This is what we know about what Trump was doing from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Jan. 6.
The impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump largely centered around his actions leading up to the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
But there was a crucial period that day of nearly five hours — between the end of Mr. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, urging his supporters to march to the Capitol, and a final tweet telling his followers to remember the day forever — that remains critical to his state of mind.
Evidence emerged during the trial about what Mr. Trump was doing during those hours, from roughly 1 p.m. to about 6 p.m., including new details about two phone calls with lawmakers that prosecutors said clearly alerted the president to the mayhem on Capitol Hill.
One was a phone call placed from the White House to Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, at 2:26 p.m., according to call logs that the senator provided during the impeachment proceedings.
The president had made the call, but he was actually looking for Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama. Mr. Lee gave the phone to Mr. Tuberville, who has told reporters that he informed Mr. Trump that Vice President Mike Pence had just been escorted out as the mob got closer to the Senate chamber.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Mr. Tuberville recounted to Politico.
House prosecutors used the information about this call to argue that Mr. Trump was clearly aware that the vice president was in danger and that he had a callous disregard for Mr. Pence’s safety. On Friday, Mr. Trump’s defense team had insisted that Mr. Trump was not aware of any peril facing Mr. Pence.
The other call was between Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, and President Trump, which became heated, according to a Republican congresswoman, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington State.
In a statement on Friday night that was admitted into evidence in the trial on Saturday, Ms. Herrera Beutler recounted that Mr. McCarthy had a shouting match with Mr. Trump during the call.
Mr. McCarthy had told Mr. Trump that his own office windows were being broken into. “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Mr. Trump said, according to a report by CNN that the congresswoman confirmed.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Mr. McCarthy fired back at one point, CNN reported, including an expletive.
Source: Read Full Article