What is the old saying? “It is never the crime, it’s the cover-up”? Well, the New York Times has yet another Trump White House bombshell out today (We reported yesterday, ‘Watch out for big stuff to drop because GOP pols are distancing themselves, fast). In this particular bombshell, the old saying might have it entirely reversed; Whereas most pols get caught hiding something embarrassing or relatively little and then get caught going through extensive lengths to cover it up, this time the crime might well be much bigger than the cover-up, indeed it necessitated the cover-up.

According to the New York Times:

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has discovered gaps in official White House telephone logs from the day of the riot, finding few records of calls by President Donald J. Trump from critical hours when investigators know that he was making them.

So they “know” he was making them, and yet not showing up on logs. There are few acceptable explanations.

Investigators have not uncovered evidence that any official records were tampered with or deleted, and it is well known that Mr. Trump used his personal cellphone, and those of his aides, routinely to talk with aides, congressional allies and outside confidants.

But the sparse call records are the latest major obstacle to the panel’s central mission: recreating what Mr. Trump was doing behind closed doors during crucial moments of the assault on Congress by a mob of his supporters.

More Below:

Breaking News: Jan. 6 investigators have found gaps in White House phone records during the Capitol riot, when they know Donald Trump was making calls. https://t.co/fmZsm8LVgN

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 10, 2022

It sounds like it is time to subpoena Trump’s cellphone records. Unlike subpoenaing the Vice-President or the President to testify, for which there is no precedent, there is precedent for subpoenaing phone records.

Nixon recorded Oval Office meetings. But it wasn’t official government policy at the time. The fact that tapes existed shook the country. Thus, in a sense, Nixon was doing the taping for personal reasons, just as Trump might have been using his own cell phone for personal reasons.

But even with the use of the cell phone, if there is an obvious gap in White House call logs, it means one of two to three things. It means that Trump used the official phones enough that there is a noticeable gap that stands out, at an extremely concerning time (one that would think there would be calls coming in large volumes and Trump would be forced to take those calls, given what was happening). Or, Trump used his personal cell phone and somehow had someone delete the calls in a non-obvious manner. Or someone, somehow, erased the logs.

Regardless, the situation is eerily like what happened in the Nixon Watergate probe and we all know how that turned out.

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[email protected] with Nicole Hickman