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That gap of information looms as the House panel works to finalize a minute-by-minute account of Trumps actions on Jan. 6, when he pushed Pence to prevent the transfer of power to Biden. Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) has remained publicly undecided about whether to seek testimony from Pence himself, noting that Pences closest advisers have cooperated fulsomely. But investigators must also confront whether Pences side of that conversation for which no Pence advisers were present is significant enough to ask him to fill in the blanks.

Its unlikely the committee will attempt to force Pence to testify. There are imposing legal obstacles for subpoenaing a former vice president, and the panel considers Pence a witness, not a target of their probe. Whether they ask for his voluntary help is another question.

An hour after the call, Pence would publicly declare what hed privately told Trump for weeks: He would not assert unprecedented power to overturn the election. Barring some unforeseen twist, Joe Biden would be the next president. Aides who had been working all morning to finalize Pences statement delayed it to give Trump a chance to address his supporters, but the decision had long been settled.

But Pences words to Trump could be significant as congressional and criminal probes of Jan. 6 advance. A federal judge has concluded that Trump more likely than not criminally conspired to obstruct Congress proceedings to finalize Bidens victory. He described Trumps pressure campaign against Pence as a coup in search of a legal theory. The select committee has also argued that Trump committed multiple crimes as he leaned on Pence to subvert the election.

Jan. 6 call logs obtained by the select committee, revealed last month by The Washington Post and CBS, show that Trump first tried to reach Pence at 9:02 a.m. But the two men did not connect. The operator, according to those call logs, left a message at 9:15 a.m. Trump had already twice tweeted that morning that Pence had the power to stop Congress from finalizing Bidens victory.

The logs dont reflect Trumps subsequent call with Pence, but a private schedule investigators obtained from the National Archives suggests the two men connected at 11:20 a.m. while Pence was in his residence and Trump was in the Oval Office. Pences chief of staff Marc Short and chief counsel Greg Jacob told the select committee that they remembered Pence receiving the call from Trump at about that time.

[A]t some point during our meeting a military aide knocked on the door and said the President was holding for the Vice President, at which point he excused himself to take the call, Short recalled.

How long was he gone? a committee attorney asked.

My best guess would be 15, 20 minutes, Short replied.

Upon his return, did he share any details of the conversation with you? the investigator asked.

No, Short said.

Jacob also recalled that Pence left the room to take Trumps call and agreed Pence didnt brief them on it when he came back.

The Vice Presidents rule was never to divulge the contents of his conversations with the President, Jacob testified.

Shortly after hanging up, Pence traveled to the Capitol to preside over the joint session of Congress.

Pences apparent privacy hasnt stopped accounts of the call from emerging. Theyve just all come from people who only heard Trumps side of it.

The same private schedule showing Trumps call with Pence also reveals who entered the Oval Office just minutes earlier, a group that appeared to be present while Trump made his final push to pressure his vice president. The list includes Trumps adult children Ivanka, Donald Jr. and Eric, as well as Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Jr.s then-girlfriend. Also in the room were White House aide Keith Kellogg, chief of staff Mark Meadows and counsel Eric Herschmann. Kellogg, who testified to the select committee, said he recalled seeing Eric Trumps wife, Lara, in the vicinity, though shes not listed on the schedule.

Multiple people familiar with the testimony given to the select committee about the call offered a consistent account. One of those people granted anonymity to speak candidly said witnesses described the conversation as beginning relatively pleasantly, with Trump embracing the legal advice he was given about Pences ability to send the election back to the states.

Although people in the Oval Office couldnt hear him, Pence had clearly rejected Trumps entreaties, the person indicated. Witnesses have said listeners in the room were surprised because it was the first time they recalled Pence saying no to Trump. The call deteriorated and Trump grew frustrated.

A portion of Kelloggs testimony has become public in court filings and provided a similar recollection of Trumps side of the phone call. Kellogg said he couldnt hear Pences responses but remembered Trump pushing his vice president to embrace a fringe theory intended to stop Bidens victory: sending the election back to a handful of GOP-controlled state legislatures to appoint new presidential electors.

Kellogg said he presumed Pence rebuffed Trump because Trump seemed disappointed. He recalled Trump saying something to the effect of: Youre not tough enough to make the call.

I would say [he] was frustrated, Kellogg told the committee. He hung up. And after he hung up, we went right back to speech prep. He didnt get up, walk out, yell, throw things. He just said okay and went back to the speech discussion.

Kellogg also told the select committee that Ivanka Trump turned to him at the close of the call and said, Mike Pence is a good man.

