WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats prosecuting Donald Trump’s impeachment said Thursday the Capitol invaders believed they were acting on “the president’s orders” to stop Joe Biden’s election, arguing it was the culmination of the defeated president’s pattern of spreading false and violent rhetoric that will continue to vex American politics if left unchecked.

The prosecutors described in stark, personal terms the horror faced that day, some of it in the very Senate chamber where Trump’s trial is underway. They displayed the many public and explicit instructions Trump gave his supporters — long before the White House rally that unleashed the deadly Capitol attack as Congress was certifying Biden’s victory. Five people died in the chaos and its aftermath, a domestic attack unparalleled in U.S. history.

Videos of rioters, some posted to social medial by themselves, talked about how they were doing it all for Trump.

“What makes you think the nightmare with Donald Trump and his law-breaking and violent mobs is over?” asked Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead prosecutor. He said earlier, “When Donald Trump tells the crowd as he did on Jan. 6, ‘Fight like hell, or you won’t have a country anymore,’ he meant for them to ‘fight like hell.’”

Prosecutors wrapped up an emotional two days of opening arguments, with Trump’s defense to take the floor on Friday. The proceedings could wind up with a vote this weekend. The Democrats, with little hope of conviction by two-thirds of the Senate, are making their most graphic case to the American public, while Trump’s lawyers are focused on legal rather than emotional or historic questions, hoping to get it all behind him as quickly as possible.

This second impeachment trial, on the charge of incitement of insurrection, has echoes of last year’s impeachment and acquittal over the Ukraine matter, as prosecutors warn senators that Trump has shown no bounds and will do it again, posing a danger to the civic order unless he is convicted and banned from future office. Even out of the White House, the former president holds influence over large swaths of voters.

The prosecutors on Thursday drew a direct line from his repeated comments condoning and even celebrating violence — praising “both sides” after the 2017 outbreak at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — and urging his rally crowd last month to go to the Capitol and fight for his presidency. He spread false claims about election fraud, even there has been no evidence of it, and urged his supporters to “stop the steal” of the presidency.

Prosecutors used the rioters’ own videos from that day to pin responsibility on Trump. “We were invited here,” said one. “Trump sent us,” said another. “He’ll be happy. We’re fighting for Trump.”

“They truly believed that the whole intrusion was at the president’s orders,” said Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado. “The president told them to be there.”

At the White House, President Joe Biden said he believed “some minds may be changed” after senators saw chilling security video Wednesday of the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, including of rioters searching menacingly for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence.

Biden said he didn’t watch any of the previous day’s proceedings live but later saw news coverage.

Though most of the Senate jurors seem to have made up their minds, making Trump’s acquittal likely, the never-before-seen audio and video released Wednesday is now a key exhibit as lawmakers prosecuting the case argue he should be convicted of inciting the siege.

Senators sat riveted as the jarring video played in the chamber on Wednesday. Senators shook their heads, folded their arms and furrowed their brows. Screams from the audio and video filled the Senate chamber. Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma bent his head at one point, another GOP colleague putting his hand on his arm in comfort.

Videos of the siege have been circulating since the day of the riot, but the graphic compilation offered a moment-by-moment retelling of one of the nation’s most alarming days. And it underscored how dangerously close the rioters came to the nation’s leaders, shifting the focus of the trial from an academic debate about the Constitution to a raw retelling of the assault.

The footage showed the mob smashing into the building, rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police and audio of Capitol police officers pleading for back-up. Rioters were seen roaming the halls chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” and eerily singing out “Where’s Nancy?” in search of Pelosi.

Trump attorney David Schoen said the presentation was “offensive” and that they “haven’t tied it in any way to Trump.”

He told reporters Thursday at the Capitol he believed Democrats were making the public relive the tragedy in a way that “tears at the American people” and impedes efforts at unity in the country.

Senators sitting through a second full day of arguments appeared somewhat fatigued on Thursday, slouching in their chairs, crossing their arms and walking around to stretch.

One Republican, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, said during a break: “To me, they’re losing credibility the longer they talk.”

The goal of the two-day presentation by prosecutors from the House, which impeached the outgoing president last month a week after the siege, was to cast Trump not as an innocent bystander but rather as the “inciter in chief” who spent months spreading falsehoods and revving up supporters to challenge the election.

“This attack never would have happened but for Donald Trump,” Rep. Madeleine Dean, one of the impeachment managers, said as she choked back emotion. “And so they came, draped in Trump’s flag, and used our flag, the American flag, to batter and to bludgeon.”

Trump’s lawyers are likely to blame the rioters themselves for the violence.

