The United States House committee – which investigates the attack on the US Capitol – now has White House records that provide new details about a phone call Donald Trump made to Republican Representative Jim Jordan on January 6, 2021 – while the investigation delves into the former president’s communications that day and questions have long revolved around links between him and lawmakers.
Two sources who reviewed the call logs told the CNN that Trump spoke on the phone at the White House residence with Jordan for 10 minutes on the morning of January 6. That afternoon, Jordan went to the House floor to oppose President Joe Biden’s certification.
A key focus of the committee’s investigation has been the preparation for the attack and the myriad ways in which Trump and his allies, including those in Congress, have tried to overturn the election results. The new details about the morning phone call come as the committee is debating whether to move forward with a subpoena for Jordan after he refused to voluntarily appear for an interview.
Since Jordan acknowledged last summer that he spoke to Trump on the phone that day, the Ohio Republican and Trump supporter has either dismissed questions on the matter or been inconsistent in his responses.
When asked Friday about the White House records, Jordan told CNN who had several calls with Trump on January 6, but could only confirm that he spoke to Trump after he left the House floor and could not remember if they spoke that morning.
“I spoke to the president several times that day, but I don’t remember the times,” Jordan said.
A spokeswoman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An entry in White House records shows a request by Trump to call Jordan on the White House residence phone on the morning of January 6. A second entry shows that the call duration was 10 minutes.
Those call logs are among documents the National Archives has turned over to the House select committee investigating the riot after Trump last month lost his attempt in the Supreme Court to keep them secret. The logs have been crucial for congressional investigators as they try to build a complete narrative of what happened that day, and the call logs help deepen that understanding.
Records show that Trump did not leave the White House until 11:40 a.m. on January 6, 2021, to deliver a speech to thousands of his supporters gathered at Ellipse. According to footage from the House proceedings that day, Jordan spoke on the floor for five minutes starting at 1:32 pm during the debate over Arizona’s Biden voters’ rejection.
Jordan later spoke to request a roll call on the Arizona challenge at 10:27 pm, as lawmakers returned to the House after being evacuated as protesters disrupted Congressional proceedings.
On Friday, Jordan said, “I don’t remember,” when asked specifically if he spoke to Trump the morning before the violence broke out. “I know I talked to him after we left the room,” adding that he did not remember how long his calls with the former president lasted that day.
Jordan’s earlier recollections of his conversations with Trump on January 6 were inconsistent.
At a House Rules Committee hearing in October, Massachusetts Democrat President Jim McGovern specifically asked Jordan when he spoke to Trump that day.
“I spoke to the president after the attack,” Jordan said at the time.
When McGovern pressed Jordan again and asked him to confirm that the call did not take place before or during the attack, Jordan replied, “Right. And I was clear about that.”
Months earlier, in July, he told a local reporter that he couldn’t remember when he spoke to Trump or how many times they spoke.
“Uh, I would have to go – I spoke to him the next day. I think later?” he told Spectrum News TV channel in Ohio. “I don’t know if I spoke to him in the morning or not. I just don’t know. I would have to go back. I mean, I don’t know when those conversations took place. But what I do know is that I talked to him all the time.”
In the committee’s letter to Jordan asking for a voluntary interview, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, who chairs the panel, said investigators specifically wanted to ask Jordan about his communications with the former president.
“We understand that you had at least one and possibly several communications with President Trump on January 6th,” Thompson wrote in December. “We would like to discuss each of these communications with you in detail.”
The committee also wants to speak with Jordan about meetings he had with White House officials and Trump in the months between the 2020 presidential election in November and the Jan.
Prior to the panel calling for Jordan’s voluntary cooperation, he was identified as one of the lawmakers who sent a text message to the then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who the committee has in its possession.
The message, which Jordan forwarded to Meadows on Jan. 5, outlined a legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to prevent certification of the 2020 election. The text message is just one example of how Jordan provided a megaphone to the narrative that the election had been stolen from Trump.
The panel’s letter to Jordan also sought to learn more about any communications he had with Trump allies, legal staff and officials about possible organization, planning or strategy around Jan.
When Jordan indicated earlier this month that he did not plan to cooperate and dismissed the committee’s investigation as illegitimate, a spokesperson for the panel said Jordan is a “material witness” because he admitted to having spoken directly with Trump on Jan.
The spokesperson also suggested, without evidence, that Trump and his team are the reason Jordan is not cooperating.
“Mr. Jordan previously said he would cooperate with the committee’s investigation, but now it appears that Trump’s team convinced him to try to hide the facts and circumstances of January 6,” the spokesperson said.
Jordan was originally selected by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to be one of five GOP members serving on the committee in July. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected McCarthy’s choice of Jordan, along with Republican Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, because she said their appointments could affect the “integrity of the investigation.”
The committee has long viewed Jordan as one of the main targets of its investigation. In August, Jordan was among a group of Republican lawmakers whose phone records the committee asked several companies to preserve. At the time, Jordan warned of the precedent the panel would set if it went after full members of Congress.
The committee is still considering whether to take the next step and issue a subpoena to Jordan, a move it is also considering with McCarthy and Republican Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
The panel met on Thursday to discuss its options but did not decide on next steps when it comes to efforts to get their fellow lawmakers to cooperate. President Thompson acknowledged on Thursday that it is a complicated issue.
“You know, you have to respect this institution,” he told CNN. “You know, we have to see if this has been done before or not. If so, under which authorities. So we just want to be right.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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