After six weeks as a district attorney, Fani T. Willis is taking on a former president.

And not just that. In an interview about her newly announced criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia, Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, made it clear that the scope of her inquiry would encompass the pressure campaign on state officials by former President Donald Trump as well as the activities of his allies.

“An investigation is like an onion,” she said. “You never know. You pull something back, and then you find something else.”

She added, “Anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review.”

Willis, whose jurisdiction encompasses much of Atlanta, has suddenly become a new player in the post-presidency of Trump. She will decide whether to bring criminal charges over Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” votes to erase the former president’s loss there, and other efforts by Trump allies to overturn the election results. The severity of the legal threat to Trump is not yet clear, but Willis has started laying out some details about the inquiry.

She and her office have indicated that the investigation will include Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone call to Raffensperger in November about mail-in ballots; the abrupt removal last month of Byung J. Pak, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, who earned Trump’s enmity for not advancing his debunked assertions about election fraud; and the false claims that Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, made before state legislative committees.

She laid out an array of possible criminal charges in letters sent to state officials and agencies asking them to preserve documents, providing a partial map of the potential exposure of Trump and his allies. Trump’s calls to state officials urging them to subvert the election, for instance, could run afoul of a Georgia statute dealing with “criminal solicitation to commit election fraud,” one of the charges outlined in the letters, which if prosecuted as a felony is punishable by at least a year in prison.

The misinformation spread by Giuliani could prove problematic, as Willis said in her letters that she would review “the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies.” Georgia law bars “any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement” within “the jurisdiction of any department or agency of state government.”

Willis is also open to considering not just conspiracy but racketeering charges. As she put it in the interview, racketeering could apply to anyone who uses a legal entity — presumably anything from a government agency to that person’s own public office — to conduct overt acts for an illegal purpose. In this case, it applies to the pressure the president and his allies exerted on Georgia officials to overturn the election.

Willis has brought a novel racketeering case before. In 2014, as an assistant district attorney, she helped lead a high-profile criminal trial against a group of educators in the Atlanta public school system who had been involved in a widespread cheating scandal.

Racketeering cases tend to make people think of mob bosses, who have often been targets of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, since it was enacted in 1970. Asked how racketeering applied in the cheating scandal and in an election case, Willis said, “I always tell people when they hear the word racketeering, they think of ‘The Godfather,’” but she noted that it could also extend to otherwise lawful organizations that are used to break the law.

“If you have various overt acts for an illegal purpose, I think you can — you may — get there,” she said.

Willis, 49, who easily won election last year, is the daughter of an activist defense lawyer who was a member of the Black Panthers, and she is also a veteran prosecutor who has carved out a centrist record. She views the case before her as a critical task.

“It is really not a choice — to me, it’s an obligation,” she said. “Each DA in the country has a certain jurisdiction that they’re responsible for. If alleged crime happens within their jurisdiction, I think they have a duty to investigate it.”

For their part, Trump and his allies are girding for a second criminal investigation, alongside an ongoing fraud inquiry before a grand jury in Manhattan. This past week, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, called the Georgia investigation “simply the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump, and everybody sees through it.”

Willis has many challenges before her, and not just relating to this inquiry. She replaced a controversial prosecutor who faced lawsuits accusing him of sexual harassment. In an overhaul of her office’s anti-corruption unit, which will handle the Trump investigation, she removed all eight lawyers and has since hired four, with a fifth on the way. The police in Atlanta, as elsewhere, are both maligned and demoralized, and 2020 was one of Atlanta’s deadliest years in decades. She must also decide how to proceed with the case of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man fatally shot by a white police officer last year.

“I have 182 open, unindicted homicides involving 222 defendants,” she said. “I have a sex crime unit that is backed up. But I am very capable of identifying great people to work in this office who are dedicated to the cause of making this county safer, and I do not get to be derelict in my duty, because I have other responsibilities.”

Clark D. Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, said it appeared that Willis might be “pulling out all the stops” for the Trump case, “because of the range of the types of crimes that are mentioned in that letter,” he said, adding, “and particularly the talk about racketeering and conspiracy.”

The pressure campaign to overturn the Georgia election results began on Nov. 13, when Graham, a Trump ally from South Carolina, made a phone call to Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. Raffensperger, a Republican, later said that Graham had asked him if he had the authority to throw out all mail-in votes from particular counties, a suggestion the secretary of state rebuffed. (Graham disputed Raffensperger’s account.)

On Dec. 3, Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, made an appearance before a Georgia state Senate committee, saying that “there’s more than ample evidence to conclude this election was a sham,” and laid out a number of false claims. Two days later, Trump called Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, to press him to call a special session of the legislature to overturn the election. Trump then called Georgia’s Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, and pressured him not to oppose a legal attempt to challenge the elections results in Georgia and other swing states.

Because of the flurry of Trump calls, Willis said she believes that she is the only official with jurisdiction who does not have a conflict of interest. As she wrote in her letters to other public officials, “this office is the one agency with jurisdiction that is not a witness to the conduct that is the subject of the investigation.”

Even after Raffensperger recertified the election results on Dec. 7, Trump’s efforts intensified. Three days later, Giuliani testified virtually before a state House committee, repeating false claims that poll workers at an Atlanta arena had counted improper ballots stuffed in suitcases, when they were simply using the normal storage containers. “They look like they’re passing out dope,” he said during the hearing.

Gabriel Sterling, a top aide to Raffensperger, has derided the claims as a ridiculous, “‘Oceans 11’ type scheme,” adding, “This has been thoroughly debunked.”

Giuliani returned on Dec. 30, telling a Senate committee, “You had 10,315 people that we can determine from obituaries were dead when they voted,” and adding: “So, right away, that number you submitted to Washington is a lie. It’s not true! It’s false!” The numbers, however, were farcical; state officials have found only two instances in which votes were cast in the names of people who had died.

The pressure campaign culminated when Trump himself called Raffensperger on Jan. 2. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump said on the call, fruitlessly searching for ways to reverse his election loss.

Willis is also reviewing the departure of Pak, a Trump appointee. Shortly before Pak’s resignation, Trump’s acting deputy attorney general, Richard Donoghue, told Pak that the president was unhappy that he wasn’t pursuing voter fraud cases.

Willis has said that her office would request subpoenas “as necessary” when the next Fulton County grand jury convenes in March.

She appears undaunted. As she put it, “this is not a 9-to-5 job.” For her, lawyering is a family calling. Her father is John Clifford Floyd III, a longtime civil rights activist and defense lawyer.

“My dad was a single father that raised me,” she said. When she was a young girl in Washington, D.C., she said, her father would take her to court with him on Saturday mornings as he took on new clients who had been arrested the previous night.

“There was an old white Irish judge,” she recalled. “He would let me come sit up on the bench with him,” she recalled. While she was on his lap, the judge would ask her, “should we send them home, or are they going to the back?”

She decided then that she wanted to be a judge, but her father explained that she had to be a lawyer first. So her career ambition was set. While she embraces some of the prosecutorial reform efforts favored by the left, including diversion programs that keep some offenders out of jail, Willis has also said that she has a “conservative side” that separates her from the new wave of progressive prosecutors.

Heretofore, she has been best known for the Atlanta school case, in which 11 educators were convicted of racketeering and other crimes. The case drew criticism in some quarters for overreach.

“I’ve been criticized a lot for that case, but I’m going to tell you what I tell people if I’m taking criticism for defending poor Black children, because that’s mainly what we were talking about,” she said. The only chance many such children have to get ahead is through the public education system, she said, adding, “So if what I am being criticized for is doing something to protect people that did not have a voice for themselves, I sit in that criticism, and y’all can put it in my obituary.”

