“He took everybody’s calls,” the aide said, even interrupting national security briefings to make and receive calls.
The phone was his lifeline, according to former Trump administration officials.
That’s because the House select committee looking into the US Capitol riot has discovered an unusual gap in Trump’s official White House phone log for multiple hours, according to sources familiar with the House investigation — from after he returned to the White House from speaking to his supporters at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, until he spoke via video to the nation from the Rose Garden. And it has got investigators looking elsewhere — to other people’s cell phones and perhaps even to Trump’s own cell phones, although the committee has declined to take that uncomfortable step so far.
The difficulty for the committee in tracking down just whom Trump spoke with — and when — is dealing with his unorthodox phone habits while in office: According to multiple sources formerly in the administration, the ex-President often used other people’s telephones (or multiple phones of his own, sometimes rotated in and out of use) to communicate with his supporters — and even family.
One former staffer blamed the former President’s habit on an aversion to anyone listening to his calls (which, in the White House, is hard for a president to avoid if he calls from a desk phone). So he would, frequently, grab the cell phone of a nearby aide or even a Secret Service agent to make calls.
One case in point: After the Stormy Daniels story broke in 2018, Trump was on the golf course trying to reach his wife, Melania Trump, from his phone, and she did not pick up, according to a source with knowledge. So he turned to a Secret Service agent and used the agent’s phone to try to reach her instead. The first lady then picked up. According to this source, the agent was not pleased his phone had been used this way.
As CNN has reported, sources familiar with the investigation have not drawn any…
Source : cnn
