When Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah pitched a hissy fit at the end of Trump impeachment trial proceedings Wednesday night, he drew attention to a small detail from the Jan. 6 insurrection that might have gone less noticed.
There was chaos in the chamber when ahead of adjournment last night a “visibly outraged” Lee objected to testimony that cited him as a source for a conversation between Trump and Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama:
In the final hour of arguments on Wednesday, Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island and one of the impeachment managers, spoke of Mr. Trump mistakenly calling Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, in an effort to reach Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama. In describing the call, which was detailed in news reports, Mr. Cicilline asserted that Mr. Lee had stood by as Mr. Trump asked Mr. Tuberville to make additional objections to the certification of President Biden’s electoral votes.
“This is not what happened,” Lee wrote in large letters on a notepad. He demanded the anecdote be struck from the record, perhaps referring to testimony identifying him as the source for the actual content of the call. Lee did not say.
After some intense huddles on the floor, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the leading impeachment manager, agreed to withdraw the statement. He reserved the option to raise the issue again later.
Tuberville told reporters afterwards that he wished Cicilline’s statement “had been correct” (Politico):
“I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to President Trump. You don’t get many words in, but, he didn’t get a chance to say a whole lot because I said ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Tuberville said in an interview.
Lee had traded some text messages about the wrong number with Bryan Schott of the Salt Lake Tribune the evening of the insurrection. “Moments after the proceedings in the Senate were halted by the Capitol Police,” Lee said Trump had called him by mistake while trying to contact Tuberville. Senators had already been relocated to a temporary holding room. Lee walked over and handed his phone to Tuberville, Schott reported in his newsletter.
The call between Trump and Tuberville lasted “five or ten minutes,” according to Lee.
So it is the timing of the five-or-ten-minute Tuberville call and Trump’s tweet lashing out at Pence that S.V. Date of Huffington Post found interesting late Wednesday (emphasis mine):
According to video footage from that day, Pence was removed from the Senate at 2:14 p.m. after rioters had broken into the Capitol, meaning that when Trump lashed out at Pence at 2:24 p.m., he already knew Pence’s life was in danger.
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,” Trump wrote in his tweet.
[…]
The exact time Pence was taken from the Senate following the breach of the Capitol by the mob Trump had incited to try to overturn the presidential election was known the day of the attack, as was the time of Trump’s tweet. What was not known until Tuberville’s statement was whether Trump was aware of the danger Pence was in at the time he posted his tweet.
Trump spokesperson Jason Miller did not respond to HuffPost queries late Wednesday.
Saying nothing more is probably Trump’s best move at this point. Raskin and his impeachment team are sure to come back to build a case around the Tuberville call more explicitly.
The timing is tight. Rioters breached the Capitol around 2:11 p.m. ET. Security removed Pence from the Senate chamber at 2:14 p.m. Trump called Lee “moments” later. The call lasted “five or ten minutes.” Trump tweeted against Pence at 2:24 p.m.
It is possible that even knowing Pence’s life was in danger, Trump amped up pressure on Pence, the mob’s outrage, and the danger to members of Congress, their staffs, and to anyone working inside the Capitol. Anyone who watched Trump over the prior four years knows it is not possible that Trump cared.
As people died and over a hundred officers were injured, some seriously, Trump sat for hours watching the riot unfold on television and did nothing to stop it.