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Gaps in White House phone records during the January 6 attack have raised further questions about ex-President Donald Trump's call that day to two senators.
On the call—the existence of which has been acknowledged by both senators—Trump is said to have been made aware of the threat level to his then-Vice President, Mike Pence.
Yet White House records of the call have so far not been found, The New York Times and CNN report.
There is no evidence any official records were tampered with or deleted.
But any such gaps pose a puzzle to the House panel probing the attack, as it tries to recreate what Trump was doing during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump phoned Utah Senator Mike Lee's cell, but was looking for Tommy Tuberville, Lee told the Deseret News the day after the riot, so Lee passed the phone to his Alabama colleague. Caller ID showed the call originated from the White House, the title reported.
Lee later, during Trump's second impeachment hearing, sought to distance himself from the comments attributed to him.
Tuberville has said that on the call, he told Trump that then-Vice President Pence was being evacuated as rioters descended on the Capitol.
"I said 'Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I've got to go,'" he told journalists in February last year.
Lee's phone records, submitted to the House ahead of Trump's second impeachment, showed that the call came minutes before Trump attacked Pence on Twitter.
CNN reported that Lee's call logs to impeachment managers showed the call from a Washington, D.C., area code came in at 2.26 p.m. ET.
Two minutes later Trump's official account tweeted that Pence "didn't have the courage to ... protect our Country and our Constitution," repeating his false claims that Pence could have stopped certification of Joe Biden's victory.
Adding to the intrigue was the revelation that hours after the riots began, but before Congress had restarted the session, Trump's then-lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, also called Lee, thinking it was Tuberville.
Giuliani left a voicemail, saying he wanted to discuss "how they're trying to rush this hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends, to try to just slow it down."
The January 6 committee is still awaiting additional material from the National Archives and Records Administration, which keeps the official White House logs.
Telecommunications companies with the personal cellphone records of those in Trump's inner circle have also been subpoenaed; it is not known if Trump's own cellphone records have been requested.
Newsweek has contacted Trump's representatives and the House select committee into January 6 for comment.
About the writer
Brendan Cole is a Newsweek Senior News Reporter based in London, UK. His focus is Russia and Ukraine, in particular ... Read more