After six weeks as a district attorney, Fani T. Willis is taking on a former president. And not just that. In an interview about her newly announced criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia, Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, made it clear that the scope of her inquiry would encompass the pressure campaign on state officials by former President Donald Trump as well as the activities of his allies.

After six weeks as a district attorney, Fani T. Willis is taking on a former president. And not just that. In an interview about her newly announced criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia, Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, made it clear that the scope of her inquiry would encompass the pressure campaign on state officials by former President Donald Trump as well as the activities of his allies. “An investigation is like an onion,” she said. “You never know. You pull something back, and then you find something else.” She added, “Anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review.” Willis, whose jurisdiction encompasses much of Atlanta, has suddenly become a new player in the post-presidency of Trump. She will decide whether to bring criminal charges over Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” votes to erase the former president’s loss there, and other efforts by Trump allies to overturn the election results. The severity of the legal threat to Trump is not yet clear, but Willis has started laying out some details about the inquiry. She and her office have indicated that the investigation will include Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone call to Raffensperger in November about mail-in ballots; the abrupt removal last month of Byung J. Pak, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, who earned Trump’s enmity for not advancing his debunked assertions about election fraud; and the false claims that Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, made before state legislative committees. She laid out an array of possible criminal charges in letters sent to state officials and agencies asking them to preserve documents, providing a partial map of the potential exposure of Trump and his allies. Trump’s calls to state officials urging them to subvert the election, for instance, could run afoul of a Georgia statute dealing with “criminal solicitation to commit election fraud,” one of the charges outlined in the letters, which if prosecuted as a felony is punishable by at least a year in prison. The misinformation spread by Giuliani could prove problematic, as Willis said in her letters that she would review “the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies.” Georgia law bars “any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement” within “the jurisdiction of any department or agency of state government.” Willis is also open to considering not just conspiracy but racketeering charges. As she put it in the interview, racketeering could apply to anyone who uses a legal entity — presumably anything from a government agency to that person’s own public office — to conduct overt acts for an illegal purpose. In this case, it applies to the pressure the president and his allies exerted on Georgia officials to overturn the election. Willis has brought a novel racketeering case before. In 2014, as an assistant district attorney, she helped lead a high-profile criminal trial against a group of educators in the Atlanta public school system who had been involved in a widespread cheating scandal. Racketeering cases tend to make people think of mob bosses, who have often been targets of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, since it was enacted in 1970. Asked how racketeering applied in the cheating scandal and in an election case, Willis said, “I always tell people when they hear the word racketeering, they think of ‘The Godfather,’” but she noted that it could also extend to otherwise lawful organizations that are used to break the law. “If you have various overt acts for an illegal purpose, I think you can — you may — get there,” she said. Willis, 49, who easily won election last year, is the daughter of an activist defense lawyer who was a member of the Black Panthers, and she is also a veteran prosecutor who has carved out a centrist record. She views the case before her as a critical task. “It is really not a choice — to me, it’s an obligation,” she said. “Each DA in the country has a certain jurisdiction that they’re responsible for. If alleged crime happens within their jurisdiction, I think they have a duty to investigate it.” For their part, Trump and his allies are girding for a second criminal investigation, alongside an ongoing fraud inquiry before a grand jury in Manhattan. This past week, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, called the Georgia investigation “simply the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump, and everybody sees through it.” Willis has many challenges before her, and not just relating to this inquiry. She replaced a controversial prosecutor who faced lawsuits accusing him of sexual harassment. In an overhaul of her office’s anti-corruption unit, which will handle the Trump investigation, she removed all eight lawyers and has since hired four, with a fifth on the way. The police in Atlanta, as elsewhere, are both maligned and demoralized, and 2020 was one of Atlanta’s deadliest years in decades. She must also decide how to proceed with the case of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man fatally shot by a white police officer last year. “I have 182 open, unindicted homicides involving 222 defendants,” she said. “I have a sex crime unit that is backed up. But I am very capable of identifying great people to work in this office who are dedicated to the cause of making this county safer, and I do not get to be derelict in my duty, because I have other responsibilities.” Clark D. Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, said it appeared that Willis might be “pulling out all the stops” for the Trump case, “because of the range of the types of crimes that are mentioned in that letter,” he said, adding, “and particularly the talk about racketeering and conspiracy.” The pressure campaign to overturn the Georgia election results began on Nov. 13, when Graham, a Trump ally from South Carolina, made a phone call to Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. Raffensperger, a Republican, later said that Graham had asked him if he had the authority to throw out all mail-in votes from particular counties, a suggestion the secretary of state rebuffed. (Graham disputed Raffensperger’s account.) On Dec. 3, Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, made an appearance before a Georgia state Senate committee, saying that “there’s more than ample evidence to conclude this election was a sham,” and laid out a number of false claims. Two days later, Trump called Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, to press him to call a special session of the legislature to overturn the election. Trump then called Georgia’s Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, and pressured him not to oppose a legal attempt to challenge the elections results in Georgia and other swing states. Because of the flurry of Trump calls, Willis said she believes that she is the only official with jurisdiction who does not have a conflict of interest. As she wrote in her letters to other public officials, “this office is the one agency with jurisdiction that is not a witness to the conduct that is the subject of the investigation.” Even after Raffensperger recertified the election results on Dec. 7, Trump’s efforts intensified. Three days later, Giuliani testified virtually before a state House committee, repeating false claims that poll workers at an Atlanta arena had counted improper ballots stuffed in suitcases, when they were simply using the normal storage containers. “They look like they’re passing out dope,” he said during the hearing. Gabriel Sterling, a top aide to Raffensperger, has derided the claims as a ridiculous, “‘Oceans 11’ type scheme,” adding, “This has been thoroughly debunked.” Giuliani returned on Dec. 30, telling a Senate committee, “You had 10,315 people that we can determine from obituaries were dead when they voted,” and adding: “So, right away, that number you submitted to Washington is a lie. It’s not true! It’s false!” The numbers, however, were farcical; state officials have found only two instances in which votes were cast in the names of people who had died. The pressure campaign culminated when Trump himself called Raffensperger on Jan. 2. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump said on the call, fruitlessly searching for ways to reverse his election loss. Willis is also reviewing the departure of Pak, a Trump appointee. Shortly before Pak’s resignation, Trump’s acting deputy attorney general, Richard Donoghue, told Pak that the president was unhappy that he wasn’t pursuing voter fraud cases. Willis has said that her office would request subpoenas “as necessary” when the next Fulton County grand jury convenes in March. She appears undaunted. As she put it, “this is not a 9-to-5 job.” For her, lawyering is a family calling. Her father is John Clifford Floyd III, a longtime civil rights activist and defense lawyer. “My dad was a single father that raised me,” she said. When she was a young girl in Washington, D.C., she said, her father would take her to court with him on Saturday mornings as he took on new clients who had been arrested the previous night. “There was an old white Irish judge,” she recalled. “He would let me come sit up on the bench with him,” she recalled. While she was on his lap, the judge would ask her, “should we send them home, or are they going to the back?” She decided then that she wanted to be a judge, but her father explained that she had to be a lawyer first. So her career ambition was set. While she embraces some of the prosecutorial reform efforts favored by the left, including diversion programs that keep some offenders out of jail, Willis has also said that she has a “conservative side” that separates her from the new wave of progressive prosecutors. Heretofore, she has been best known for the Atlanta school case, in which 11 educators were convicted of racketeering and other crimes. The case drew criticism in some quarters for overreach. “I’ve been criticized a lot for that case, but I’m going to tell you what I tell people if I’m taking criticism for defending poor Black children, because that’s mainly what we were talking about,” she said. The only chance many such children have to get ahead is through the public education system, she said, adding, “So if what I am being criticized for is doing something to protect people that did not have a voice for themselves, I sit in that criticism, and y’all can put it in my obituary.”

