Raskin said he and other Jan. 6 committee members have been able to piece together some of Trump’s activities during that time frame based on other people’s interviews and depositions, but holes remain.
“It’s a very unusual thing for us to find that suddenly everything goes dark for a seven-hour period in terms of tracking the movements and the conversations of the president,” Raskin said.
When asked if the gap could possibly be due to incompetence rather than conspiracy, Raskin said the committee was taking that into account. He added, however, that “the gaps are suspiciously tailored to the heart of the events” of Jan. 6, including when several lawmakers later said they were pleading with Trump to intervene.
Raskin noted that the committee was aware that the president took part in calls during that time, “but we have no comprehensive, fine-grained portrait of what was going on during that period, and that’s obviously of intense interest to us.”
Earlier this year, the National Archives and Records Administration turned over to the committee 11 pages of White House records from that day, including the president’s official daily diary and the White House switchboard call logs.
Raskin added that the committee’s mission is to get “a complete picture” of everything that took place on Jan. 6, as well as what needs to be done “to fortify democratic institutions and processes against future insurrections and coups and attempts to destabilize and overthrow our elections.”
Raskin said he hoped the committee would be able to begin holding long-delayed public hearings in May and was looking for connections between the violent insurrection at the Capitol and what he called the “attempt at an inside coup” orchestrated by Trump against the Constitution.
“I do feel confident we’re going to be able to tell that story,” Raskin said, adding, “Obviously, we’re up against a lot of obstruction now.”
Last week, the committee voted to hold two more former Trump aides — former trade and manufacturing director Peter Navarro and former communications chief Daniel Scavino Jr. — in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the committee’s subpoenas. Raskin said the House probably would vote this week on whether to refer Navarro and Scavino to the Justice Department for prosecution.
Like Trump and a raft of other former aides, Navarro and Scavino have tried to claim they are protected by executive privilege and that the subpoenas were an overreach by the committee. They are among the latest in high-profile Trump White House officials facing repercussions for refusing to comply with the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoenas.
Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff in the Trump White House, also refused to cooperate with the committee, leading to the House voting to hold him in contempt of Congress as well in December.
Asked about the judge’s comments Sunday, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who has defended Trump frequently and who voted to acquit Trump during his impeachment trials, was noncommittal.
“Well, federal judges say a lot of things and we’ll see how that comes through the process,” Blunt said on ABC News’s “This Week.” “I think the Justice Department has a job to do and they should do it and people who were involved in the planning or execution of illegal activities on Jan. 6 should be prosecuted.”
Bob Woodward and Robert Costa contributed to this report.