It was reported today that the White House phone log on the Capitol riot day of January 6th has a seven-hour and thirty-seven minute gap in which President Donald Trump did not make or receive any phone calls. Yet before and after that time period, the same phone log shows that he had several phone calls. Experts say there may be an innocent explanation for this, since Trump was known to use other peoples’ phones in making and receiving calls.
However, experts are also saying this phenomena could be evidence of a coverup. The Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward of Watergate fame and his associate Robert Costa said today that the House special committee investigating that Capitol riot “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.” Some criminals use burner phones so their calls cannot be traced. It is also being reported that the same committee is looking into the possibility of Trump and his aides having tried to coverup his allegedly criminal efforts to overturn the election that day.
Donald Trump is known for phoning many people and thus taking on the phone a lot. It was no different when he was president. So, it seems likely that he talked to several people on some phone or phones during the 7.5 hour gap on J6. In fact, the committee has interviewed witnesses that claim he did because they were there in the room, hearing Trump talk on the phone.
If Trump purposely had phone conversations during that 7.5 hour time period that he did not want recorded, that would be like the Butterfield tapes of the Watergate era in which there was eighteen and a half minute gap, a silent period, on a tape of the White House taping system that recorded an important conversation on November 21, 1973, between President Richard Nixon and his advisor H. R. Haldeman in which they discussed the Watergate break-in.
(The tapes came to be called “Butterfield tapes” because the man in charge of the White House taping system, which Nixon himself had installed and hardly anyone knew it, had the name Butterfield. This tape gap became known as “the smoking gun” that brought about Nixon’s resignation. Thus, it was ironic that the White House had never had a taping system and that it was Nixon’s idea, which brought about his downfall.)
Before those tape were released to investigating authorities, Nixon’s longtime secretary Rose Mary Woods claimed that she accidentally erased the important conversation by putting her foot on a floor pedal while talking on a land phone. But evidence suggested that she likely would not have been able to reach her foot that far to do that. Thus, it appears that she purposely erased the sensitive material to keep her boss from being accused of a coverup. That White House tape gap now looks a lot like the White House phone record gap of Trump’s phone calls on J6.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In