In Georgia, a new district attorney starts circling Trump and his allies

Former US President Donald Trump lawyers open their defense against his historical second impeachment trial. the lawyers argued to the article of impeachment before the senate is actually unjust and it was a blatantly unconstitutional act of political vengeance.

Former US President Donald Trump's defense lawyer calls Impeachment blatantly unconstitutional

US&nbsp;President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a> on Thursday said the coronavirus vaccination program he inherited from Donald Trump was in “much worse shape” than he had expected, while urging patience and also announcing the government has bought 200 million more doses.

“We’re not going to have everything fixed for a while, but we’re going to fix it,” Biden said in remarks at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

With demand for the vaccine far outstripping supply, Americans are struggling to get appointments for their inoculations, leaving Biden with an acute problem less than a month after taking over from Trump.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/joe-biden-aims-to-close-down-guantanamo-prison-white-house-spokeswoman-363280">Joe Biden aims to close down Guantanamo prison: White House spokeswoman</a>

Biden said Trump, who spent his last two months in office in a futile effort to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election that he lost, did not order enough vaccine and did not do enough to get people lined up to get vaccinated.

He said the vaccine program he inherited was in “much worse shape” than he had anticipated and that his transition team had been misled about the vaccine supply.

“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,” Biden said.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/biden-begins-dismantling-trumps-remain-in-mexico-asylum-policy-363197" hreflang="en">Biden begins dismantling Trump's 'Remain in Mexico' asylum policy</a>

Brian Morgenstern, a former White House official involved with the coronavirus effort, said the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed program had prepared plans well in advance, aided by many career officials still serving in government.

“That is why the new Administration’s goals were being surpassed before they even came into office. Enough with the lies, excuses &amp; political pot shots. Time to lead,” he said.

Trump had expressed pride in the speed of the vaccine development on his watch.

Biden said the U.S. coronavirus death toll is likely to reach 500,000 next month. He urged Americans to wear masks to prevent the spread.

“We’ve now purchased enough vaccine to vaccinate all Americans,” Biden said.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-football-was-at-danger-during-capitol-riots-footage-reveals-363277" hreflang="en">US 'football' was at danger during Capitol riots, footage reveals</a>

He said the U.S. government has signed contracts for 100 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and 100 million more from Pfizer to help reach the target.

“We appreciate the confidence that the U.S. government has demonstrated in our COVID-19 Vaccine,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a press release.

Pfizer spokeswoman Sharon Castillo confirmed that it and BioNTech had reached a deal with the U.S. government.

“We will deliver 100 million doses by the end of March, a total of 200 million doses by the end of May, and the full 300 million doses by the end of July,” she said.

The new vaccine orders, in addition to 400 million doses previously contracted, would allow the United States to vaccinate a total of 300 million people by July 31 using doses from the two vaccines authorized.

That would be enough to vaccinate most people in the 330 million population who want it, given that the two vaccines are not authorized for children and that many people have said they don’t want shots.

In addition, Johnson &amp; Johnson’s vaccine candidate is likely to be authorized later this month, and the company expects to supply 100 million doses of its single-shot vaccine to the United States by the middle of the year.

US President Joe Biden on Thursday said the coronavirus vaccination program he inherited from Donald Trump was in “much worse shape” than he had expected, while urging patience and also announcing the government has bought 200 million more doses.

US President Joe Biden on Thursday said the coronavirus vaccination program he inherited from Donald Trump was in “much worse shape” than he had expected, while urging patience and also announcing the government has bought 200 million more doses. “We’re not going to have everything fixed for a while, but we’re going to fix it,” Biden said in remarks at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. With demand for the vaccine far outstripping supply, Americans are struggling to get appointments for their inoculations, leaving Biden with an acute problem less than a month after taking over from Trump. Also read| Joe Biden aims to close down Guantanamo prison: White House spokeswoman Biden said Trump, who spent his last two months in office in a futile effort to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 presidential election that he lost, did not order enough vaccine and did not do enough to get people lined up to get vaccinated. He said the vaccine program he inherited was in “much worse shape” than he had anticipated and that his transition team had been misled about the vaccine supply. “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,” Biden said. Also read| Biden begins dismantling Trump's 'Remain in Mexico' asylum policy Brian Morgenstern, a former White House official involved with the coronavirus effort, said the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed program had prepared plans well in advance, aided by many career officials still serving in government. “That is why the new Administration’s goals were being surpassed before they even came into office. Enough with the lies, excuses & political pot shots. Time to lead,” he said. Trump had expressed pride in the speed of the vaccine development on his watch. Biden said the U.S. coronavirus death toll is likely to reach 500,000 next month. He urged Americans to wear masks to prevent the spread. “We’ve now purchased enough vaccine to vaccinate all Americans,” Biden said. Also read| US 'football' was at danger during Capitol riots, footage reveals He said the U.S. government has signed contracts for 100 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and 100 million more from Pfizer to help reach the target. “We appreciate the confidence that the U.S. government has demonstrated in our COVID-19 Vaccine,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a press release. Pfizer spokeswoman Sharon Castillo confirmed that it and BioNTech had reached a deal with the U.S. government. “We will deliver 100 million doses by the end of March, a total of 200 million doses by the end of May, and the full 300 million doses by the end of July,” she said. The new vaccine orders, in addition to 400 million doses previously contracted, would allow the United States to vaccinate a total of 300 million people by July 31 using doses from the two vaccines authorized. That would be enough to vaccinate most people in the 330 million population who want it, given that the two vaccines are not authorized for children and that many people have said they don’t want shots. In addition, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate is likely to be authorized later this month, and the company expects to supply 100 million doses of its single-shot vaccine to the United States by the middle of the year.

Biden says Trump 'did not do his job' on coronavirus vaccination program, urges patience

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump's </a>impeachment defence lawyers argued on Friday that his trial is "act of political vengeance" and he bears no responsibility for an attack on US Capitol on the day of the certification of President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden's </a>election win.&nbsp;

His lawyers argued that his comments, including an aggressive speech asking his supporters to "fight like hell" were protected by the First Amendment of the country's constitution.&nbsp;

Watch |&nbsp;

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/donald-trump-impeachment-defence-team-to-move-impeachment-trial-to-speedy-end-english-news-363275/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

"To claim that the president in any way wished, desired or encouraged lawless or violent behaviour is a preposterous and monstrous lie," Michael van der Veen, one of Trump's lawyers said.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-impeachment-trial-defense-denounces-trial-as-act-of-political-vengeance-363266">Trump impeachment trial: Defense denounces trial as 'act of political vengeance'</a>

He also said that the impeachment was an "act of political vengeance" and the Senate should reject it "promptly" and "decisively".&nbsp;

The arguments followed two days of evidence presented by the Democratic impeachment managers to substantiate their claim that the former US president incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol.&nbsp;

The Democrats revealed the never-seen-before video footage of the day US Capitol in which armed rioters were seen wildly looking for Democrats' Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Mike Pence, two political leaders who were supposed to carry out important duties to certify Biden's win.&nbsp;

In the footage, members of the Congress were seen running for their lives, including Pence along with his family, and some even narrowly escaping the possible attack from the protesters.

Donald Trump's impeachment defence lawyers argued on Friday that his trial is "act of political vengeance" and he bears no responsibility for an attack on US Capitol on the day of the certification of President Joe Biden's election win.

