Impeachment trial – live: Trump poured ‘kerosene on the flames’ as Pence family fled for lives, Democrats say

Joe Biden has slammed his predecessor for his lack of preparedness when it came to setting up the United States' vaccine supply, while announcing the country had finalised its contracts for 200 million additional Covid-19 doses.

"While scientists did their job in discovering vaccines in record time, my predecessor — I’ll be very blunt about it — did not do his job in getting ready for the massive challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions," Mr Biden said at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Thursday.

"He did not order enough vaccines ... It was a big mess. It’s going to take time to fix," Mr Biden added.

Danielle Zoellner reports.

The likelihood of a conviction appears increasingly slim, as Republican senators have closed ranks in recent days, speaking out against the House Democrat-led impeachment efforts, writes Graig Graziosi.

"In order to secure a conviction, 17 Senate Republicans would have to vote against Mr Trump, which seems an improbable outcome. It is unclear which - if any - Senate Republicans would break away and vote in league with their Democratic counterparts, who will likely overwhelmingly vote in favour of conviction."

The Independent's Alex Woodward has more on this earlier post of Republican senators meeting with Donald Trump's legal team to discuss "strategy" ahead of the defense argument on Friday.

Senators have sworn an oath to "do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws" during the impeachment trial. Following Thursday's closing arguments from House impeachment managers acting as prosecutors in the trial, Trump attorney David Schoen told reporters that his meeting with Republicans concerned "procedure" for Friday's hearing. Senator Ted Cruz said the group discussed "legal strategy" and their thoughts on the trial.

"You’re not going to get anything but condemnation from me for what happened with those criminals at the Capitol on January 6, but that doesn't make the trial any more legitimate than it is, which is totally illegitimate, no basis in the Constitution."

Josh Hawley called the impeachment proceedings against former President Donald Trump a "kangaroo trial" after being accused of ignoring it and doing paperwork.

Speaking to Fox News, Mr Hawley said: "It is totally unconstitutional and it is incredibly selfish on the part of the Democrats who are pursuing their own personal political vendettas here."

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

Donald Trump’s most die-hard allies have spent days online pushing back against the main claim of the impeachment trial: that he intentionally caused his supporters to sack the Capitol. Their arguments range from pointing out how Democrats sometimes swear too, to accusing impeachment managers of sleeping with Chinese spies.

• Democrats just hate Trump
• Dems are just as bad
• The trial itself is a sham
• Eric Swalwell is a Chinese asset

Josh Marcus looks at what they’re saying.

The Democratic impeachment managers have wrapped their 12-hour opening argument against Donald Trump with a plea for senators to consider what their vote on impeachment means not for the present, but for the future, writes Griffin Connolly.

"Over the last two days, the impeachment managers have dismantled that short-sighted argument (and several others) by pointing out the obvious: an impeachment conviction not only boots a current public servant from office, but also triggers a vote to disqualify him from ever holding it again. For a former president whose last words before leaving Washington on 20 January included the phrase, “We’ve only just begun,” and whose aides have insisted is eager to run again in 2024, that second point feels especially salient."

After Democrats closed their arguments, lawyers for Donald Trump met with Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham to discuss legal strategy and arguments.

The report comes via White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, who quoted lawyer David Schoen as saying the meeting was about procedure.

An anonymous computer programmer gathered many of the videos used as evidence on the second day of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial by downloading footage from Parler before the service was taken down.

Parler, which was preferred by Trump supporters, was effectively shut down after Amazon Web Services pulled hosting support for the app a few days after a mob of pro-Trump supporters filmed themselves breaching the US Capitol on 6 January and posting support for the siege.

James Crump has the story.

"Knock the crap out of them".

One the third day of his impeachment trial in the US Senate, House impeachment managers screened Donald Trump's remarks to his supporters at his campaign rallies to illustrate his history of encouraging violence, leading up to the insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January.

Impeachment manager Jamie Raskin pointed to Mr Trump's directions to his crowds of supporters to attack counter-protesters at his rallies, telling them "get them the hell out of here" and "kick the crap out of them" in 2017.

Mr Raskin also showed senators footage of Republican Gregory Gianforte assaulting a reporter, and Mr Trump's apparent support: "Any guy that can do a body slam is my guy."

The Independent's Alex Woodward has the story.

As his impeachment trial in the Senate continued and prosecutors presented videos of the ex-president encouraging violence, Donald Trump hit the links at one of his golf courses in Florida on Thursday.

His defense team is also reportedly trying to take a load off, considering shortening their presentation to as little as three hours so it would be "short, tight and direct," compared to days of arguments so far from Democrats.

Josh Marcus has more from the fairway.