Importantly, Ivanka Trump, Guilfoyle and Herschmann, the former Trump White House lawyer, have all recently testified to the select committee and were likely asked about their recollection of the call. Aides to all three did not respond to requests for comment.

But a harsher version of the exchange described by Kellogg has emerged in books and news reports.

You can either go down in history as a patriot or you can go down in history as a pussy, Trump said, according to an account reported by The New York Times days after the Jan. 6 attack.

Months later, Trump told ABC that he wouldnt dispute the Times account. I also said You can be Thomas Jefferson or you can be no Thomas Jefferson, and you turned out to be no Thomas Jefferson, Trump recalled to ABC.

The book Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, describes some of Pences pushback on the call, quoting him as telling Trump, Ill do my job. The comment reportedly prompted furious pushback from Trump.

The select committee has used those books as a rough guide for questioning witnesses, looking to confirm reported details. But its unclear whether the panel has collected more details on Pences final words to Trump that day.

Shortly after they hung up, Trump traveled to the Ellipse to deliver his remarks to the Stop the Steal rally he assembled in Washington to pressure Pence and Congress. He told the crowd that he had just spoken to Pence, whom he referenced a dozen times in his speech.

All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people, Trump told the crowd.

I just spoke to Mike. I said, Mike, that doesnt take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage. And then were stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years, Trump continued. Were just not going to let that happen.

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Jan. 6 panel piecing together details of final Trump-Pence call - POLITICO

At first blush, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich appears to be the kind of Republican whom Donald Trump should love. Brnovich not only routinely offers gushing praise for the former president, the conservative Arizonan even looked the other way when presented with evidence of potential crimes related to the pro-Trump fake electors scheme.

But as hard as Brnovich tries to stay in the former presidents good graces, especially as his U.S. Senate campaign continues, the more the state attorney general falls short. For example, Trump issued this written statement this week:

Attorney General Brnovich of Arizona was given massive information on the fraud and so-called irregularities that took place in the 2020 Presidential Election.... [R]ather than go after the people that committed these election crimes, it looks like he is just going to kick the can down the road and stay in that middle path of non-controversy. He wants to be politically correct.

Trump went on to say in the written statement that unnamed people are upset with Brnovich for not pursuing election conspiracy theories. The former president, his idiosyncratic approach to grammatical rules intact, concluded, The good news is Arizona has some very good people running for election to the U.S. Senate. I will be making an Endorsement in the not too distant future!

The implication, of course, was that Trump does not see the state attorney general as among the very good people.

Brnovich responded to Trump yesterday with a statement of his own that read in part, I understand his frustration, but as Ive said previously, I will continue to follow the facts and evidence and do what the law requires. Thats what Ive always done and what I will do as Arizonas next senator.

To be sure, there are several intra-party fissures in Republican politics right now, but its worth appreciating what makes this one among the most amazing.

Circling back to our earlier coverage, Brnovich is clearly in a politically tricky position. On the one hand, hes a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in a crowded primary, and hes eager to impress Trump and his partys far-right base.

On the other hand, Brnovich is also Arizonas top law enforcement official, whos faced intense lobbying from the former president to help with the partys crusade against the 2020 election.

The more Brnovich boosts Trumps Big Lie, the more its likely to help his statewide campaign. The more he uses his office responsibly, and sidesteps ridiculous conspiracy theories, the more he risks being seen as a villain by the former president and his followers.

Its why, as Politico recently put it, Brnovich is effectively caught in a vice.

With this in mind, Trumps pressure campaign has been painfully overt. Indeed, as weve discussed, Trump has publicly criticized the state attorney general for not going far enough to kowtow to the former presidents anti-election nonsense. Trump even issued a written statement last year, saying Brnovich was nowhere to be found in helping spread ridiculous ideas about the 2020 race.

The lackluster Attorney General of Arizona, Mark Brnovich, has to get on the ball and catch up with the great Republican patriots in the Arizona State Senate, Trump added.

Last month, the former president went on to demand to know whether Brnovich would do the right thing. Soon after, Trump called on the state attorney general to take the matter to the next level. He also held a rally in Arizona in which he told supporters, in reference to Brnovich, I think hes going to do his job well find out.

Subtle it was not.

The trouble, of course, is that no matter how aggressive the former presidents lobbying becomes, the state attorney general cant create evidence that doesnt exist. NBC News reported a few weeks ago that Brnovich issued a report on his offices investigation into the 2020 race, and the findings showed no evidence of widespread voter fraud or irregularities.