Donald Trump's impeachment defence lawyers argued on Friday that his trial is "act of political vengeance" and he bears no responsibility for an attack on US Capitol on the day of the certification of President Joe Biden's election win. His lawyers argued that his comments, including an aggressive speech asking his supporters to "fight like hell" were protected by the First Amendment of the country's constitution. Watch | "To claim that the president in any way wished, desired or encouraged lawless or violent behaviour is a preposterous and monstrous lie," Michael van der Veen, one of Trump's lawyers said. Also read | Trump impeachment trial: Defense denounces trial as 'act of political vengeance' He also said that the impeachment was an "act of political vengeance" and the Senate should reject it "promptly" and "decisively". The arguments followed two days of evidence presented by the Democratic impeachment managers to substantiate their claim that the former US president incited his supporters to storm the US Capitol. The Democrats revealed the never-seen-before video footage of the day US Capitol in which armed rioters were seen wildly looking for Democrats' Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Mike Pence, two political leaders who were supposed to carry out important duties to certify Biden's win. In the footage, members of the Congress were seen running for their lives, including Pence along with his family, and some even narrowly escaping the possible attack from the protesters.

Defence says Trump bears no responsibility for US Capitol attack as impeachment trial set to conclude

US House prosecutors have wrapped up their impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump, urging the Senate to convict the Former President for inciting the deadly Jan 06 insurrection.

Donald Trump Impeachment: Defence team to move Impeachment trial to speedy end

The advocates of former US President Donald Trump on Friday blasted the case against him as political vengeance and part of a yearlong Democratic “witch hunt.”

The lawyer opened his impeachment defense by strenuously denying he played any role in inciting the deadly riot at the US Capitol.

One of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys, Michael van der Veen, opened his impeachment defense by warning the Senate about “the precedent this case will set.”

"The article of impeachment now before the Senate is an unjust and blatantly unconstitutional act of political vengeance," attorney Michael van der Veen said.

"Like every other politically motivated witch hunt the left has engaged in over the past four years, this impeachment is completely divorced from the facts, the evidence and the interests of the American people," he said.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/convict-trump-as-he-is-overwhelmingly-guilty-prosecutors-urge-us-senate-over-capitol-attack-363025">Also read |&nbsp;Convict Trump as he is overwhelmingly guilty: Prosecutors urge US Senate over Capitol attack</a>

"The Senate should promptly and decisively vote to reject it."

Democratic impeachment managers rested their case Thursday after two days of often emotional presentations anchored by shocking video footage of a January 6 invasion of Congress by Trump's supporters.

But in a sign that they want to get to a Senate vote as quickly as possible, Trump's lawyers say they will use as little as three or four hours to state their own case, when under the rules they are allowed up to 16 hours spread across two days.

The impeachment team argues that Trump deliberately stoked national tension after losing re-election to Joe Biden on November 3 with a campaign of lies claiming there had been mass voter fraud.

On January 6 he staged a fiery rally near the White House, calling on the crowd to march on Congress, which was in the process of certifying Biden's victory.

The mob then charged the Capitol building. Five people, including a police officer and a woman shot during the unrest, died as a result of the mayhem.

Impeachment managers say Trump, who has never expressed remorse for his encouragement of the violent crowd, is so dangerous he should be barred from holding office again.

But the former president's lawyers are arguing that his speech was rhetorical and that he cannot be held responsible for the mob.

They also argue that the trial itself is unconstitutional because Trump is now out of office, although the Senate rejected this claim earlier this week.

It would take a two-thirds majority to convict, meaning 17 Republicans would need to join the Senate's 50 Democrats.

This is highly unlikely.

However, if even a handful of Republicans vote to convict, it would be a historic mark against Trump, fueling civil war within his party over whether to pursue his populist, divisive vision or return to more moderate values.

"I'm just anxious to see what my Republican friends do, if they stand up," Biden said earlier at the White House.

One prominent Republican voice and potential future presidential candidate, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, told Politico it's time to renounce Trump, saying: "We can't let that ever happen again."

(With inputs from agencies)

The advocates of former US President Donald Trump on Friday blasted the case against him as political vengeance and part of a yearlong Democratic “witch hunt.” The lawyer opened his impeachment defense by strenuously denying he played any role in inciting the deadly riot at the US Capitol.

The advocates of former US President Donald Trump on Friday blasted the case against him as political vengeance and part of a yearlong Democratic “witch hunt.” The lawyer opened his impeachment defense by strenuously denying he played any role in inciting the deadly riot at the US Capitol. One of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys, Michael van der Veen, opened his impeachment defense by warning the Senate about “the precedent this case will set.” "The article of impeachment now before the Senate is an unjust and blatantly unconstitutional act of political vengeance," attorney Michael van der Veen said. "Like every other politically motivated witch hunt the left has engaged in over the past four years, this impeachment is completely divorced from the facts, the evidence and the interests of the American people," he said. Also read | Convict Trump as he is overwhelmingly guilty: Prosecutors urge US Senate over Capitol attack "The Senate should promptly and decisively vote to reject it." Democratic impeachment managers rested their case Thursday after two days of often emotional presentations anchored by shocking video footage of a January 6 invasion of Congress by Trump's supporters. But in a sign that they want to get to a Senate vote as quickly as possible, Trump's lawyers say they will use as little as three or four hours to state their own case, when under the rules they are allowed up to 16 hours spread across two days. The impeachment team argues that Trump deliberately stoked national tension after losing re-election to Joe Biden on November 3 with a campaign of lies claiming there had been mass voter fraud. On January 6 he staged a fiery rally near the White House, calling on the crowd to march on Congress, which was in the process of certifying Biden's victory. The mob then charged the Capitol building. Five people, including a police officer and a woman shot during the unrest, died as a result of the mayhem. Impeachment managers say Trump, who has never expressed remorse for his encouragement of the violent crowd, is so dangerous he should be barred from holding office again. But the former president's lawyers are arguing that his speech was rhetorical and that he cannot be held responsible for the mob. They also argue that the trial itself is unconstitutional because Trump is now out of office, although the Senate rejected this claim earlier this week. It would take a two-thirds majority to convict, meaning 17 Republicans would need to join the Senate's 50 Democrats. This is highly unlikely. However, if even a handful of Republicans vote to convict, it would be a historic mark against Trump, fueling civil war within his party over whether to pursue his populist, divisive vision or return to more moderate values. "I'm just anxious to see what my Republican friends do, if they stand up," Biden said earlier at the White House. One prominent Republican voice and potential future presidential candidate, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, told Politico it's time to renounce Trump, saying: "We can't let that ever happen again." (With inputs from agencies)

Trump impeachment trial: Defense denounces trial as 'act of political vengeance'

Donald Trump's second impeachment trial will likely conclude on Saturday, but a conviction -- on whether the former US president incited his supporters to attack the Capitol on January 6 in a last-ditch effort to stay in power after his November election defeat -- does not seem to be a possibility.

Trump is the first US president to be impeached twice and the first to face trial after leaving office. If convicted, the Senate could then vote to bar him from running for office again.

Conviction is seen as unlikely, however, as at least 17 Republicans in the 100-seat chamber would have to join all 50 Democrats to find the former president guilty.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/for-the-defense-twisted-facts-and-other-staples-of-the-trump-playbook-363364">Also read |&nbsp;For the defense: Twisted facts and other staples of the Trump playbook</a>

And so far, only six Republicans voted with Democrats to move forward with the trial, rejecting an argument made by other Republican Senators that the Constitution does not allow Congress to impeach a president who has already left office.

The Senate is due to convene at 10 am (1500 GMT), and a final vote could come in the afternoon.

It's believed that Trump urged his followers to march to the Capitol and "get wild" in an effort to prevent lawmakers from certifying his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential election. Five people died in the chaos.

Trump's lawyers gave conflicting answers on Friday when asked if Trump knew Pence was in danger when he issued his tweet. Several Republican senators said they still had questions about Trump's role.

