The Jan. 6 House select committee revealed Thursday that there is no official record of President Donald Trump’s actions during more than 2½ hours while a violent mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
No calls in the log. No photographs of the president. And no notes about his activity.
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), a member of the House committee, detailed the gap in information during Thursday night’s hearing.
“As you can see, there is no official record of President Trump receiving or placing a call between 11:06 [a.m.] and 6:54 p.m.,” Luria said, displaying the White House call log. “As to what the president was doing that afternoon, the presidential daily dairy is also silent. It contains no information for the period between 1:21 p.m. and 4:03 p.m.”
“There are also no photos of President Trump during this critical period between 1:21 in the Oval Office and when he went outside to the Rose Garden after 4 o’clock,” she added. “The chief White House photographer wanted to take pictures because it was, in her words, ‘very important for his archives and for history.’ But she was told, quote, ‘no photographs.’”
Though the official record does not detail Trump’s actions or movements, witnesses told the committee that Trump was watching his favorite cable channel in the White House dining room.
“Witnesses told us that on Jan. 6, President Trump sat in his usual spot, at the head of the table facing a television hanging on the wall,” Luria said. “We know from the employee the TV was tuned to Fox News all afternoon.”
During that time, Trump never called to request law enforcement to respond to the rioting or to check on administration staff, testimony given to the committee showed.
“We have confirmed in numerous interviews with senior law enforcement and military leaders, Vice President Pence’s staff and D.C. government officials, none of them — not one — heard from President Trump that day,” Luria said. “He did not call to issue orders. He did not call to offer assistance.”
“So if President Trump wasn’t calling law enforcement or military leaders, what did President Trump spend his time doing that afternoon while he first settled into the dining room?,” Luria asked. “He was calling senators to encourage them to delay or object to the certification” of the Electoral College count.
Luria then played video testimony of Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s former White House press secretary, acknowledging she’d given Trump a list of senators and their contact information. She also noted that lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s phone records show Trump spoke to his then personal attorney for approximately four minutes during that stretch of time.