GOP Sen. Mike Lee hands over phone records to House impeachment managers
GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah has turned over phone records to the House impeachment managers, shedding light on the timing of a call that had been referenced during the second Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.
A list of calls Lee gave to the managers showed a highlighted incoming call from a Washington, DC, area code at 2:26 p.m. ET on January 6. That put the call two minutes after Trump sent a tweet attacking Vice President Mike Pence on the day of the attack on the US Capitol.
CNN reported last month that Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani had both mistakenly made calls to the senator as the deadly riot unfolded on Capitol Hill — calls that were intended for another GOP senator the White House was frantically trying to convince to delay the counting of Electoral College votes. Lee’s spokesman previously told CNN that the calls from Trump and his attorney were intended for Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a newly elected Republican from Alabama.
Trump first called the personal cell phone of Lee shortly after 2 p.m. ET. At that time the senators had been evacuated from the Senate floor and were in a temporary holding room, as a pro-Trump mob began breaching the Capitol.
The House impeachment managers have referenced the call as they’ve argued that Trump did not take sufficient action to call off the mob as the attack was unfolding and sought to provide insight into the former President’s state of mind at the time.
Democratic Rep. David Cicilline, one of the managers, again addressed the call on the Senate floor Saturday afternoon.
“There’s been some confusion as to the phone call I referenced with Senator Lee so I want to be clear about certain facts that are not in dispute,” Cicilline said. “First, Sen. Lee has confirmed that the call occurred at 2:26 p.m. so I’ve added that to the timeline above. Remember, by this phone call, the vice president has just been evacuated on live television for his own safety and Donald Trump had, after that, tweeted an attack on him, which the insurgents read on a bull horn. And a few minutes after Donald Trump’s tweet, he didn’t reach out to check on the vice president’s safety, he called a senator to ask about delaying the certification.”
A tweet from Trump at 2:24 p.m. ET on the day of the attack said: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