House Democrats, on their part, have argued that Trump set the stage for violence through repeated -- and baseless -- claims that the election results were fraudulent. They say he summoned the mob to Washington, gave the crowd its marching orders and did nothing to stop the violence as it played out on television.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/biden-says-trump-did-not-do-his-job-on-coronavirus-vaccination-program-urges-patience-363295">Also read |&nbsp;Biden says Trump 'did not do his job' on coronavirus vaccination program, urges patience</a>

Trump refused to testify in the trial. His first impeachment trial, which stemmed from his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden, ended in an acquittal a year ago in what was then a Republican-controlled Senate.

(with inputs)

Donald Trump's second impeachment trial will likely conclude on Saturday, but a conviction -- on whether the former US president incited his supporters to attack the Capitol on January 6 in a last-ditch effort to stay in power after his November election defeat -- does not seem to be a possibility.

Donald Trump's second impeachment trial will likely conclude on Saturday, but a conviction -- on whether the former US president incited his supporters to attack the Capitol on January 6 in a last-ditch effort to stay in power after his November election defeat -- does not seem to be a possibility. Trump is the first US president to be impeached twice and the first to face trial after leaving office. If convicted, the Senate could then vote to bar him from running for office again. Conviction is seen as unlikely, however, as at least 17 Republicans in the 100-seat chamber would have to join all 50 Democrats to find the former president guilty. Also read | For the defense: Twisted facts and other staples of the Trump playbook And so far, only six Republicans voted with Democrats to move forward with the trial, rejecting an argument made by other Republican Senators that the Constitution does not allow Congress to impeach a president who has already left office. The Senate is due to convene at 10 am (1500 GMT), and a final vote could come in the afternoon. It's believed that Trump urged his followers to march to the Capitol and "get wild" in an effort to prevent lawmakers from certifying his defeat to Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential election. Five people died in the chaos. Trump's lawyers gave conflicting answers on Friday when asked if Trump knew Pence was in danger when he issued his tweet. Several Republican senators said they still had questions about Trump's role. House Democrats, on their part, have argued that Trump set the stage for violence through repeated -- and baseless -- claims that the election results were fraudulent. They say he summoned the mob to Washington, gave the crowd its marching orders and did nothing to stop the violence as it played out on television. Also read | Biden says Trump 'did not do his job' on coronavirus vaccination program, urges patience Trump refused to testify in the trial. His first impeachment trial, which stemmed from his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden, ended in an acquittal a year ago in what was then a Republican-controlled Senate. (with inputs)

Trump impeachment trial may wrap up on Saturday, but with no conviction

US president Joe Biden has slammed Donald Trump's for preparing for mass vaccination effort. Biden said his transition team is led to believe that there is much more vaccine available than what was the actual truth.

US president Joe Biden slams Donald Trump's Pandemic response

A young day trader who went by the screen name Roaring Kitty and found himself at the center of the GameStop stock trading frenzy will make his first public appearance at a congressional hearing Thursday.

The trader, Keith Gill, was on a list released Friday of the panel that will appear in front of the House Committee on Financial Services as it examines the circumstances around the wild spikes in prices of GameStop and other so-called meme stocks.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/business-economy/how-gamestop-missed-out-on-capitalising-on-the-reddit-rally-362984">How GameStop missed out on capitalising on the Reddit rally</a>

Gill is the only non-chief executive who will appear at the event, titled “Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media and Retail Investors Collide.”

The other people testifying that day will be Vlad Tenev, CEO of online broker Robinhood; Kenneth C. Griffin, CEO of trading firm Citadel; Gabe Plotkin, CEO of hedge fund Melvin Capital Management; and Steve Huffman, CEO of social media company Reddit.

Gill lingered in anonymity until he was outed last month as the person behind Roaring Kitty. Under that screen name, Gill shot dozens of videos from his home in Massachusetts promoting the GameStop stock.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/hbo-to-develop-film-chronicling-the-gamestop-wall-street-incident-361954">HBO to develop film chronicling the GameStop-Wall Street incident</a>

He built up a large holding of GameStop shares and became a hero among the online crowd that gathered on Reddit to talk about the stock. But his endorsement has drawn attention from regulators in his home state.

Many of these traders bought and sold stocks on the Robinhood trading app. But Robinhood and other brokers effectively blocked trading of GameStop on its platform as the stock became the most actively traded on Wall Street, with its share price up as much as 1,700% in January.

The spike caused huge losses for the hedge funds that had made big bets against GameStop. Melvin lost 53% in January, a person familiar with the matter said, and had to ask for billions of dollars from other hedge funds, including Citadel, to stay afloat.

Robinhood’s decision to block trading infuriated its customers and drew bipartisan condemnation, with the unlikely combination of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ted Cruz agreeing on the issue.

Robinhood raised $3.4 billion in five days to ensure it had enough money to cover the trading on its platforms. Even so, the platform continued to limit trading of GameStop and other so-called meme stocks, such as AMC Entertainment, for days.

A young day trader who went by the screen name Roaring Kitty and found himself at the center of the GameStop stock trading frenzy will make his first public appearance at a congressional hearing Thursday.

A young day trader who went by the screen name Roaring Kitty and found himself at the center of the GameStop stock trading frenzy will make his first public appearance at a congressional hearing Thursday. The trader, Keith Gill, was on a list released Friday of the panel that will appear in front of the House Committee on Financial Services as it examines the circumstances around the wild spikes in prices of GameStop and other so-called meme stocks. Also read| How GameStop missed out on capitalising on the Reddit rally Gill is the only non-chief executive who will appear at the event, titled “Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media and Retail Investors Collide.” The other people testifying that day will be Vlad Tenev, CEO of online broker Robinhood; Kenneth C. Griffin, CEO of trading firm Citadel; Gabe Plotkin, CEO of hedge fund Melvin Capital Management; and Steve Huffman, CEO of social media company Reddit. Gill lingered in anonymity until he was outed last month as the person behind Roaring Kitty. Under that screen name, Gill shot dozens of videos from his home in Massachusetts promoting the GameStop stock. Also read| HBO to develop film chronicling the GameStop-Wall Street incident He built up a large holding of GameStop shares and became a hero among the online crowd that gathered on Reddit to talk about the stock. But his endorsement has drawn attention from regulators in his home state. Many of these traders bought and sold stocks on the Robinhood trading app. But Robinhood and other brokers effectively blocked trading of GameStop on its platform as the stock became the most actively traded on Wall Street, with its share price up as much as 1,700% in January. The spike caused huge losses for the hedge funds that had made big bets against GameStop. Melvin lost 53% in January, a person familiar with the matter said, and had to ask for billions of dollars from other hedge funds, including Citadel, to stay afloat. Robinhood’s decision to block trading infuriated its customers and drew bipartisan condemnation, with the unlikely combination of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ted Cruz agreeing on the issue. Robinhood raised $3.4 billion in five days to ensure it had enough money to cover the trading on its platforms. Even so, the platform continued to limit trading of GameStop and other so-called meme stocks, such as AMC Entertainment, for days.

Reddit’s ‘Roaring Kitty’ will speak at GameStop hearing

Ever since Donald Trump began his run for president, he has been surrounded by an ever-shifting cast of lawyers with varying abilities to control, channel and satisfy their mercurial and headstrong client.

During the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Michael Cohen arranged for hush money payments to be made to a former pornographic film actress. In the second year of Trump’s presidency, John Dowd, head of the team defending the president in the Russia investigation, quit after he concluded that Trump was refusing to listen to his counsel.

