2021年1月6日，在国会开会前几个小时，唐纳德·特朗普在最后一次电话中痛斥迈克·彭斯，称他当时的副总统是“懦夫”认证2020选举美国广播公司驻华盛顿首席记者乔纳森·卡尔(Jonathan Karl)在新书中收录了彭斯此前未发表的笔记。
根据法庭文件，如果他针对特朗普的案件进入审判，特别顾问杰克·史密斯计划使用手写笔记——在彭斯的日程安排表上草草写下——作为证据，记录特朗普涉嫌指挥暴力暴徒袭击国会大厦的几个小时前。
根据彭斯关于1月6日早上电话的笔记，特朗普告诉彭斯，他决定不阻止拜登的认证，“你会被视为一个懦夫，”就在总统登上椭圆广场“拯救美国”集会的舞台之前。“如果你这样做，我5年前就犯了一个大错误，”彭斯写道，特朗普告诉他。
卡尔即将出版的新书《报应:唐纳德·特朗普和改变美国的运动》报道了独家细节。
这些笔记还包括一个看起来是潦草的愤怒的据卡尔说，特朗普告诉彭斯，“你听错了人”。
史密斯在调查中收集了数万亿字节的证据，包括特朗普自己的手机的法医副本，记录了他1月6日的数字活动，这些证据是他在椭圆上的讲话的草稿版本，显示它被匆忙改为直接针对彭斯。这些材料在2000年以前从未公开发布过驳回此案特朗普连任后，前任和未来总统被指控行为的历史记录出现了缺口。
史密斯在今年1月向司法部长梅里克·加兰(Merrick Garland)公布的最后一份报告中表示，他的团队收集的证据将证明特朗普“利用谎言作为武器，挫败对美国民主进程至关重要的联邦政府职能”。"
卡尔报告说，这些材料可能是政府关于1月6日起义前几天的一些最有力的文件证据，但最高法院2024年7月关于总统豁免权的裁决可能会削弱史密斯在起诉进行的情况下使用这些证据反对特朗普的能力。
在1月份辞职之前，史密斯在给加兰的报告中辩称，如果选民没有在2024年将他送回白宫，他有足够的证据证明这位前总统有罪。
“司法部认为，宪法禁止继续起诉和起诉总统是绝对的，并不取决于指控罪行的严重性、政府证据的力度或起诉的是非曲直，办公室完全支持这些，”史密斯在报告的结尾写道。“事实上，如果不是特朗普当选并即将重返总统宝座，该办公室评估认为，可采纳的证据足以在审判中获得并维持定罪。”
你会被当成懦夫
根据史密斯的原始起诉书关于这位前总统，彭斯与特朗普会面的“同期笔记”记录了时任总统如何反复纠正他对选民欺诈的错误主张，表明他尽管知道这些主张毫无根据，但仍继续推动这些主张。
在2020年大选认证前的几天，特朗普和他的盟友一再向彭斯施压，要求他利用监督认证的角色来阻止拜登的胜利，尽管彭斯说，他一直拒绝操纵或推迟认证的请求。
根据彭斯的回忆录《天助我》(So Help Me God)，他在1月6日上午11点左右接到了特朗普的电话，这是特朗普原定在椭圆广场开始演讲的时间，据称特朗普在此期间做了最后一次尝试，试图说服他阻止选举的认证。
根据彭斯的笔记，特朗普称他为“懦夫”，此前彭斯表示，他计划发表一份声明，称他缺乏阻止认证的“权力”。
据卡尔报道，彭斯写道:“你不是在保护我们的国家，你应该支持+保卫我们的国家。”。
“我说我们都宣誓支持并捍卫宪法，”彭斯说，据他的笔记卡尔报道。“犯法并不需要勇气。维护法律需要勇气。”
那天早上白宫的多名目击者告诉记者1月6日众议院特别委员会彭斯和特朗普之间的对话很快变得“激烈”，特朗普的女儿伊万卡·特朗普回忆说，她的父亲使用了与她之前听到他对彭斯使用的“不同的语气”。
“我记得听到过‘懦夫’这个词，”特朗普的前助理尼古拉斯·卢纳(Nicholas Luna)在一份录音证词中说。“要么他骂他是软骨头，我不记得他是否说过，‘你是软骨头，你会是软骨头。’Wimp是我记得的词。"
特朗普的乌克兰和俄罗斯问题特使、退役中将基思·凯洛格(Keith Kellogg)在一份录音证词中告诉委员会，他记得特朗普告诉彭斯，他“不够强硬”。
在他们谈话大约一个小时后，特朗普会走上舞台，呼吁他的支持者向国会大厦游行，彭斯将在那里证明投票。
特朗普的iPhone
卡尔报道称，检察官能够在一定程度上利用特朗普iPhone的法医副本来支持他们的事件时间表，该副本显示了1月6日下午总统锁定和解锁手机的时间。
根据卡尔的说法，该报告还包括特朗普的iPhone锁屏截图，其中显示了特朗普戴着红色MAGA帽子竖起大拇指的图像。
该书称，特朗普的手机似乎还包含证据，表明特朗普明白自己输掉了选举，并意识到国会大厦发生的暴力程度。
根据卡尔的说法，美国联邦调查局在特朗普手机上的报告显示，该设备被用来访问描述国会大厦暴力事件的多幅图像，包括官员和抗议者之间的暴力对抗，以及当时受了致命伤的阿什莉·巴比特(Ashli Babbitt)的照片，她后来在医院被宣布死亡，因为她试图进入众议院大楼。晚上7点1月6日——就在特朗普被暂停社交媒体平台的同一天——他的手机也被用来访问1月6日被锁定账户的Twitter帮助页面，这是特朗普被锁定Twitter账户的第二天，卡尔报道。
这本书说，史密斯会使用数字法医证据来证明特朗普的精神状态和对事件的了解，以支持特别顾问的指控，即特朗普故意在选举结果上欺骗选民。
“特朗普先生所有犯罪行为的主线是欺骗，”史密斯在最终报告中写道。
'You'll go down as a wimp:' Pence's never-before-published notes key evidence in case against Trump, book says
Donald Trump berated Mike Pence, calling his then-vice president a "wimp" during their final phone call on Jan. 6, 2021, hours before Congresscertified the 2020 electionof Joe Biden, according to Pence's previously unpublished notes included in a new book by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl.
