Donald Trump KNEW Mike Pence had been evacuated from MAGA mob BEFORE he tweeted VP 'didn't have courage' to overturn election
On the day of the Capitol Hill riot, Donald Trump sent his tweet blasting Mike Pence for 'lacking courage' to overturn the election results after learning his vice president was removed from the Senate floor for his own safety.
Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville revealed that he spoke to Trump the afternoon of January 6th, the day Congress was certifying the election results.
Tuberville told reporters Wednesday night that he told Trump he couldn't talk because the rioters had broken into the Capitol.
'I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to President Trump. You don’t get many words in, but, uh, 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,"' he said.
The phone call between Trump and Tuberville had been reported on before but the fact Tuberville told the president about Pence is new information. It had been unclear when Trump learned what kind of danger Pence was in that day.
Pence was removed from the Senate chamber at 2:14 p.m., according to video footage from that day. He was hidden in a room nearby, with his wife Karen and daughter Charlotte.
Trump sent his tweet at 2:24 p.m.
'Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,' he wrote.
At 2:26 p.m., Pence was moved again - this time from the room he was in near the Senate chamber to a more secure location in the Capitol complex.
Never-before-seen security camera footage from January 6th shows Vice President Mike Pence and his family being rushed from their hiding place near the Senate chamber to a more secure location
Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville revealed he told President Trump on January 6th that Mike Pence was removed from the Senate for his own safety: 'I said "Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go"'
President Trump sent a tweet attacking Pence for 'lacking courage' to overturn the election results after he spoke to Tuberville
The rioters had broken into the Capitol at 2:11 p.m., causing the removal of Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was presiding in the House.
That afternoon, Trump called Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah - but by accident.
Trump thought he was calling Tuberville, who had said he would object to the electoral votes of some states.
Trump wanted to talk to Tuberville about expanding his challenges and slowing down the certification process even further. But he dialed Lee by mistake.
Tuberville spoke about the call because it came up on Wednesday, during the Democratic impeachment managers' case against the former president.
Rep. David Cicilline, during his presentation, told an anecdote that was based on a story in Deseret News that cited Lee as its source, where Lee talked about Trump accidentally calling him as he sought to reach Tuberville.
'Senator Lee describes it, he had just ended a prayer with his colleagues here in the Senate chamber and the phone rang, it was Donald Trump,' Cicilline said.
'And how Senator Lee describes it is the phone call goes something like this,' the Rhode Island Democrat continued. '"Hey Tommy,"' Trump asks. And Senator Lee says this isn't Tommy. And he hands the phone to Sen. Tuberville.'
'Senator Lee stood by as Senator Tuberville and President Trump spoke on the phone and on that call Donald Trump reportedly asked Senator Tuberville to make additional objections to the certification process,' Cicilline explained.
Lee also told the publication that Tuberville and Trump spoke for about five to 10 minutes. He said he stood nearby to ensure he didn't lose his phone in the commotion.
During Wednesday's trial, Lee objected to that story being included as evidence and asked it be stricken from the record.
'Statements were attributed to me moments ago by the House impeachment managers, statements related to the content of conversations between - a phone call involving President Trump and Senator Tuberville, were not made by me, they're not accurate and they're contrary to fact,' Lee said.
The impeachment managers agreed to withdraw the story, saying they didn't need it to make their case against Trump.
Dramatic new footage showed Vice President Mike Pence, his wife and his daughter being removed to safety as MAGA mob crowds spread throughout the building
Impeachment manager, Rep. Joaquin Castro, spoke of the gallows that had been erected outside the Capitol Building, nothing that 'Some of these insurgents were heard saying that they hope to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him as a traitors'
Sen. Mike Lee objected to the story of the phone call being included in the impeachment trial - Lee was mentioned as Trump had accidentally tried to call his phone to reach Sen. Tommy Tuberville
On January 6th, inside the Capitol building, the pro-Trump mob was looking for Pence with some shouting 'hang Mike.' Some rioters came within a few hundred feed of the vice president as Pence was being moved.
Dramatic footage from the Capitol that day showed Secret Service agents rushing Pence out of his hiding place near the Senate chamber as the MAGA rioters stormed the building.
In the footage, taken from a security camera from inside the Capitol, a group of agents, one of whom carried the football with the nuclear codes, led the Pence family from where they had been taken after being removed from the Senate chamber.
Pence, his wife Karen and daughter Charlotte followed the agents down the stairs and were moved to another location in the Capitol.
'You can see Vice President Pence and his family quickly moved downstairs. Then, as Pence was being evacuated, rioters started to spread throughout the Capitol,’ Democratic Rep. Stacey Plaskett said during the impeachment managers' presentation.
Plaskett played several never-before-seen security camera footage from the January 6th riot as part of Democrats' case for the impeachment of Trump. She then showed the pro-Trump supporters yelling 'Kill Mike Pence.'
At a later moment in the trial, Rep. Joaquin Castro, noted how 'some of these insurgents were heard saying that they hope to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him as a traitors.'
A makeshift gallows had been erected outside the Capitol Building. Castro asked senators to look at that image for a moment.
'It harkens back to our nation's worst history of lynching,' the Texas Democrat said.
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