed to continue our equitable growth and build a better America,” President Biden said in a statement.
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“All told, it is a budget that includes historic deficit reduction, historic investments in our security at home and abroad, and an unprecedented commitment to building an economy where everyone has a chance to succeed,” he said.
“It’s a signal of support of our missions and a new era of exploration and discovery,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during his livestreamed State of NASA address Monday afternoon.
The lack of an official White House notation of any calls placed to or by Trump for 457 minutes on Jan. 6, 2021 – from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. – means the committee has no record of his phone conversations as his supporters descended on the Capitol, battled overwhelmed police and forcibly entered the building, prompting lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to flee for safety.
The 11 pages of records, which consist of the president’s official daily diary and the White House switchboard call logs, were turned over by the National Archives earlier this year to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.
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The records show that Trump was active on the phone for part of the day, documenting conversations that he had with at least eight people in the morning and 11 people that evening. The seven-hour gap also stands in stark contrast to the extensive public reporting about phone conversations he had with allies during the attack, such as a call Trump made to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — seeking to talk to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) — and a phone conversation he had with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Many have argued that President Donald Trump’s efforts amounted to an attempted coup on Jan. 6. Was it? And why does that matter? (Video: Monica Rodman, Sarah Hashemi/The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post)
The House panel is now investigating whether Trump communicated that day through backchannels, phones of aides or personal disposable phones, known as “burner phones,” according to two people with knowledge of the probe, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. The committee is also scrutinizing whether it received the full logs from that day.
One lawmaker on the panel said the committee is investigating a “possible coverup” of the official White House record from that day. Another person close to the committee said the large gap in the records is of “intense interest” to some lawmakers on the committee, many of whom have reviewed copies of the documents. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal committee deliberations.
The records show that former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon – who said on his Jan. 5 podcast that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow” – spoke with Trump twice on Jan. 6. In a call that morning, Bannon urged Trump to continue to pressure Pence to block congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, according to people familiar with the exchange.
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Trump was known for using different phones when he was in the White House, according to people familiar with his activities. Occasionally, when he made outbound calls, the number would show up as the White House switchboard’s number, according to a former Trump Cabinet official. Other times, he would call from different numbers – or no number would appear on the recipient’s phone, the official said.
A spokesman for the committee declined to comment.
In a statement Monday night, Trump said, “I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term.”
A Trump spokeswoman said that Trump had nothing to do with the records and had assumed any and all of his phone calls were recorded and preserved.
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In a recent court filing, the Jan. 6 committee asserted it has “a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States” and obstruct the counting of electoral votes by Congress.
A federal judge said in a ruling Monday that Trump “more likely than not” committed a federal crime in trying to obstruct the congressional count of electoral college votes on Jan. 6. The ruling was regarding emails that conservative lawyer John Eastman, a Trump ally, had resisted turning over to the Jan. 6 committee.
A Trump spokesman called the ruling “absurd and baseless.”
Five of the pages in the White House records obtained by the House committee are titled “THE DAILY DIARY OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” and detail some of Trump’s phone calls and movements on Jan. 6. The remaining six pages are titled “PRESIDENTIAL CALL LOG” and have information provided by the White House switchboard and aides, including phone numbers and notes on the time and duration of some calls.
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Those records were given to the committee by the National Archives earlier this year after the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s request for the court to block the committee from obtaining White House documents from Jan. 6.
The Presidential Records Act requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president’s official duties. The National Archives website states the presidential diary should be a “chronological record of the President’s movements, phone calls, trips” and meetings.
In January, The Post first reported that some of the Trump White House records turned over to the committee were potentially incomplete, including records that had been ripped up and taped back together. The New York Times first reported in February on the committee’s discovery of gaps in the White House phone logs from Jan. 6, but it did not specify when or for how long on that day. CNN first reported that “several hours” in Trump’s records provided to the committee lacked any notation of phone calls.
The documents obtained by the committee show Trump having several previously unreported exchanges on Jan. 6, including brief calls with Bannon and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that morning, before Trump had a final call with Pence, in which the vice president told him he was not going to block Congress from formalizing Biden’s victory. The call to the vice president was part of Trump’s attempt to put into motion a plan, advocated by Bannon and outlined in a memo written by conservative lawyer John Eastman, that would enable Trump to hold on to the presidency, as first reported in the book “Peril.”
According to White House records, Bannon and Trump spoke at 8:37 a.m. on Jan. 6. Trump spoke with Giuliani around 8:45 a.m. At 8:56 a.m., Trump asked the White House switchboard to return a call from chief of staff Mark Meadows. Then, at 9:02 a.m., Trump asked the operator to place a call to Pence. The operator informed him that a message was left for the vice president.
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Bannon’s first Jan. 6 call with Trump lasted for about one minute, according to the documents. During that conversation, Bannon asked Trump whether Pence was coming over for a breakfast meeting, according to two people familiar with the exchange. Bannon hoped Trump could pressure the vice president over breakfast to agree to thwart the congressional certification of Biden’s victory, the people said.
But Trump told Bannon that Pence was not scheduled to come to the White House following a heated meeting Trump and Pence had the previous evening, Jan. 5, in the Oval Office. Bannon quickly pressed Trump that he needed to call Pence and tell him again to hold off on doing anything that would enable certification. Trump agreed, the people said.
According to the White House phone logs, Bannon and Trump spoke again late on Jan. 6 in a call that began at 10:19 p.m. and ended at 10:26 p.m.
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Bannon declined to comment through a representative.