The first president to face an impeachment trial after leaving office, Trump is also the first to be twice impeached.

His lawyers say he cannot be convicted because he is already gone from the White House. Even though the Senate rejected that argument in Tuesday’s vote to proceed to trial, the issue could resonate with Senate Republicans eager to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior.

While six Republicans joined with Democrats to vote to proceed with the trial on Tuesday, the 56-44 vote was far from the two-thirds threshold of 67 votes needed for conviction.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump on Monday blasted the impeachment case against him as an act of “political theater” and accused House Democrats on the eve of the former president’s trial of exploiting the chaos and trauma of last month’s Capitol riot for their party’s gain.

Trump’s legal brief is a wide-ranging attack on the House case, foreshadowing the claims his lawyers intend to present on the same Senate floor that was invaded by rioters on Jan. 6. The sharp-tongued tone, with accusations that Democrats are making “patently absurd” arguments and trying to “silence a political opponent,” makes clear that Trump’s lawyers are preparing to challenge both the constitutionality of the trial and any suggestion that he was to blame for the insurrection.

“While never willing to allow a ‘good crisis’ to go to waste, the Democratic leadership is incapable of understanding that not everything can always be blamed on their political adversaries, no matter how very badly they may wish to exploit any moment of uncertainty on the part of the American people,” the defense lawyers say.

In their brief, they suggest that Trump was simply exercising his First Amendment rights when he disputed the election results and argue that he explicitly encouraged his supporters to have a peaceful protest and therefore cannot be responsible for the actions of the rioters. They also say the Senate is not entitled to try Trump now that he has left office, an argument contested by even some conservative legal scholars, and they deny that the goal of the Democrats’ case is justice.

“Instead, this was only ever a selfish attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion that fell upon all Americans across the entire political spectrum upon seeing the destruction at the Capitol on Jan. 6 by a few hundred people,” the lawyers wrote.

House impeachment managers filed their own document Monday, asserting that Trump had “betrayed the American people” and that there is no valid excuse or defense.

“His incitement of insurrection against the United States government — which disrupted the peaceful transfer of power — is the most grievous constitutional crime ever committed by a president,” the Democrats said.

The trial will begin Tuesday with a debate and vote on whether it’s even constitutional to prosecute the former president, an argument that could resonate with Republicans keen on voting to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior. Opening arguments would begin Wednesday at noon, with up to 16 hours per side for presentations.

Under a draft agreement between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the proceedings will break Friday evening for the Jewish Sabbath at the request of Trump’s defense team and resume on Sunday. There will likely be no witnesses, and the former president has declined a request to testify.

This impeachment trial will be different because of COVID-19 restrictions.

Rather than sitting at their desks through the trial, senators may be spread out, including in the “marble room” just off the Senate floor, where proceedings will be shown on TV, and in the public galleries above the chamber, to accommodate social distancing, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Trump’s second impeachment trial is opening with a sense of urgency — by Democrats who want to hold him accountable for the violent Capitol siege and Republicans who want it over as quickly as possible.

The proceedings are expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated trial that resulted in Trump’s acquittal a year ago on charges that he privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on a Democratic rival, Joe Biden, now the president. This time, Trump’s rally cry to “fight like hell” and the storming of the Capitol played out for the world to see. Trump very well could be acquitted again, and the trial could be over in half the time.

Biden will be busy with the business of the presidency and won’t spend “too much time watching,” press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked on Monday.

Trump is the first president to be twice impeached, and the only one to face trial after leaving the White House. The Democratic-led House approved a sole charge, “incitement of insurrection,” acting swiftly one week after the riot, the most violent attack on Congress in more than 200 years. Five people died, including a woman shot by police inside the building and a police officer who died of injuries the next day.

So far, it appears there will be few witnesses called, as the prosecutors and defense attorneys speak directly to senators who have been sworn to deliver “impartial justice” as jurors. Most are also witnesses to the siege, having fled for safety that day as the rioters broke into the Capitol and temporarily halted the electoral count certifying Biden’s victory.

Instead, House managers prosecuting the case are expected to rely on videos from the siege, along with Trump’s incendiary rhetoric refusing to concede the election, to make their case. His new defense team has said it plans to counter with its own cache of videos of Democratic politicians making fiery speeches.

“We have the unusual circumstance where on the very first day of the trial, when those managers walk on the floor of the Senate, there will already be over 100 witnesses present,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led Trump’s first impeachment, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Whether you need additional witnesses will be a strategic call.”

Democrats argue it’s all about holding the former president accountable for his actions, even though he’s out of office. For Republicans, the trial will test their political loyalty to Trump and his enduring grip on the GOP.

