The former president called the phone of a Republican senator, Mike Lee, with a number listed as 202-395-0000, a reservation number that appears when a call comes from a number of White House phones, sources said. The number corresponds to an official White House telephone and the call was made by Donald Trump himself, which means that the call should have been recorded in the internal presidential call file submitted to the House selection committee investigating the attack on Capitol. Trump’s call to Lee was reported at the time, as well as its omission from the diary by the Washington Post and CBS. But the origin of the call as coming from an official White House phone, which has not been mentioned before, raises the prospect of falsification or deletion by Trump White House officials. It also appears to signal perhaps the most serious breach of the Presidential Records Act – the statute requiring the preservation of White House records related to the official duties of a president – by the White House Trump on the Jan. 6 record to date. . A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump telephoned Lee at 2:26 p.m. on Jan. 6 through the official White House number 202-395-0000, according to the Guardian’s details of the call and confirmation from the two sources who spoke with him. condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. The call was noteworthy as Trump mistakenly called Lee thinking he was Republican Sen. Tommy Tamberville’s number. Lee gave the phone to Tamperville, who told Trump Mike Pence had just left the Senate as rioters stormed the Capitol. However, Trump’s call to Lee was not recorded in either the presidential diary or the diary – a problem because, although daily diary entries are discreet, according to several current and former White House officials, the archive calls are not. The presidential diary is a retrospective of the president’s day produced by assistants to the Oval Office, who have some influence in determining whether a particular event was significant enough to justify its inclusion, officials said. However, the president’s call log, which is usually created from data recorded when calls are made by White House operators, is supposed to be a complete record of all incoming and outgoing calls to the president through White House channels, the White House said in a statement. officials. The fact that Trump’s call to Lee was routed through an official White House telephone number with the prefix 202-395 – either by landline in the West Wing, at the White House residence or by a work mobile phone – means that the details of this call will be should have been made in the call log. The only case where a call might not be reflected in the unregistered presidential call log, officials said, would be if the call was classified, which would seem unlikely in the case of the call to Lee. The absence of Trump’s call to Lee indicates a serious breach of protocol and possible manipulation, officials said. It was not immediately clear how a Trump White House official could obscure or violate the presidential call log or who might have the power to do so. Trump’s January 6 calls may not have been recorded in the presidential diary if he used his personal phone or cell phones of assistants, officials said, and Trump sometimes called people on the cell phone of his then-deputy White House chief. House, Dan. Scavino. However, many current and former White House officials have noted that a copy of the diary – along with the president’s agenda and the presidential document line by line – can be provided to Oval Office businesses to help compile the presidential diary. . This could lead to a situation where records are vulnerable to falsification, as the presidential diary and diary require approval from a senior White House official before being sent to the White House archives office, officials said. And as of Jan. 6, two former Trump White House officials had said there was room for political intervention in the record-keeping, without formally appointing a White House staffer following the departure of Derek Lyons on December 18. The White House Communications Service is also not immune to political influence, the select committee revealed last year when it found evidence that the agency produced a letter intended to be used to pressure states to ratify Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump’s call to Lee was not the only call missing from an unexplained seven-hour hiatus in the presidential diary that day. Trump, for example, also linked up with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as the Capitol attack unfolded. The presidential diary and diary of presidential calls were handed over to the select committee by the National Archives after the Supreme Court rejected a recent request by Trump to block the release of White House documents to the committee.
