My phone rang off the hook as soon as the news came. according to Coverage from The Washington PostThe White House’s internal phone records have been turned over to The January 6 House Committee included a gap of seven hours and 37 minutes. A lot can be said in 457 minutes.
Comparisons with 18.5-minute gap in President Richard Nixon’s critical recording It was immediately apparent to me. After all, you were the prosecutor who questioned the witnesses Nixon’s Secretary, Rosemary Woodsabout how this gap arises. And I’m not the only one who made this connection.
I was the attorney general who questioned Nixon’s secretary, Rose Marie Woods, about how this gap emerged. And I’m not the only one who made this connection.
These similarities and differences emerge as legislators continue to combat apparent obstacles In their investigations into the events leading up to and during the Capitol riots.
First, it appears that Nixon’s gap – based on my experience and other experts – was a deliberate erasure. Is Trump? We don’t have enough evidence to say for sure yet, but the missing part for sure sound deliberate.
Almost 50 years ago, Woods testified It was partly an accident Caused by her accidentally hitting the record button instead of the record machine’s stop button, along with keeping her foot on the pedal which stopped and started. Her theory soured naivety. Many experts concluded that it was not an accidental erasure, but Seven or more separate erases. (In my opinion, I don’t think any of these erases were created by Woods. I suspect it was Nixon himself, perhaps with the help of his first chief of staff, H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, or General Al Haig, his second chief of staff, who initially said The gap is due to an “evil force”.)
Trump’s gap is suspect, too. For one thing, The Post reports that the phone log shows the president has been busy making calls before and after the gap, making call drops of seven hours or more unlikely. Most convincingly, the gap covers the main period of the uprising. We know from other reports that Trump made and received calls during that time, at least one of them It was before Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah (Although Trump was apparently trying to contact Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.) It is unlikely, even incredible, that no one would call the president for 457 minutes during a crisis when he was in the White House. Even calls that go unanswered at the White House must be entered in official records.
If the gap in Trump’s phone record was intentional, it would require a series of urgent follow-up questions. For example, it would be important to know whether Trump or anyone on his team edited the records before they were delivered to the National Archives as required by the Presidential Records Act. (Ironically, of course, this law was passed as a result of Nixon’s mishandling of presidential documents.) Instead, Trump could have prevented the creation of official White House phone records by switching to cheap cell phones, his personal cell phone, or that of an aide. Close, and if he does, we should know.
Fortunately, there are often alternative sources, outside of official records, that can fill in loopholes – unintended or malicious.
Handwritten notes from Nixon’s Oval Office conversation with Haldeman—taken by Haldeman—show that the pause began precisely when their conversation turned to the Watergate storming and ended when they turned to other matters. Haldeman’s notes explained the content of the missing minutes.
Hopefully, testimonies and phone records of those whose calls are likely missing will emerge from Trump’s official White House phone record. Even a quick investigation should provide answers about who, in addition to Lee and Tuberville, spoke during this gap of seven hours or more.
Ultimately, however, while the similarities between the two examples are important, so are the differences.
Ultimately, however, while the similarities between the two examples are important, so are the differences.
The Nixon Gap was one conversation about covering up a third-degree burglary. That’s what we know because of Haldeman’s notes, which detail their conversation about a PR attack to counter the Watergate storming and a plan to find faults in the White House offices. (The last point is very ironic given Nixon’s penchant for bugging everyone and everything around him.)
Trump’s missing hours of talks likely looked at the ongoing insurgency and various alleged plans to overturn a free and fair election. We don’t know what he might have discussed, but we do know that in the days leading up to January 6, Trump was publicly trying to find any possible way to disrupt or undo the fraud-free US election results. Through agents and lawyers, the Trump team has been working around the clock to undermine the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory in November 2020 and encourage millions of hardline Trump supporters to do the same.
It is often said that the Nixon cover-up was worse than his original crime. The opposite may be true for Trump. Trump’s records gap is 25 times as long as Nixon’s, but his alleged crime could be incalculably worse.
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