Yep, This Is Worse Than Watergate

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Forget the the 18 1/2 minute gap in the Nixon tapes; they’ve found a seven-hour gap in Trump’s White House phone logs for January 6, 2021.

The documents, which were turned over to the House select committee examining Jan. 6, do show that Trump had many calls before 11 a.m. and after 6 p.m. that were apparently related to the coup effort. That suggests Trump held many calls related to the insurrection between those two times that are not officially accounted for.

Greg Sargent provides three takeaways. One, “The noncooperation of Trump’s allies makes this story worse.” We know that people did speak on the phone to Trump during those missing hours. We know for a fact that he spoke to Kevin McCarthy and Mark Meadows, for example. Yet those calls are not in the log, and the lack of cooperation from people known to have been on the phone with Trump hikes up the suspicion factor considerably.

Here’s why: What’s at issue is how Trump reacted in real time as the violence unfolded. We know he reportedly watched it on TV with relish and refused multiple entreaties to issue a public statement calming the violence.

But it’s also likely Trump came to see the violence as helpful to intimidating his vice president, Mike Pence, and possibly lawmakers as well, into executing the scheme of delaying the electoral count. Trump reportedly called at least one GOP senator to press him for help delaying the count while the violence raged, another call that isn’t in the logs.

Two, “The Jan. 6 committee may already have records of missing calls.”

That’s because the committee has already subpoenaed the phone records of some of these key players, as CNN recently reported, and this includes Meadows. The committee has already started receiving some of this information, per CNN.

The committee is also getting call records from 35 telecom and social media companies. It’s not impossible that the missing seven hours can be mostly reconstituted from other sources.

See also:

Yeah, I had forgotten that. Last September McCarthy issued a threat to telecom companies that a future GOP majority (presumably with McCarthy as majority leader) would “not forget” any cooperation with the January 6 committee.

“If these companies comply with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States,” McCarthy said in Tuesday’s statement. “If companies still choose to violate federal law, a Republican majority will not forget and will stand with Americans to hold them fully accountable under the law.”

No, what the January 6 committee requested of the telecom and tech companies was not against the law.

And the third takeaway: “The case for subpoenaing lawmakers might have just gotten stronger.” That’s true because of the need for testimony to provide the missing information on phone calls with Trump.

Greg Sargent doesn’t mention pressuring Merrick Garland. If you saw the committee hearing on issuing contempt-of-congress referrals for former Trump advisers Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro, you will have seen several committee members call out the Attorney General and ask him to do his bleeping job. And don’t take all day about it, please.

9 thoughts on “Yep, This Is Worse Than Watergate”

  2. Whodathunkit, that Rose Mary Woods was such a piker, such an amateur?!?

    tRUMP's 7-hours would swallow 22 "Wood's WHOOPSIES!" – AND leave some time for ads for bunion pads, or electoral instructions, and…  Wait, that was supposed to be bunion pads and erectile dysfunction!

    Did the tRUMP Crime Family use "burner phones?

    Do Mafia mobsters use them?

    Everyone ready for our cheer?

    Good, let's begin:  " LOCK HIM UP!  LOCK HIM UP!!  LOCK HIM UP!!!"

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  3. The story of the day is not the 7-hour gap in the WH communication log.  The story of the day is Trump asking Putin to release dirt on Biden (Joe or Hunter or just make something up). But they are related stories. Trump wanted to distract attention from the evidence that the J6 Insurrection was an integral part of a criminal attempt to overturn the election.

    Trump is not smart but he has a few skills. One is playing bigots and fools. The other is playing the media. Trump was less successful at controlling the media than he expected but he's run this play repeatedly with great success. Trump understands the 24-hour news cycle. When Trump anticipates a big and harmful story will hit, he says/does something outrageous but insignificant (relative to the story he doesn't want to dominate the news.) 

