Trump’s White House Call Logs Have 7-Hour Gap On Jan. 6

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Nothing Suspicious Here!

The White House records of Trump’s calls on Jan. 6 don’t include any calls the president made or received from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. that day, according to the Washington Post and CBS News, which obtained the records. The call logs were turned over to the Jan. 6 committee by the National Archives. Key excerpts from the story:

• “The lack of an official White House notation of any calls placed to or by Trump for 457 minutes on Jan. 6, 2021 … means the committee has no record of his phone conversations as his supporters descended on the Capitol, battled overwhelmed police and forcibly entered the building, prompting lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to flee for safety.”
• “The House panel is now investigating whether Trump communicated that day through backchannels, phones of aides or personal disposable phones, known as ‘burner phones,’ according to two people with knowledge of the probe …”
• “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.'”
• “The documents obtained by the committee show Trump having several previously unreported exchanges on Jan. 6, including brief calls with [Steve] Bannon and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that morning, before Trump had a final call with Pence, in which the vice president told him he was not going to block Congress from formalizing Biden’s victory.”

Jan. 6 Panel Tells Garland To Do His Job As It Approves New Contempt Charges

The House Jan. 6 Committee voted to recommend criminal contempt charges for former Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino on Monday night. The recommendation will now go to the House for a full vote, where it’ll likely pass and go to the Justice Department, which has done … not very much at all with the contempt recommendation it already got for ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

• Members of the committee called on Attorney General Merrick Garland multiple times on Monday night to, you know, actually do something about Meadows. After all, evidence so far shows that he was significantly more involved in the events of Jan. 6 than Steve Bannon, whom the DOJ has charged with contempt.
• The stakes in the panel’s investigation are getting higher every day: A judge had ruled earlier on Monday that Trump had likely committed felony obstruction of Congress when he and his then-legal adviser John Eastman plotted to have Vice President Mike Pence throw out Biden electors in the 2020 election certification process.

Judge Orders Trump Org To Comply With Subpoena By End Of April

The Trump Organization has until April 29 to comply with the New York attorney general’s subpoena in her fraud investigation, a New York state judge ruled on Monday. The subpoena in question was issued over two years ago, and “I think we can all agree we want this to end at some point for numerous reasons,” the judge said.

DeSantis Signs ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Into Law

Surrounded by young children as props, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday signed the Parental Rights in Education bill, aka the legislation that bans classroom discussion about LGBTQ+ topics in kindergarten through third grade, or in any grade if it’s “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”

• DeSantis, in his sustained war on the LGBTQ+ community, dialed the theater up a notch last week when he put out a functionally meaningless “proclamation” declaring that the runner-up in a NCAA women’s swimming championship was the “rightful winner” after transgender swimmer Lia Thomas won the competition.

Clarence Thomas Returns To Work Remotely

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas participated in oral hearings remotely on Monday, his first day back after a nearly week-long stay at the hospital brought on by an infection. 

• The justice missed three days of arguments last week before he was discharged from the hospital on Friday morning.
• No word yet on whether he plans to recuse himself from cases about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack amid the neon signs of his wife’s involvement in MAGALand’s attempted election steal.

Must Read

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Nebraska GOPer Walks Back Rant About Kids Transing Themselves Into Cats And Using Litter Boxes In School

Nebraska state Sen. Bruce Bostelman (R) backpedaled on Monday after he gave this batshit floor speech earlier claiming that students were identifying as cats (and “furries”) and demanding that they be allowed to use litter boxes:

(This whole thing is beyond cursed, but I’m just dying at “How is this sanitary?” being his first question here.)

• Bostelman later acknowledged on Monday that the fake rumor (which has been spreading for a while now, believe it or not) isn’t true. “It was just something I felt that if this really was happening, we needed to address it and address it quickly,” he said. (Excellent point, it would be indeed concerning if this fake thing that never happened happened!).
• On the other hand, Bostelman’s actually not wrong in that that some schools are equipping classrooms with cat litter. It’s not for indulging in the fantasies of these mythical trans cat kids, though. It’s there in case students need to use the bathroom during a lockdown in a school shooting.

Kushner To Speak To Jan. 6 Panel

Former White House adviser Jared Kushner is expected to sit down for a voluntary interview with the House Jan. 6 Committee as soon as this Thursday, according to ABC News.

Late Rep. Don Young To Lie In State

Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who passed away on March 18 at 88 years old, will lie in state in National Statuary Hall in the Capitol today.

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