This, naturally, enraged Trump, who believes the non-existent evidence in Arizona must exist because ... well, just because.

Indeed, the former president is so convinced that his own lies are true that hes come to an inescapable conclusion: Brnovich is disloyal for failing to pursue investigations based on the proof that definitely exists in Trumps overactive imagination.

In other words, Brnovich isnt quite corrupt enough for Trump, and the Arizonans career is likely to end as a result.

Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics."

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Why Trump is lashing out at one of his own GOP allies in Arizona - MSNBC

Former President Donald Trump has long touted the importance of his endorsements in the Republican primary processes and as crucial midterms approach, he's been offering his backing to a range of candidates.

However, the power of the former president's endorsement could be called into question as some of his preferred candidates have faced attacks from others in the GOP.

Trump faced some conservative criticism for endorsing celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race, with Fox News host Laura Ingraham saying it was a "mistake."

In Ohio, Trump has formally endorsed J.D. Vance for the Senate despite the fact Vance has been trailing Republican rival Josh Mandel. It remains to be seen if the former president's nod will be decisive.

On Tuesday, the Trump-endorsed candidate for Tennessee's 5th congressional district, Morgan Ortagus, was removed from the primary ballot after a vote by the state party. She has said she's looking at her options.

And in Georgia, Trump is backing former U.S. Senator David Perdue in his primary challenge to Governor Brian Kemp but Kemp appears to be well positioned to defeat Perdue.

Sean Parnell, who Trump previously endorsed in the Pennsylvania Senate race, dropped out amid his estranged wife's accusations of abusive behavior and Trump withdrew his endorsement from Representative Mo Brooks in the Alabama Senate race, possibly because of his poor showing in the polls despite an initial lead.

Political experts who spoke to Newsweek suggested that while the former president's endorsement still mattered, it may not carry the same weight it once didand that could have implications for a potential Trump 2024 presidential bid.

Robert Singh, a professor at the Department of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London, told Newsweek that the former president may have less of a hold over the GOP than has been imagined.

"Although the Republican Party now is much more Trump's party than Ronald Reagan's, Trump has had a very uneven record in terms of endorsing Republican candidates for Congress and state positions," Singh said.

"What this shows is that while he remains popular among rank-and-file GOP voters, his supposed 'hold' on the party is more tenuous than many imagine," he went on.

Singh suggested that "establishment" Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell "are desperate to avoid a repeat of 2010, where the GOP could have won the Senate but failed to do so because of some eccentric nominees."

McConnell made reference to the 2010 midterms during comments in Kentucky on April 12 where he warned that Republicans would struggle to win if they nominate "somebody who's just sort of unacceptable to a broader group of people" in competitive races.

In one famous case, the Republican Senate candidate in Delaware, Christine O'Donnell, recorded a TV ad assuring voters she was not a witch, addressing comments she had made during an appearance on Bill Maher's show, Politically Incorrect, in 1999.

"So, many Trump-endorsed figures face stiff competition from more party-focused Republicans," Singh explained.

Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on U.S. Politics, told Newsweek that Republicans will still seek Trump's endorsement.

"Trump is often described as having a cult-like following among his core supporters," Gift said. "Yet his uneven record in picking primary winners proves that the GOP base doesn't acquiesce to his every whim."

"Trump voters are much more impulsive, unpredictable, and ideologically-motivated than they're often given credit for," he said. "The personal fealty they display toward their leader, in other words, isn't unbounded."

Gift said that despite this, Trump's endorsement "is still highly coveted, and in tight races, there's no doubt it could give candidates the marginal boost they need to secure a win."

"The fact that virtually every Republican contender wants Trump's blessing is evidence of his continued popularity with the party," he added.

Trump is still considered the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Polls have shown majorities of GOP voters favor him and he has repeatedly hinted at a third White House run.

Robert Singh told Newsweek that the opposition Trump-endorsed candidates face "probably won't be decisive on whether Trump runs again."

"Privately, he has told many figures that he is running, but the laws on campaign financing mean that he has no incentive to declare anytime sooneven after the midterms," Singh said.

"With ample money, name recognition, and media attention, he can wait, still knowing he's the frontrunner in what promises to be a very large field of presidential aspirants," he went on.

However, Singh said that "what the hit-and-miss record of endorsements confirm is that many Republicans are looking actively for alternatives."

"Trump may run again for the GOP nomination but it is by no means a certainty that he will secure it in the face of, ironically, a roster of candidates who can offer the positives of a Trumpian candidacy without the negatives that turn voters off," he said.

