Impeachment trial: Stunning phone call Trump held with McCarthy during Capitol riot revealed

Asked when Trump knew about the riots, and what he did about it, the ex-president’s legal team said the House managers have given “no evidence one way or the other on to that question”.

“The House managers have given us absolutely no evidence one way or the other on to that question, we’re able to piece together a timeline and it goes all the way back to December 31st, January 2nd, there is a lot of interaction between the authorities and getting folks beforehand,” says Michael van der Veen.

“We have a tweet at 2.38pm so it was certainly some time before then, with the rush to bring this impeachment there’s been no investigation into that. That’s the problem with this entire proceeding.”

He says the House managers rely on “hearsay, on top of hearsay, on top of reports that are of hearsay”.

“Due process is required here and that was denied.”

“What else did the president do, we are unclear, but we believe it was a dereliction of his duty,” says Stacey Plaskett.

She continued: “Why did president Trump not tell the protestors to stop as soon as he learned about it, why did president Trump do nothing to stop the attack for two hours after the attack began?”

“The reason this question keeps coming up is because the answer is nothing,” she concluded.

Donald Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly refused to say when the former president knew about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

As his attorneys wrapped up their defence of the ex-president against an article of impeachment, they were asked more than once, when he learned of the nature of the violence, and the physical threat to his vice president, and the members of both houses of Congress.

The Independent’s Andrew Buncombe has more on this angle.

Michael van der Veen and Julian Castro are battling over whether Donald Trump told his supporters to “fight to the death”.

Van der Veen earlier called out Castro for attributing the quote “fight like death” to Trump, to which the House manager highlighted the ex-president’s tweet saying “Democrats would fight like death” while Republicans do nothing.

How is that to be taken any other way, Castro asks.

Van der Veen says Castro was being dishonest and he tried to cover when caught.

“What he said was if it happened to the Dems, this is what they would do. In his speech that day, you know what he said, he said if this happened to the Democrats the election was stolen from the Democrats, all hell would break loose, but, he said to his supporters, we are smarter, we are stronger, and we’re not going to do what they did all summer long,” he says.

“He misrepresented a tweet to you to put forth the narrative that is wrong, it’s wrong, it’s dishonest, and the American people don’t deserve this any longer. You must acquit.”

Asked by Bernie Sanders if, in their judgement, does Trump’s legal team believe the ex-president was lying when he said the election was stolen, attorney Michael van der Veen said that was irrelevant.

The Senate had to be called to order after (one half) of the chamber erupted in jeers.

“My judgement? My judgement is irrelevant in this proceeding” he began.

“What’s relevant in this impeachment article is were Mr Trump’s words inciteful to the point of violence and riot, that’s the charge, that’s the question, and the answer is, no, he did not have speech that was inciteful to violence or riot.”

Donald Trump’s legal team finally got their chance to lay out their impeachment defence of the ex-president’s role in the Capitol riots.

But as they offered their rebuttal of the powerful case of House impeachment managers that Mr Trump incited the violence that left five people dead on 6 January, they found many of their claims immediately under heavy scrutiny.

Mr Trump’s lawyer Bruce Castor claimed during the defence that “there was no insurrection” at the Capitol.

But on the night of 6 January, then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, called what had happened just hours earlier a “failed insurrection.”

The Independent’s Graeme Massie reports.

Michael van der Veen says that demands from House impeachment managers the defence bring forward evidence to “prove their case” is a case of misconduct by the prosecution.

“Due process is never discretionary, good lord. The constitution requires that an accused have the right to due process because the power that a prosecutor has to take somebody’s liberty when they’re prosecuting them is the ultimate thing that we try to save,” he says.

“In this case, just now in the last two hours we’ve had prosecutorial misconduct. What they just tried to do was say that it’s our burden to bring them evidence to prove their case. And it’s not, it’s not our burden to bring any evidence forward at all.”

He added: “For the House managers, to bring an impeachment proceeding without any investigation at all and then stand up here and say, one: ‘they had a chance to bring us evidence’. And two: ‘let’s see what we can do about flipping around somebody’s other constitutional right to having a lawyer, to see the evidence at all’.”

A plane has flown a banner reading “Convict Trump and lock him up” over the ex-president’s Florida estate.

The light plane began circling over Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home just as his legal team started his defence at his historic second impeachment trial.

“All-caps banner flying over Trump’s resort in Palm Beach as his defence team begins its presentation today,” tweeted CNN’s Jim Acosta on Friday.

Graeme Massie reports.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer led a standing ovation for Officer Eugene Goodman for his role in luring rioters away from lawmakers on 6 January.

“We can all agree that Eugene Goodman deserves the highest honour that Congress can bestow,” said Mr Schumer as he announced that the Senate would vote on giving Mr Goodman the Congressional Gold Medal.

Mr McConnell called 6 January “a day of fear for those who work in the capitol and a day of sadness from those watching from afar.”

He praised the officers of the US Capitol acting bravely in the “face of lawlessness” and said that Officer Goodman had allowed lawmakers to “escape unharmed.”

Mr Goodman was in the chamber for the moment and patted his heart as the Senators applauded him before unanimously voting to give him the award.

The trial was then adjourned until 10am ET.

Donald Trump's impeachment lawyers have been accused of lying about having a video of the attacks on the US Capitol withheld.

David Schoen claimed that Democrats withheld video evidence of the Capitol attack prior to the impeachment hearings.

However, numerous news outlets are now reporting that sources speaking to them have confirmed that Mr Schoen was lying, and that the video was provided to the defence team.

Mr Schoen was referencing numerous videos that the impeachment managers used to highlight the violence at the US Capitol on the day of the insurrection.

Graig Graziosi reports.