Tuberville stands by account of phone call

Published 1:13 pm Saturday, February 13, 2021

Records released by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) appear to corroborate

what Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has said about his phone call with former President Donald Trump on Jan. 6 as insurgents raided the U.S. Capitol.

Tuberville told Politico that the former president called him as violent rioters were storming the Capitol. “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 told the media outlet.

That call was made to the phone of Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who Trump appeared to have mistakenly called while trying to reach Tuberville.

Lee has since released the phone records showing the call came in at 2:26 p.m. ET and lasted four minutes. Pence had been removed from the floor by Secret Service agents at 2:13 p.m.

At 2:24 p.m., Trump had tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”

On Friday, Trump’s defense team for the impeachment trial said the former president didn’t know his vice president had been removed or was in danger when he sent out the tweet.

A Tuberville spokesperson said Saturday, “As the Senator has repeatedly said, he has shared his best recollection of the call and has done so publicly numerous times.”

While senators were being rushed to safety, Trump and his attorney Rudy Guilliani were trying to reach Tuberville to reportedly ask him to stall the election certification vote.

According to the Dispatch, Giuliani was trying to reach Tuberville around 7 p.m. that night and instead called the phone of another senator. He left a voicemail, apparently thinking he’d reached Tuberville’s phone.

In it, he said, “I want to discuss with you how they’re trying to rush this hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends, to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information to you. And I know they’re reconvening at 8 tonight, but it — the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow — ideally, until the end of tomorrow. I know McConnell is doing everything he can to rush it, which is kind of a kick in the head, because it’s one thing to oppose us, it’s another thing not to give us a fair opportunity to contest it.”