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

Away from the impeachment trial briefly to Joe Biden, who is planning his first official trip as president to Wisconsin next week.

Biden is set to visit Milwaukee next Tuesday, according to the White House. While the Biden administration did not share further details of the trip, the president has been focused heavily on addressing the coronavirus pandemic and passing his Covid-19 relief bill since he was sworn in last month. 

Mr Biden made Wisconsin a focus for his campaign in 2020, visiting the state three times, including in late October, when he visited Milwaukee just days before the election.

He ultimately flipped the state back from red to blue, beating former Donald Trump by about 20,000 votes there. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is holding a press conference before the start of the impeachment trial, vowing to get Covid relief done while holding the former president accountable for the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol. 

“When you have such a serious charge, sweeping it under the rug will not bring unity,” he said, adding that the evidence against Mr Trump was "powerful" and noting "some of it will be new".

Here is the developing story.

House impeachment managers plan to lay out a "devastating" case that is similar to a criminal prosecution in Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, according to senior aides familiar with the managers' arguments.

The Assciated Press reports that the managers are nine House Democrats chosen by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to argue the case.

The aides say the managers will lay out a succinct story that shows Mr Trump's "singular" responsibility for the deadly riot, starting with his false claims about election fraud and culminating with the assault on the Capitol.

They say the managers will use videos and personal stories to argue that Mr Trump is guilty of inciting the riot, including evidence that hasn't been seen before. 

The aides work on the impeachment managers' team and were granted anonymity to discuss their upcoming arguments. 

Mr Trump's lawyers plan to argue that their client did not incite the riot, even though he told his supporters to "fight like hell" just before they laid siege to the Capitol. 

Donald Trump turned red when he was told Vladimir Putin phoned the White House and was not put through after being sworn-in as US president, a new documentary reveals. 

Mr Trump was told about the Russian president’s phone call amid an already awkward meeting with Theresa May, who was on a visit to Washington DC days after the US president was inaugurated in January 2017.

According to a BBC documentary airing on Wednesday, Mr Trump became angry when White House aides said Mr Putin had phoned but was not put through.

“Trump at this point looks orange, not red,” said Fiona McLeod Hill, the then-Downing Street chief of staff, who described the moment Mr Trump lost his temper in the three part series, ‘Trump Takes on the World’.

Here is the story.

Donald Trump’s impeachment defence team has once again denied the former president’s culpability in the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, arguing in a 78-page legal memorandum that the perpetrators of the attack acted “of their own accord and for their own reasons".

The memo from lead defence attorney Bruce Castor offers a slate of reasons the House-ratified impeachment article against his client, “incitement of insurrection,” should be dismissed — from process- and constitutionality-based criticisms to a dismissal of House impeachment managers’ characterisation of the key facts.

Here are five key takeaways from Mr Trump’s argument for acquittal.

Prosecutors in Donald Trump's impeachment trial will present evidence not previously seen to bolster their case against the former president's conviction, senior aides have said.

They did not provide details on the evidence, nor did they say whether they intend to call witnesses to testify if they are allowed to do so.

More than a dozen of Donald Trump's supporters who participated in the attack on the Capitol have blamed him for directing them to do so. 

ABC News reported that out of the 200 accused rioters facing federal charges, at least 15 have stated that they felt they were following Mr Trump's direction. 

The sizeable number of protesters who say they were influenced by Mr Trump to attack the Capitol will almost certainly be used by impeachment prosecutors to support their case that the president was the one responsible for inciting the insurrection.

Here is the story.

Trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene has suggested the former president can't have orchestrated the riot at the Capitol because the mob targeted Republicans as well as Democrats.

"If the #Jan6 organizers were Trump supporters, then why did they attack us while we were objecting to electoral college votes for Joe Biden?" she tweeted.

"They targeted Republicans and Democrats. They were against the government ALL together."

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator and Trump ally, has alleged that impeachment proceedings are a "war on the presidency" by Democrats.

Mr Graham, speaking almost a month after Mr Trump's supporters stormed Congress to disrupt Joe Biden election's victory being confirmed, said "What Democrats have done is basically declared war on the presidency itself."

"The impeachment in the House took place without a hearing, without one witness being called, and without a lawyer for the president of the United States," said Mr Graham on Sean Hannity's Fox News show on Monday night.

"You can't get a traffic ticket based on what they used to impeach president Trump," he added.

Democrats argue that Mr Trump's remarks on the day the Capitol riot took place were publicly evident and that there was overwhelming evidence to support impeachment. They are, however, not expected to have enough votes to convict him in the Senate trial.

The Republican representative for Michigan's 3rd congressional district, Peter Meijer, was reportedly subject to a censure vote by a district committee on Monday night, and survived.

CBS reports that Mr Meijer, who was among ten Republicans who last month voted to impeach Donald Trump, survived the censure vote by a 11-11 verdict - proving not enough to pass the motion.

The vote comes within a week of a virtual town hall with constituents in Michigan last Wednesday - some of whom expressed anger at his move to impeach the former president, as Fox News reported.

"What we witnessed at the Capitol — the attempted insurrection, the involvement of a sitting American president propagating the falsehoods that led up to that — required a significant response," Mr Meijer said last week.

"Why aren't you doing what your constituents wanted you to do?" said a constituent in response. "I went against people who said not to vote for you because I believed in you. I've lost that belief."