Bannon, a central player in a group of Trump allies who met at the Willard hotel near the White House on Jan. 5 to discuss their strategy for Jan. 6, was indicted last year by the Justice Department for refusing to cooperate with the House committee, which is seeking more documents and testimony about his conversations with Trump.
Trump’s final call with Pence is not listed in the call log, even though multiple people close to both men said that call occurred sometime in the late morning before Trump headed to the “Save America” rally on the Ellipse.
During their conversation, Pence told Trump, “When I go to the Capitol, I’ll do my job” and not block Biden’s certification, enraging Trump, according to “Peril.”
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Trump said, “Mike you can do this. I’m counting on you to do it. If you don’t do it, I picked the wrong man four years ago,” he added, according to the book. “You’re going to wimp out!”
Pence later released a letter saying he did not, as vice president, have “unilateral authority to decide presidential contests,” and said he would “keep the oath” he made when he was sworn into office.
The White House logs also show that Trump had conversations on Jan. 6 with election lawyers and White House officials, as well as outside allies such as then-senator David Perdue (R-Ga.), conservative commentator William J. Bennett and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Bennett, Hannity and Perdue did not respond to requests for comment.
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According to the documents, Trump spoke with other confidants and political advisers that morning ahead of the rally. At 8:34 a.m., he spoke with Kurt Olsen, who was advising Trump on legal challenges to the election.
Trump then placed calls to Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the Republican leader, and Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), but it is unclear whether he reached them, according to the documents. A McConnell aide said Monday that McConnell declined Trump’s call. Hawley, a Trump ally, was the first senator to declare he would object to the certification, a decision that sparked other GOP senators to say they too would object.
The records show that Trump had a 10-minute call starting at 9:24 a.m. with Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who worked closely with the Trump White House and was a key figure in pushing fellow GOP lawmakers to object to the certification of Biden’s election.
Jordan has declined to cooperate with the House committee. The 10-minute call Trump had with Jordan was first reported by CNN.
Giuliani and Trump spoke on Jan. 6 at 9:41 a.m. for six minutes, and at 8:39 p.m. for nine minutes, according to the White House logs. According to the documents, Giuliani called from different phone numbers.
Giuliani did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller – who told Fox News in December 2020 that an “alternate slate of electors in the contested states is going to vote” – spoke with Trump for 26 minutes on the morning of Jan. 6, the records show. That call started at 9:52 a.m. and ended at 10:18 a.m.
Miller did not respond to a request for comment.
At 11:17 a.m., the White House daily diary states, “The President talked on a phone call to an unidentified person.” That vague call listing, with no notes on duration, is the last official record of a phone conversation that Trump had until the evening of Jan. 6.
The records of Trump’s activity throughout the day are very limited. The daily diary notes that he addressed supporters at a rally at the Ellipse midday and returned to the south grounds of the White House at 1:19 p.m.
“The President met with his Valet,” the records note of Trump’s activity at 1:21 p.m. on Jan. 6.
Trump’s supporters breached the Capitol building shortly after 2 p.m.
The next documented event in the president’s diary comes at 4:03 p.m., when “The President went to the Rose Garden” to record, for four minutes, a video message for the pro-Trump mob that had stormed the Capitol. The video, posted on Twitter at 4:17 p.m., begins with Trump falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen, then asks the rioters to “go home.” He added, “We love you. You’re very special.”
“The President returned to the Oval Office” at 4:07 p.m., the records state. The next listed action comes at 6:27 p.m.: “The President went to the Second Floor Residence.”
According to the logs, Trump made his first phone call in more than seven hours at 6:54 p.m., when he instructed the operator to call aide Daniel Scavino Jr.
At 7:01 p.m., the records show, Trump spoke with Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, for six minutes, and later spoke with press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
At 9:23 p.m., Trump spoke with political adviser Jason Miller for 18 minutes. Miller has engaged with the committee and sat for a deposition, parts of which were excerpted in the committee’s filing alleging a criminal conspiracy was advanced by Trump and his allies.
Scavino could not be reached for comment. Cipollone and McEnany did not respond to requests for comment. Miller did not respond to a request for comment.
That night, Trump also spoke with lawyers supporting his election fight, such as former North Carolina Supreme Court chief justice Mark Martin and Cleta Mitchell, a veteran conservative Washington attorney who worked closely with Trump on contesting Biden’s victory in Georgia, according to the records.
His final listed call came at 11:23 p.m. and lasted 17 minutes. It was with John McEntee, then the director of presidential personnel.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court, in an unsigned order, rejected Trump’s request to block the release of some White House records, which have been stored by the National Archives, to the committee. The Supreme Court’s order in January included a dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas.
The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results – and how receptive and grateful Meadows said he was to receive her advice. Justice Thomas and Ginni Thomas have not responded to multiple requests for comment. She has long maintained that there is no conflict of interest between her activism and her husband’s work.
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tested positive for COVID-19 after returning from President Biden’s trip to Europe.
A statement from Jean-Pierre released Sunday night by the White House says that she is not considered a close contact to President Biden.
White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre smiles as she arrives for a press briefing at the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021. ((AP Photo/Andrew Harnik))
“I last saw the President during a socially distanced meeting yesterday, and the President is not considered a close contact as defined by CDC guidance. I am sharing the news of my positive test today out of an abundance of transparency,” Jean-Pierre said.
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Jean-Pierre is vaccinated and has received her booster shot, according to the statement, and is only experiencing “mild symptoms.”
“Thanks to being fully vaccinated and boosted, I have only experienced mild symptoms. In alignment with White House COVID-19 protocols, I will work from home and plan to return to work in person at the conclusion of a five-day isolation period and a negative test,” Jean-Pierre said.