By Trump’s third year in office, he had found a new lawyer to do his bidding as Rudy Giuliani first undertook a campaign to undermine Joe Biden and then helped lead the fruitless effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, with stops in Ukraine and at Four Seasons Total Landscaping along the way.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/defence-says-trump-bears-no-responsibility-for-us-capitol-attack-as-impeachment-trial-set-to-conclude-363294">Defence says Trump bears no responsibility for US Capitol attack</a>

On Friday, the latest members of Trump’s legal cast took center stage in his impeachment trial and for the most part delivered exactly what he always seems to want from his lawyers: not precise, learned legal arguments but public combat, in this case including twisted facts, rewritten history and attacks on opponents.

Despite an often unorthodox and undisciplined approach from his legal teams, Trump has survived more legal challenges as president than any of his recent predecessors. Although federal investigators uncovered the hush money payments and significant evidence he may have obstructed the Russia investigation, he was never charged. He was acquitted by the Senate in his first impeachment trial related to the Ukraine pressure campaign, and he appeared poised Friday to see a similar outcome in this impeachment.

Legal experts, white-collar defense lawyers and even some of Trump’s former lawyers acknowledge that his survival has largely been a function of the fact that he was the president of the United States, a position that gave him great powers to evade legal consequence.

Also read|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-football-was-at-danger-during-capitol-riots-footage-reveals-363277" hreflang="en">US 'football' was at danger during Capitol riots, footage reveals</a>

“At the outset of the administration I would have said it would be remarkable for someone to run this gauntlet and survive,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former longtime senior Justice Department official.

After initially stumbling in its first round of arguments Tuesday, the latest team — either the seventh or eighth to defend Trump since he became president, depending on your math — followed the playbook Trump has long wanted his lawyers to adhere to.

They channeled his grievances and aggressively spun, making what-about arguments that tried to cast his own behavior as not so bad when compared with the other side. Democrats found their performance infuriatingly misleading, but it potentially provided the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate opposed to convicting Trump with talking points they can use to justify their votes.

“Hypocrisy,” one of Trump’s lawyers, Michael van der Veen, said after they played a several-minutes-long clip of prominent Democrats and media commentators using language like “fight” in an effort to show that Trump’s own words before the riot could have had no role in inciting the violence.

“The reality is, Mr. Trump was not in any way, shape or form instructing these people to fight or to use physical violence,” van der Veen said. “What he was instructing them to do was to challenge their opponents in primary elections to push for sweeping election reforms, to hold Big Tech responsible.”

Serving as one of Trump’s lawyers is a true high-wire act for a range of reasons, from his indifference to the law and norms to his long-held belief that he is his own best defender and spokesman. In the 1970s, under the tutelage of lawyer Roy Cohn — whose aggressiveness was matched by his lack of adherence to ethical standards — Trump began conflating legal and public relations problems.

These factors have often led Trump to ignore legal advice and dictate to the lawyers what he wants them to do. Some lawyers have survived for years with Trump through various investigations, such as Jay Sekulow and Florida-based couple Marty and Jane Raskin. They were involved in defending Trump in his first impeachment battle. And they had successes defending Trump in the highest-profile investigation he faced as president, the special counsel inquiry into possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign in 2016 and Russian officials.

But those lawyers are not part of his current team.

Neither is Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel who spent weeks at the end of the Trump term batting away various efforts to overturn the election results. As he did with a previous White House counsel, Donald McGahn, Trump repeatedly wanted the White House counsels to act as his personal lawyers.

And Trump’s willingness to listen to lawyers who tell him what he does not want to hear dwindled significantly after the Nov. 3 election. Instead, he relied on Giuliani, whom other Trump aides blame for ensnaring Trump in his two impeachment battles, to guide him in his effort to overturn the results of the election.

Giuliani repeatedly told associates that he would be involved in the impeachment defense, despite his status as a potential witness, since he addressed the Trump rally crowd on Jan. 6. Trump ultimately told Giuliani that he would not be involved.

But Trump’s advisers struggled to find a legal team that would defend him.

Finally, with help from an ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Trump’s advisers announced that he had hired Butch Bowers, a well-known lawyer with experience representing South Carolina politicians facing crises.

But just over a week before the trial was to begin, Bowers and the four lawyers connected to him abruptly left, though another lawyer, David Schoen, who was expected from the beginning to be part of the team, remained on board.

In another reminder of his ad hoc approach, Trump asked associates Thursday night whether it was too late to add or remove lawyers from the team, as Schoen briefly told the team he was quitting over a debate about how to use the video clips the defense showed Friday. Trump called Schoen and he agreed to rejoin the team, two people briefed on the events said.

Just a few hours before Trump’s team was to appear in the well of the Senate, the group was still hashing out the order of appearance of his two chief lawyers, Schoen and Bruce Castor. In the end, they decided that a third lawyer, van der Veen, would deliver the opening act.

The uncertainty apparently stemmed from Castor’s widely panned appearance Tuesday, when he delivered a rambling, unfocused opening statement that enraged his client. Trump has told advisers and friends he did not want to hear from Castor anymore, people familiar with the Trump team’s discussions said.

People familiar with the makeup of the legal team said Eric Herschmann, a lawyer and ally of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who worked in the West Wing in the final year of the administration, was a key figure in putting it together.

When Trump asked Herschmann who had hired Castor after his disastrous outing Tuesday, Herschmann, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange, sought to lay the blame on Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff. Herschmann did not respond to an email seeking comment.

By the end of the day Friday, van der Veen, a personal injury lawyer from Philadelphia, had emerged as Trump’s primary defender, handling questions from senators, making a series of false and outlandish claims, calling the impeachment a version of “constitutional cancel culture” and declaring that Friday’s proceedings had been his “most miserable” experience in Washington.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead House impeachment manager, responded, “I guess we’re sorry, but man, you should have been here on Jan. 6.”

Ever since Donald Trump began his run for president, he has been surrounded by an ever-shifting cast of lawyers with varying abilities to control, channel and satisfy their mercurial and headstrong client.

