Donnie’s dirty little putschist phone secret

This is as close as we can get to a smoking gun for January 6, y’all:

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.

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.

[…]

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.”

But former Trump national security adviser John Bolton said in an interview Tuesday, after the CBS News-Washington Post reporting had been published, that he recalls Trump using the term “burner phones” in several discussions and that Trump was aware of its meaning.

Bolton said he and Trump have spoken about how people have used “burner phones” to avoid having their calls scrutinized.

I never thought I’d see the day when I’d actually be Team Sheepdog Bolton (and I’m still actually not), but for once the rotten old liar got out-rottened and out-lied. That alone is a pretty stunning achievement. For once, Bolton actually told the truth about something or someone. Yow!

And if this isn’t Donnie’s Tricky Dick moment, I’ll eat every last funky hat in my extensive collection. Actually, this is even worse than that; Tricky Dick’s White House tapes were only missing 18 1/2 minutes, after all.

And no, Donnie doesn’t have a loyal secretary to fall on her sword for this one, either.

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