Other witnesses also told the panel that significantly less information was shared with those involved in keeping White House records over the same time period, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. A source described how the White House archivists seemed to be “frozen” in the days before January 6th. “The last day that normal information was sent was the 4th,” said another source familiar with the investigation. “So starting on the 5th, the diary did not receive the annotated calls and notes. This was a dramatic departure. All of this is unusual.” The White House diary typically receives many streams of information, including telephone records from the distribution board, the president’s moves from the U.S. Secret Service, and critical remarks from Oval Office companies, which describe in detail calls, guests and activities. However, sources close to the commission’s investigation do not yet appear to have known who, if anyone, led a change in record keeping or what was the motivation behind the change, raising questions about whether the lack of information was intentional or staffing. . “It’s hard to know what that change was. Was it deliberate?” said a source. “You can only watch something when you know what is going on. When people are not sharing things with you, whether it was intentional and who decided it, I think it is a bit vague at this point.” The Parliamentary Committee refused to comment. CNN contacted a Trump spokesman and received no response. CNN also contacted the National Archives for comment. These revelations come as the House Select Committee tries to figure out what Trump did (and did not do) during a seven-hour dispute in the White House’s log and presidential diary since January 6, 2021. The recent call of the distribution table the diary and the presidential diary of the day do not contain information about the actions of the then President during the uprising, including the phone calls that are known to have been made and should have been documented in the diary. CNN previously reported that a possible explanation for the loophole The phone log is that Trump used cell phones, landlines or auxiliary phones that bypassed the White House distribution panel. An official review of call logs did not find any missing pages. While the selection committee did not have detailed notes on arrivals and departures at the Oval Office on Jan. 6, it received testimony that helped fill some of the gaps, according to a source familiar with the investigation. This includes calls made and received by Trump, as well as who was with him in the private dining room outside the Oval Office as he allegedly watched the uprising on television. The presidential calendar created for January 6 contains minimal details. It lists information from Trump’s call logs and public program, but little other than a phone call the former president had with an “unknown person” at 11:17 a.m. And there are no entries in the calendar for about three hours, from 1:21 p.m. until 4:03 p.m. The Presidential Records Act describes that the presidency’s office is required to adequately document the president’s activities. But there is little to no enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance. While there are criminal consequences for destroying state records, there is no one to punish for failing to create them. No explanation has been given so far as to why the calls that are known to have been made during Trump’s time in the Oval Office are not documented in the presidential calendar. But around that time, various factors could have reduced the flow of information to the official archives. First, sources told CNN that early January was a chaotic period in the White House and that Trump spent more time at home and did less formal work. According to a former Trump official, “any sense of normalcy has begun to crumble” and around the beginning of January “cracks are visible”. While some were looking for other jobs, others were confused and it became “each for himself”, the former official added.
CNN’s Pamela Brown, Gloria Borger, Ashley Semler, Katelyn Polantz and Kaitlan Collins contributed to this report.