Ever since Donald Trump began his run for president, he has been surrounded by an ever-shifting cast of lawyers with varying abilities to control, channel and satisfy their mercurial and headstrong client. During the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Michael Cohen arranged for hush money payments to be made to a former pornographic film actress. In the second year of Trump’s presidency, John Dowd, head of the team defending the president in the Russia investigation, quit after he concluded that Trump was refusing to listen to his counsel. By Trump’s third year in office, he had found a new lawyer to do his bidding as Rudy Giuliani first undertook a campaign to undermine Joe Biden and then helped lead the fruitless effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, with stops in Ukraine and at Four Seasons Total Landscaping along the way. Also read| Defence says Trump bears no responsibility for US Capitol attack On Friday, the latest members of Trump’s legal cast took center stage in his impeachment trial and for the most part delivered exactly what he always seems to want from his lawyers: not precise, learned legal arguments but public combat, in this case including twisted facts, rewritten history and attacks on opponents. Despite an often unorthodox and undisciplined approach from his legal teams, Trump has survived more legal challenges as president than any of his recent predecessors. Although federal investigators uncovered the hush money payments and significant evidence he may have obstructed the Russia investigation, he was never charged. He was acquitted by the Senate in his first impeachment trial related to the Ukraine pressure campaign, and he appeared poised Friday to see a similar outcome in this impeachment. Legal experts, white-collar defense lawyers and even some of Trump’s former lawyers acknowledge that his survival has largely been a function of the fact that he was the president of the United States, a position that gave him great powers to evade legal consequence. Also read| US 'football' was at danger during Capitol riots, footage reveals “At the outset of the administration I would have said it would be remarkable for someone to run this gauntlet and survive,” said Chuck Rosenberg, a former longtime senior Justice Department official. After initially stumbling in its first round of arguments Tuesday, the latest team — either the seventh or eighth to defend Trump since he became president, depending on your math — followed the playbook Trump has long wanted his lawyers to adhere to. They channeled his grievances and aggressively spun, making what-about arguments that tried to cast his own behavior as not so bad when compared with the other side. Democrats found their performance infuriatingly misleading, but it potentially provided the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate opposed to convicting Trump with talking points they can use to justify their votes. “Hypocrisy,” one of Trump’s lawyers, Michael van der Veen, said after they played a several-minutes-long clip of prominent Democrats and media commentators using language like “fight” in an effort to show that Trump’s own words before the riot could have had no role in inciting the violence. “The reality is, Mr. Trump was not in any way, shape or form instructing these people to fight or to use physical violence,” van der Veen said. “What he was instructing them to do was to challenge their opponents in primary elections to push for sweeping election reforms, to hold Big Tech responsible.” Serving as one of Trump’s lawyers is a true high-wire act for a range of reasons, from his indifference to the law and norms to his long-held belief that he is his own best defender and spokesman. In the 1970s, under the tutelage of lawyer Roy Cohn — whose aggressiveness was matched by his lack of adherence to ethical standards — Trump began conflating legal and public relations problems. These factors have often led Trump to ignore legal advice and dictate to the lawyers what he wants them to do. Some lawyers have survived for years with Trump through various investigations, such as Jay Sekulow and Florida-based couple Marty and Jane Raskin. They were involved in defending Trump in his first impeachment battle. And they had successes defending Trump in the highest-profile investigation he faced as president, the special counsel inquiry into possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign in 2016 and Russian officials. But those lawyers are not part of his current team. Neither is Pat Cipollone, the former White House counsel who spent weeks at the end of the Trump term batting away various efforts to overturn the election results. As he did with a previous White House counsel, Donald McGahn, Trump repeatedly wanted the White House counsels to act as his personal lawyers. And Trump’s willingness to listen to lawyers who tell him what he does not want to hear dwindled significantly after the Nov. 3 election. Instead, he relied on Giuliani, whom other Trump aides blame for ensnaring Trump in his two impeachment battles, to guide him in his effort to overturn the results of the election. Giuliani repeatedly told associates that he would be involved in the impeachment defense, despite his status as a potential witness, since he addressed the Trump rally crowd on Jan. 6. Trump ultimately told Giuliani that he would not be involved. But Trump’s advisers struggled to find a legal team that would defend him. Finally, with help from an ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Trump’s advisers announced that he had hired Butch Bowers, a well-known lawyer with experience representing South Carolina politicians facing crises. But just over a week before the trial was to begin, Bowers and the four lawyers connected to him abruptly left, though another lawyer, David Schoen, who was expected from the beginning to be part of the team, remained on board. In another reminder of his ad hoc approach, Trump asked associates Thursday night whether it was too late to add or remove lawyers from the team, as Schoen briefly told the team he was quitting over a debate about how to use the video clips the defense showed Friday. Trump called Schoen and he agreed to rejoin the team, two people briefed on the events said. Just a few hours before Trump’s team was to appear in the well of the Senate, the group was still hashing out the order of appearance of his two chief lawyers, Schoen and Bruce Castor. In the end, they decided that a third lawyer, van der Veen, would deliver the opening act. The uncertainty apparently stemmed from Castor’s widely panned appearance Tuesday, when he delivered a rambling, unfocused opening statement that enraged his client. Trump has told advisers and friends he did not want to hear from Castor anymore, people familiar with the Trump team’s discussions said. People familiar with the makeup of the legal team said Eric Herschmann, a lawyer and ally of the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who worked in the West Wing in the final year of the administration, was a key figure in putting it together. When Trump asked Herschmann who had hired Castor after his disastrous outing Tuesday, Herschmann, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange, sought to lay the blame on Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff. Herschmann did not respond to an email seeking comment. By the end of the day Friday, van der Veen, a personal injury lawyer from Philadelphia, had emerged as Trump’s primary defender, handling questions from senators, making a series of false and outlandish claims, calling the impeachment a version of “constitutional cancel culture” and declaring that Friday’s proceedings had been his “most miserable” experience in Washington. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the lead House impeachment manager, responded, “I guess we’re sorry, but man, you should have been here on Jan. 6.”

For the defense: Twisted facts and other staples of the Trump playbook

WASHINGTON — Among the harrowing images presented during the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, one video stood out: a police officer sprinting toward a United States senator to warn of the angry mob nearby.

The senator, Mitt Romney, is shown turning on his heels and fleeing for safety.

“I don’t think my family or my wife understood that I was as close as I might have been to real danger,” Romney told reporters Thursday, one day after the video showed Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer already known for his bravery, aiding him. “They were surprised and very, very appreciative of Officer Goodman, in his being there and directing me back to safety.”

For Goodman, it was the second time a video went viral displaying actions widely credited with saving members of Congress. The first, which showed him single-handedly luring a mob away from the entrance of the Senate toward an area with reinforcements, turned him into a hero. The second has added to his lore.

Both have catapulted Goodman — a former Army infantryman who served in one of the most dangerous parts of Iraq during one of the most lethal times of the war — to fame he never sought.

On Wednesday, after watching the videos that showed Goodman directing Romney to safety, Romney could be seen talking with Goodman. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, later walked over and fist-bumped Goodman.

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi singled out Goodman for his courage when she introduced legislation to award the Capitol Police and other law enforcement personnel who responded on Jan. 6 with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor of Congress. On Jan. 20, Goodman was given the task of escorting Vice President Kamala Harris at the inauguration of President Joe Biden.

Veterans who served alongside Goodman in the 101st Airborne Division some 15 years ago in Iraq say that the officer, known then as “Goody,” never craved accolades.

“I saw him come out in front of the vice president and he immediately ducked to the right,” said Mark Belda, who served with Goodman in Iraq. “I thought that’s definitely Goody.”

When he closely watched the first video, Belda said, he saw attributes he recognized in Goodman from Iraq. “He wasn’t prone to anger. As an infantryman, your job is to be violent but it was never his first reaction to use the stick before you use the carrot.”

In Iraq, Goodman was a sergeant and a leader of a 10-man rifle squad who assumed new responsibilities soon after his unit arrived in 2005.

His “Hardrock Company” operated in the Sunni triangle area near Baghdad in central Iraq, where U.S. troops engaged in some of the fiercest combat of the war.

The platoons were required to conduct multiple combat patrols each day to identify explosives before they were detonated, work that often resulted in various injuries, according to Lt. Col. Jeff Farmer, who served alongside Goodman in the company.

“The front squad leader was critical, someone willing to take on this risk and lead his squad day in and day out,” Farmer said.

That leader was Goodman.

“I cannot recall exactly how many dismounted patrols Goody led as a point man in the company, but I can say that it was likely in the hundreds, making him the go-to guy quite frankly when others needed that reassurance that things were going to be OK,” Farmer said.

Goodman was a quiet professional, his superiors said, serious and focused on his missions but also quick with a joke to ease tension in the ranks, they said. His fellow soldiers could count on him to do “what needed to be done,” said John Greis, who served as his platoon sergeant in Iraq. “That’s coolness under pressure.”

Farmer said he was not surprised when he saw the video of Goodman facing the angry mob in the Capitol.

“Calm, cool, and collected under fire, that’s just Goody,” Farmer said. “I trusted my life with him, and still would to this day.”

Goodman is now in uncomfortable territory, according to his fellow veterans. He has not made public comments and did not return multiple requests for interviews, including a handwritten note at his apartment near District Heights, Maryland.

A neighbor said Goodman had not returned to his apartment in the days after the attack at the Capitol, and had advised those in his apartment building not to speak to the news media.