Thomas Gift said that some GOP operatives "might question the wisdom of Trump risking his political capital on primary candidates who ultimately lose."

"Fair enough," Gift said. "But true to form, Trump seems more interested in actually helping candidates who he sees as loyal to him and his agenda."

"The fact that he's not just anointing candidates who already have a clear path to victory is indicative of the kind of boldness that many supporters admire about Trump," Gift added.

Newsweek has asked former President Trump's office for comment.

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Donald Trump Is Realizing the Limits of His Power in GOP Primaries - Newsweek

Mr. Bannon, Mr. Lindell and Mr. Epshteyn have repeatedly promoted decertification at the state level on Mr. Bannons podcast, War Room, since last summer, pushing it as a steady drumbeat and at times claiming that it could lead to Mr. Trump being put back into office. They have described the so-called audit movement that began in Arizona and spread to other states as part of a larger effort to decertify electoral votes.

We are on a full, full freight train to decertify, Mr. Epshteyn said on the program in January. Thats what were going to get. Everyone knows. Everyone knows this election was stolen.

Weighing changes to the Insurrection Act. Some lawmakers on the Jan. 6 House committee have begun discussions about rewriting the Insurrection Actin response to the events that led to the Capitol riot. The law currently gives presidents the authority to deploy the military to respond to a rebellion, and some fear it could be abused by a president trying to stoke one.

Debating a criminal referral. The House panel has grown divided over whether to make a criminal referralof former President Donald J. Trump to the Justice Department, even though it has concluded that it has enough evidence to do so. The debate centers on whether a referral would backfire by politically tainting the expandingfederal investigation.

Continuing election doubts. More than a year after they tried and failed to use Congresss final count of electoral votes on Jan. 6 to overturn the election, some Trump allies are pushing bogus legal theories about decertifying the 2020 voteand continuing to fuel a false narrativethat has resonated with Mr. Trumps supporters.

Last fall, 186 state legislators from 39 states joined a letter written by Wendy Rogers, a Republican state senator from Arizona who has appeared at events hosted by Mr. Lindell, calling on each state to decertify its electors where it has been shown the elections were certified prematurely and inaccurately.

All the efforts have either failed to progress or been rejected for lack of legal grounds in the absence of any evidence of widespread voter fraud that could have affected the 2020 election. And even as elected Republicans have almost uniformly embraced Mr. Trumps claims that the vote was stolen, many have rejected the idea that states should decertify their results or argued that the effort was merely symbolic, noting that he could never be reinstated.

Still, Mr. Trump is now the front-runner in public opinion surveys of the possible Republican presidential field. While he has yet to declare his candidacy, he has privately told associates that he is planning to run again.

A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The legal drive to reverse his 2020 loss has had ripple effects in the Republican Party. With midterm congressional elections less than six months away, the push has put pressure on candidates to either endorse it or risk the wrath of Mr. Trump and his supporters. In Alabama, Representative Mo Brooks said that the former president had repeatedly demanded that he rescind the election and remove Mr. Biden. When the congressman said that was impossible, Mr. Trump withdrew his endorsement in the states Senate Republican primary.

In Pennsylvania, Jake Corman, the top Republican in the State Senate who promised last year to review the 2020 election results, said he had dropped plans to end his bid for governor after Mr. Trump urged him to keep fighting. He then went on Mr. Bannons podcast, where Mr. Corman said there was no question about the need to investigate whether electors needed to be decertified in battleground states, and pledged to turn the Department of State upside down to find evidence of illegality.

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Trump Allies Are Still Feeding the False 2020 Election Narrative - The New York Times

Former President Donald Trump endorsed Sen. Mike Lee a couple of weeks ago, but the Utah Republicans reelection campaign hasnt made a peep about it.

Lee hasnt mentioned the endorsement in the numerous fundraising emails he sends. It hasnt turned up in a political ad. His campaign team seems to be going out of its way to keep it on the down-low.

The closest Lee comes to bringing the former president into his campaign is in reference to one of his opponents, independent Evan McMullin. Im being attacked by my Never Trumper opponent and he is raising millions of dollars in order to STOP our conservative campaign, the senator wrote in fundraising emails.

Meantime, text messages between Lee and Trumps chief of staff Mark Meadows released last week showed how deeply involved the senator was in the former presidents efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

How all of that plays out over the coming weeks and months will be interesting as Lee campaigns for a third term in the Senate, including having to face a June primary election involving two credible GOP challengers in community and business leader Ally Isom and former state legislator Becky Edwards.