Initially repulsed by the graphic images of the siege, Republican senators including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell denounced the violence and pointed fingers of blame at Trump. But in recent weeks they have rallied around Trump, arguing his comments do not make him responsible for the violence and questioning the legitimacy of trying someone no longer in office.

Senators were sworn in as jurors late last month, shortly after Biden was inaugurated, but the trial proceedings were delayed as Democrats focused on confirming the new president’s initial Cabinet picks and Republicans sought to put as much distance as possible from the bloody riot.

At the time, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky forced a vote to set aside the trial as unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office, drawing 44 other Republicans to his argument.

The 45 votes in favor of Paul’s measure suggest the near impossibility of reaching a conviction in a Senate where Democrats hold 50 seats but a two-thirds vote — or 67 senators — would be needed to convict Trump. Only five Republicans joined with Democrats to reject Paul’s motion: Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted on Thursday that before she will send the Republican Senate the articles of impeachment her Democratic chamber approved against President Donald Trump, GOP leaders must provide more detail about how they will handle the expected trial.

“We’d like to see a fair process, but we’ll see what they have and will be ready for whatever it is,” Pelosi said at the Capitol. “So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us,” she had said last Wednesday night, just after the House approved the two charges that could evict Trump from office if the Senate agrees.

The parties’ Senate leaders, Mitch McConnell for the Republicans and Chuck Schumer for the Democrats, met Thursday on trial arrangements but came to no agreement. The two men have a tense relationship, and McConnell holds a tactical edge if he can keep his 53-member Senate majority united.

Democrats are insisting on more witnesses, testimony and documents than McConnell appears willing to provide before they name the House “managers” who would prosecute Trump in the Senate.

“Sen. Schumer made clear to Sen. McConnell that the witnesses and documents are necessary to ensure a fair trial in the Senate,” said Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman. He said, “Schumer asked Sen. McConnell to consider Sen. Schumer’s proposal over the holidays.”

Last Wednesday night’s vote, almost entirely along party lines, made the president just the third in U.S. history to be impeached. The House impeached Trump on two charges — abusing his presidential power and obstructing Congress — stemming from his pressure on Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rival as Trump withheld U.S. aid.

Pelosi’s unexpected procedural delay in taking the next step — apparently in search of leverage in locking in trial arrangements — got a sour response from Senate Majority Leader McConnell and from Trump himself.

McConnell said Democrats were “too afraid″ to send the charges to the Senate, where Trump would be expected to be acquitted by the Republican majority. Trump tweeted, “Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles.” He claimed that if the Democrats didn’t transmit the charges, “they would lose by default,” though there is no constitutional requirement to send them swiftly, or at all.

The trial has been expected to begin in January.

Along with her tough talk, Pelosi appeared upbeat the day after the impeachment votes.

“We’ve been hearing from people all over the country,” she told reporters. “Seems like people have a spring in their step because the president was held accountable for his reckless behavior.”

Pressed about next steps, Pelosi wouldn’t say. Democrats are insisting on more witnesses, testimony and documents than McConnell appears willing to provide before they name the House “managers” who would prosecute Trump in the Senate.

“The next thing will be when we see the process that is set forth in the Senate,” Pelosi said. “Then we’ll know the number of managers we may have to go forward and who we would choose.”

The Democratic speaker and the top Senate Democrat, Schumer of New York, met privately Thursday at the Capitol after Republican McConnell signaled in the strongest terms yet that his chamber intended to hold a swift trial and acquit the president of both charges.

McConnell denounced the “most unfair” House impeachment and reassured Trump and his supporters that “moments like this are why the United States Senate exists.”

As for what the Senate would do, he said, “It could not be clearer which outcome would serve the stabilizing, institution-preserving, fever-breaking role for which the United States Senate was created and which outcome would betray it.”

The Kentucky Republican described Trump’s impeachment as “the most rushed, least thorough and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.”

Fighting back using McConnell’s own words, Schumer said the Republican leader was plotting the “most rushed, least thorough and most unfair” impeachment trial in history by declining to agree to call witnesses including former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, who declined to testify before the House.

“McConnell claimed the impeachment was motivated by partisan rage,” said Schumer. “This from the man who said proudly, ‘I am not impartial.’”

“What hypocrisy.”

Pelosi said that McConnell “says it’s OK for the foreman of the jury to be in cahoots with the lawyers of the accused. That doesn’t sound right to us.”

Complicating any decision to delay are House Democrats’ arguments in recent weeks that Trump’s impeachment was needed “urgently,” arguing his actions were a threat to democracy and the fairness of the upcoming 2020 election.

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