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  4. I have to assume that Merrick Garland has an open investgation going on behind the scenes*. Considering all the evidence that has been uncovered and brought into the public domain regarding Trump's criminality, it's near impossible to look the other way. When the J6 committee raps up their work it will be an in your face issue of whether Trump is and remains above the law.

    * My understanding is that all Merrick Garland has to do is appoint a special prosecutor and there will be no way for the Repugs to protect Trump and his cohorts being indicted. The Repugs might be able run out the clock on the J6 committee from getting the fine granular details of Trump's criminal plot and its conspiritors but, they have uncovered enough detailed evidence so far to support criminal charges.

    I''m standing in faith that the big bag of shit called Trump is going to be taken down. Praise God!

  5. First, the J6 insurrection was a hail-mary pass because a series of other schemes failed. The idea behind a truckload of lawsuits was supposed to produce something that Trump could take to the US Supreme Court that Trump viewed as an extension of the Oval Office. All those suits crashed and burned.

    Eastman concocted a scheme based on the theory that the process behind certifying the votes on Jan 6 was unconstitutional. Problem: (As a judge pointed out recently) you do not get to break a law you disagree with. And the violation of this law was seasoned with violence against the US Capitol and the lawmakers inside. Eastman and Trump have tried to suppress the evidence of what a judge called probably a crime. And the emails from Eastman are gonna be seen. 

    The cover-up was probably even less graceful than the riot. If you are/were a staffer in the WH on Jan 7 (or thereafter) you know you are out of a job in two weeks. Are you gonna break the law when neither Trump or anybody else can cover your butt?  The cover-up probably sucks because the criminals had to do the dirty work. And they are inept. Thus, the strategy has been to stonewall and suppress evidence.

    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."

    So Trump used a burner phone. (Especially since he used the phrase, "to the best of my knowledge." We know some of the people he called and about when he called them. So the number is there in McCarthy's log. The use of a burner phone proves the awareness that they were committing a crime. 

    I am not in Congress and I screen my calls. If I'm busy and I do not recognize the caller, it's off to voicemail. So if Trump used a burner phone, the folks he called were informed in advance. Can you say "conspiracy'?

    Maybe I don't read Biden well, but Trump screwed up by giving Vlad a shout-out to put a hit on Biden with whatever 'evidence' they can falsify in the Kremlin. It's just my opinion but when Biden is stateside, I think he will schedule a meeting with Garland. Nobody knows if Garland has decided that it looks bad to prosecute a former president. I think Joe will ask directly if that's the determination – that it would be bad for the country and possibly spark riots if Trump is charged. I think Biden will demand that if the evidence is there, Trump must stand trial. If Garland won't declare where he stands, I'd expect a new A/G in 2023.

    Again, just my opinion but Biden will not prosecute Trump for revenge but if Trump has committed crimes, Biden will want a jury to decide. Nixon faded into the background and was allowed to avoid prosecution. Trump is too stupid to fade and he refuses to recognize that any rules apply to him. (Nixon knew when he broke the rules and he knew he was screwed when he got caught.) 

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  6. The "worse than Watergate" formulation elides the fact that the breaking of any particular law/rule/norm can only be rebuked once.  It is as if there is a non-rechargeable fire extinguisher for each potential transgression.  We used this one on Nixon and now it is empty; it cannot be used any more.

    • Uh, Frank. I don't think Maha was suggesting that Nixon be prosecuted. Nixon is dead snd that does grant a level of immunity. I think Maha was suggesting that Trump committed a crime comparable to what brought down Nixon but worse. And Trump has not been charged for that crime so there isn't any immunity for Trump.

      • It often appears that people did not read what I wrote, and by definition that must be at least partly my fault; but in this case, I cannot imagine any transformation that would take what-I-actually-wrote to what-you-are-responding-to.

        My point was that our political/legal system is systematically unable to respond effectively to the <b><i>second or subsequent</i></b> instance of any particular transgression.  The response — adequate or not — to the first instance leaves a gap in the wall at that place, which is never filled.  The second, third, …nth time are met with weariness, misdirection, and a general collapse.

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