According to court filings, had his case against Trump gone to trial, special counsel Jack Smith planned to use the handwritten notes -- hastily scribbled on Pence's day planner -- as evidence to document the hours before Trump allegedly directed a violent mob to storm the Capitol.
"You'll go down as a wimp," Trump told Pence about his decision not to block Biden's certification, according to Pence's notes about the call on the morning of Jan. 6, just before the president took the stage at the "Save America" rally on the Ellipse. "If you do that, I made a big mistake 5 years ago," Pence wrote Trump told him.
The exclusive details are reported in Karl's upcoming book, "Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America."
The notes also include what appears to be a scribble of anangryemoji after Trump told Pence, "You listen to the wrong people," according to Karl.
Among the terabytes of evidence Smith amassed in his investigation, including a forensic copy of Trump's own phone documenting his digital activity on Jan. 6, are draft versions of his speech on the Ellipse showing it was hurriedly changed to target Pence directly. The materials were never publicly released before thedismissal of the casefollowing Trump's reelection, creating a gap in the historical record of the former-and-future president's alleged actions.
In his final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland made public this past January, Smith said the evidence his team gathered would have proved that Trump "used lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States' democratic process."
Karl reports the materials might have been some of the government's strongest documentary evidence about the days leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection, but that the Supreme Court's July 2024 ruling on presidential immunity potentially curtailed Smith's ability to use the evidence against Trump had the prosecution proceeded.
Before resigning in January, Smith argued in his report to Garland that he had enough evidence to convict the former president had voters not sent him back to the White House in 2024.
"The Department's view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a President is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government's proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office stands fully behind," Smith wrote to conclude the report. "Indeed, but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial."
According to Smith'soriginal indictmentof the former president, Pence's "contemporaneous notes" of his meetings with Trump documented how the then-president was repeatedly corrected about his false claims of voter fraud, suggesting that he continued to push the claims despite knowing they were unfounded.
In the days preceding the certification of the 2020 election, Trump and his allies had repeatedly pressured Pence to use his role overseeing the certification to block Biden's victory, though Pence said he consistently rebuffed entreaties to manipulate or delay the certification.
According to Pence's memoir "So Help Me God," he received a phone call from Trump around 11 a.m. on Jan. 6 -- the time Trump was originally scheduled to begin his speech on the Ellipse -- during which Trump allegedly made his final attempt to persuade him to block the election's certification.
According to Pence's notes, Trump called him a "wimp" after Pence said he planned to issue a statement saying he lacked the "power" to block the certification.
"You're not protecting our country, you're supposed to support + defend our country," Pence wrote, according to Karl.
"I said we both [took] an oath to support + defend the Constitution," Pence said, according to his notes Karl reports. "It doesn't take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law."
Multiple witnesses in the White House that morning told theHouse Select Committee on Jan. 6that the conversation between Pence and Trump quickly became "heated," with Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump recalling that her father used a "different tone" from what she'd previously heard him use with Pence.
"I remember hearing the word 'wimp,'" Nicholas Luna, Trump's former assistant, said in a taped deposition. "Either he called him a wimp, I don't remember if he said, 'You are a wimp, you'll be a wimp.' Wimp is the word I remember."
Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg -- Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia -- told the committee in a taped deposition that he remembers Trump telling Pence he wasn't "tough enough."
Approximately an hour after their conversation, Trump would take the stage and call on his supporters to march toward the Capitol where Pence was set to certify the vote.
Trump's iPhone
Prosecutors were able to support their timeline of events in part using a forensic copy of Trump's iPhone, which showed a breakdown of when the phone was locked and unlocked by the president on the afternoon of Jan. 6, Karl reports.
According to Karl, the report also included a screenshot of Trump's iPhone lock screen, which showed an image of Trump in a red MAGA hat giving a thumbs-up.
Trump's phone also appeared to contain evidence demonstrating that Trump understood he had lost the election and was aware of the extent of the violence taking place at the Capitol, the book says.
According to Karl, the FBI's report on Trump's phone showed that the device was used to access multiple images that depicted the violence at the Capitol, including violent confrontations between officers and protestors, and photos of then-mortally wounded Ashli Babbitt, who was later pronounced dead at the hospital after being shot as she tried to enter the House floor. At 7 p.m. onJan. 6 -- the same day Trump was suspended from the social media platform -- his phone was also used to visit a Twitter help page about accounts locked on Jan. 6, one day after Trump was locked out of his Twitter account, Karl reports.
Smith would have used the digital forensic evidence to demonstrate Trump's state of mind and knowledge of events as they unfolded to support the special counsel's allegation that Trump knowingly deceived voters about the election result, the book says.
"The throughline of all of Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit," Smith wrote in the final report.