Lee has not enjoyed a high job approval rating with Utah voters overall, though he remains strong among Republicans.

A new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted April 5-12 found 44% of voters approve of Lees performance, two points higher than in a February survey. The poll found 36% of Utahns disapprove of the job he is doing, while 19% dont know. Overall, Lees approval rating has not changed much since January 2021.

The latest survey was done before CNN revealed a series of text messages from Lee to Meadows from November 2020 and January 2021 discussing ways to hand the presidential election to Trump.

Please tell me what I should be saying, Lee wrote to Meadows on Nov. 22, followed by another text that day reading, There are a few of us in the Senate who want to be helpful (although I sense that number might be dwindling).

In 2016, Lee called for Trump to drop out of the presidential race and tried everything in his power to prevent him from getting the GOP nomination. After Trump won the election, Lee embraced the new president. He headed Trumps reelection campaign in Utah. He doggedly pursued avenues to keep him in office after Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump publicly expressed his displeasure at Lee for ultimately concluding Congress only had the power to open and count Electoral College votes. Lee did not vote to challenge states electoral votes. About six weeks later, Lee held a high-priced campaign fundraiser at Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Chris Karpowitz, co-director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University, said Trumps endorsement might help and hurt Lee.

For Republicans in the state who embrace the former president, the endorsement will further confirm their preference for Lee, he said.

Given Lees increasing alignment with the MAGA movement over the course of the previous administration, Im not sure the news of the endorsement will surprise those voters, but it may cement their support of Lee, Karpowitz said.

On the other hand, Donald Trump is also a divisive figure. Some Utah Republicans have reservations about him, and for those voters, the endorsement may not help. For a few, the endorsement may be a signal to explore competing candidates.

Karpowitz said the bigger question is whether the endorsement indicates that Lee agrees with or is willing to accept Trumps false claims about election fraud in 2020. Those claims seem increasingly important to the former president and his supporters, and have been a source of some disagreement between Trump and Lee in the past, he said.

One important question is whether Mike Lees perspectives of the 2020 election and its aftermath have changed in some way or whether he now embraces Donald Trumps actions and rhetoric about this issue, he said. This is clearly a campaign issue his opponents want to raise, and the endorsement brings those questions front and center.

The thing to watch is how Lee is doing with Republicans, said Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. He has stayed very, very strong with the segment of the GOP that says theyre going to vote and do show up to vote.

Thats a very strong base for him, he said. That isnt likely to change, even in light of the stories that have come out recently.

But, Perry said, its worth watching to see if Lee starts losing support among more moderate Republicans.

Thats where he may see some of his support change. But what I expect to see is that his approvals will stay close to the same, but it is his disapprovals that have the possibility of going up, he said.

Among Republicans in the new poll, Lees approval rating jumps to 58%, though more than a quarter disapprove of his performance. His approval rating soars to 80% with Utahns who identified themselves as very conservative, dips to 53% for somewhat conservative voters and plummets to 28% among moderate voters.

Dan Jones & Associates conducted the poll of 840 registered Utah voters from April 5-12. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.46 percentage points.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, talks to Kenworth Sales employees before a tour of the company in West Valley City on Friday, Nov. 12, 2021. During the tour, Romney talked about supply chain issues.

Shafkat Anowar, Deseret News

Interestingly, Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney has the same job approval rating in the new poll as Lee, though a lot more Utahns dont approve of Romneys performance than Lees.

Half of voters disapprove of Romneys work in the Senate, compared to Lees 36%.

The survey was conducted as the Senate voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on April 7. Romney voted to confirm Jackson, while Lee voted against. A Deseret News/Hinckley poll released last week found less than half of Utahns wanted the Senate to confirm Jackson.

Romney has not weighed in on Lees text messages. He was one of the first Republican senators to acknowledge Biden as the winner of the 2020 election and has called Trumps fraud claims the big lie.

Utahns, for the most part, have an opinion of Romney with only a small percentage of those surveyed saying they dont know if they approve or disapprove of the job he is doing. Nearly one-fifth of respondents, though, said they dont know about Lee.

Democrats continue to give Romney a much higher approval rating than Republicans in the state, 71% to 37%. The poll also found 60% of Republicans disapprove of the senators job performance.

Correction: In a previous version, the graphic showing the job approval ratings for Sen. Mitt Romney transposed the disapprove and dont know numbers. Fifty percent of respondents say they disapprove of the way he is doing his job and 6% dont know.

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Donald Trump endorsed Mike Lee. Will it help or hurt his reelection bid? - Deseret News