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

Kevin McCarthy snapped at Donald Trump when he refused to call off his rioting supporters and reportedly told the president: “Who the f*** do you think you’re talking to?”

The ex-president and the leader of the House Republicans became embroiled in a heated exchange as Mr McCarthy called and begged Mr Trump to intervene, according to CNN.

When Mr Trump told the lawmaker that the rioters were actually antifa, Mr McCarthy bluntly told him that they were in fact a MAGA mob.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” replied Mr Trump said, according to lawmakers briefed later by Mr McCarthy.

The California congressman lost his cool and told the president that rioters were trying to break into his office, and asked him, “Who the f*** do you think you’re talking to?”

Graeme Massie has the breaking story.

As the second impeachment trial against Donald Trump wound down on Friday, lead House manager Jamie Raskin issued a dare to the former president to appear before them and explain what he was doing during the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January.

Mr Trump’s attorney Michael van der Veen had repeatedly harangued the impeachment managers during the trial’s question-and-answer portion on Friday for failing to conduct a thorough “investigation” to support their claim that the ex-president incited that insurrection and failed to adequately turn the rioters away once it had commenced.

The House managers relied almost exclusively on “hearsay” reports from the media and the contents of the president’s tweets and public video statements from that day to recreate a timeline of the his actions, Mr van der Veen suggested.

The Independent’s Griffin Connolly reports.

Donald Trump’s defence lawyer has claimed “clearly there was no insurrection” on 6 January, despite then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying there was.

Speaking at the Senate impeachment trial, Bruce Castor said that the critical part of the case is the very narrow issue as to whether Mr Trump incited an insurrection.

“Clearly there was no insurrection. Insurrection is a term … defined in the law that involves taking over a country, a shadow government, taking the TV stations over and having some plan of what you will do when you finally take power. Clearly, this is not that,” he claimed.

The Independent’s Oliver O’Connell reports.

Donald Trump’s lawyers sparked anger when they claimed that an Antifa leader was the first person arrested and released at the Capitol riot.

The ex-president’s defence team claimed that it was a “preposterous and monstrous lie” to say Mr Trump had incited the 6 January violence that left five people dead.

Instead, they claimed that the attack in Washington DC could be blamed on extremists, including “a leader of Antifa.”

Graeme Massie has more.

Klete Keller, a swimmer with two Olympic gold medals, has been indicted on seven charges surrounding his involvement in the Capitol riot on 6 January.

The seven-count grand jury indictment states that the 38-year-old Mr Keller "committed and attempted to commit an act to obstruct, impede, and interfere with a law enforcement officer," that he obstructed "an official proceeding," that he unlawfully entered "a restricted building," that he engaged in "disorderly" conduct, that he disrupted "a session of Congress," that he "impeded passage" through the Capitol, and that he "paraded, demonstrated, and picketed" in the US Capitol building.

Gustaf Kilander reports.

Five days after the attacks on the Capitol, where some rioters chanted that they wanted to kill Mike Pence, the then-president and vice-president had long a meeting in the Oval Office to patch things over.

Insiders told the Washington Post that meeting was “stilted and uncomfortable,” and Jared Kushner, who had helped arrange the conversation along with Ivanka Trump, compared it to brokering peace in the Middle East.

Mr Trump had privately and publicly pressured Mr Pence to overturn the election results, even though he was told repeatedly he didn’t have the power to do so in his ceremonial role certifying the votes in Congress.

The Independent’s Josh Marcus reports.