“He doesn’t want to be in the center of the attention. He just wants to duck to the side and you all can do what you want to do,” said Belda, Goodman’s former first sergeant. “Let me do my job and you guys do what you want to do, just leave me alone.”

Charles H. Ramsey, who led police departments in Washington and Philadelphia, said the actions of Goodman and others who responded to the violence on Jan. 6 were even more impressive since “they were put in a terrible position” by senior officials who failed to act on intelligence indicating that violent groups intended to gather in Washington.

“And yet, they responded in a very heroic way. They made the most out of it. Without them this would have been a tragedy beyond belief,” Ramsey said. “If Mitt Romney had continued down that hall and encountered those rioters, or those insurgents, there’s no doubt in my mind he probably would have been taken.”

But he also said the newfound fame could be embarrassing for a police officer who never wished for it.

“He’s getting a lot of the attention, and deservedly so, but he also knows he wasn’t the only person there that day,” Ramsey said. “He is a hero, there is no question about that. But I also think it’s awkward to be in that position.”

When Belda saw the footage of Goodman facing the mob at the Capitol, it reminded him of the feeling he had when he was outnumbered while fighting outside a helicopter that had just been shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the 1993 battle known as Black Hawk Down.

“I know that feeling, when you feel like you’re outnumbered and you feel like you don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Belda said. “But you’ve got to do your job.” Only hours after the attack at the Capitol, Belda reached out to Goodman, but he kept it short. He figured he must have been overwhelmed.

“I just simply sent him a message and said, ‘Dude, I know you don’t want to talk about it,’” Belda said. “But I’m proud of you.” Goodman responded by saying he was grateful for the message.

Belda said he looked forward to telling him soon in person.

WASHINGTON — Among the harrowing images presented during the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, one video stood out: a police officer sprinting toward a United States senator to warn of the angry mob nearby.

WASHINGTON — Among the harrowing images presented during the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, one video stood out: a police officer sprinting toward a United States senator to warn of the angry mob nearby. The senator, Mitt Romney, is shown turning on his heels and fleeing for safety. “I don’t think my family or my wife understood that I was as close as I might have been to real danger,” Romney told reporters Thursday, one day after the video showed Eugene Goodman, a Capitol Police officer already known for his bravery, aiding him. “They were surprised and very, very appreciative of Officer Goodman, in his being there and directing me back to safety.” For Goodman, it was the second time a video went viral displaying actions widely credited with saving members of Congress. The first, which showed him single-handedly luring a mob away from the entrance of the Senate toward an area with reinforcements, turned him into a hero. The second has added to his lore. Both have catapulted Goodman — a former Army infantryman who served in one of the most dangerous parts of Iraq during one of the most lethal times of the war — to fame he never sought. On Wednesday, after watching the videos that showed Goodman directing Romney to safety, Romney could be seen talking with Goodman. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, later walked over and fist-bumped Goodman. On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi singled out Goodman for his courage when she introduced legislation to award the Capitol Police and other law enforcement personnel who responded on Jan. 6 with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor of Congress. On Jan. 20, Goodman was given the task of escorting Vice President Kamala Harris at the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Veterans who served alongside Goodman in the 101st Airborne Division some 15 years ago in Iraq say that the officer, known then as “Goody,” never craved accolades. “I saw him come out in front of the vice president and he immediately ducked to the right,” said Mark Belda, who served with Goodman in Iraq. “I thought that’s definitely Goody.” When he closely watched the first video, Belda said, he saw attributes he recognized in Goodman from Iraq. “He wasn’t prone to anger. As an infantryman, your job is to be violent but it was never his first reaction to use the stick before you use the carrot.” In Iraq, Goodman was a sergeant and a leader of a 10-man rifle squad who assumed new responsibilities soon after his unit arrived in 2005. His “Hardrock Company” operated in the Sunni triangle area near Baghdad in central Iraq, where U.S. troops engaged in some of the fiercest combat of the war. The platoons were required to conduct multiple combat patrols each day to identify explosives before they were detonated, work that often resulted in various injuries, according to Lt. Col. Jeff Farmer, who served alongside Goodman in the company. “The front squad leader was critical, someone willing to take on this risk and lead his squad day in and day out,” Farmer said. That leader was Goodman. “I cannot recall exactly how many dismounted patrols Goody led as a point man in the company, but I can say that it was likely in the hundreds, making him the go-to guy quite frankly when others needed that reassurance that things were going to be OK,” Farmer said. Goodman was a quiet professional, his superiors said, serious and focused on his missions but also quick with a joke to ease tension in the ranks, they said. His fellow soldiers could count on him to do “what needed to be done,” said John Greis, who served as his platoon sergeant in Iraq. “That’s coolness under pressure.” Farmer said he was not surprised when he saw the video of Goodman facing the angry mob in the Capitol. “Calm, cool, and collected under fire, that’s just Goody,” Farmer said. “I trusted my life with him, and still would to this day.” Goodman is now in uncomfortable territory, according to his fellow veterans. He has not made public comments and did not return multiple requests for interviews, including a handwritten note at his apartment near District Heights, Maryland. A neighbor said Goodman had not returned to his apartment in the days after the attack at the Capitol, and had advised those in his apartment building not to speak to the news media. “He doesn’t want to be in the center of the attention. He just wants to duck to the side and you all can do what you want to do,” said Belda, Goodman’s former first sergeant. “Let me do my job and you guys do what you want to do, just leave me alone.” Charles H. Ramsey, who led police departments in Washington and Philadelphia, said the actions of Goodman and others who responded to the violence on Jan. 6 were even more impressive since “they were put in a terrible position” by senior officials who failed to act on intelligence indicating that violent groups intended to gather in Washington. “And yet, they responded in a very heroic way. They made the most out of it. Without them this would have been a tragedy beyond belief,” Ramsey said. “If Mitt Romney had continued down that hall and encountered those rioters, or those insurgents, there’s no doubt in my mind he probably would have been taken.” But he also said the newfound fame could be embarrassing for a police officer who never wished for it. “He’s getting a lot of the attention, and deservedly so, but he also knows he wasn’t the only person there that day,” Ramsey said. “He is a hero, there is no question about that. But I also think it’s awkward to be in that position.” When Belda saw the footage of Goodman facing the mob at the Capitol, it reminded him of the feeling he had when he was outnumbered while fighting outside a helicopter that had just been shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the 1993 battle known as Black Hawk Down. “I know that feeling, when you feel like you’re outnumbered and you feel like you don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Belda said. “But you’ve got to do your job.” Only hours after the attack at the Capitol, Belda reached out to Goodman, but he kept it short. He figured he must have been overwhelmed. “I just simply sent him a message and said, ‘Dude, I know you don’t want to talk about it,’” Belda said. “But I’m proud of you.” Goodman responded by saying he was grateful for the message. Belda said he looked forward to telling him soon in person.

Videos turn Eugene Goodman into a reluctant hero in the Capitol attack

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was sicker with COVID-19 in October than publicly acknowledged at the time, with extremely depressed blood oxygen levels at one point and a lung problem associated with pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, according to four people familiar with his condition.

His prognosis became so worrisome before he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that officials believed he would need to be put on a ventilator, two of the people familiar with his condition said.

The people familiar with Trump’s health said he was found to have lung infiltrates, which occur when the lungs are inflamed and contain substances such as fluid or bacteria. Their presence, especially when a patient is exhibiting other symptoms, can be a sign of an acute case of the disease. They can be easily spotted on an X-ray or scan, when parts of the lungs appear opaque, or white.

Trump’s blood oxygen level alone was cause for extreme concern, dipping into the 80s, according to the people familiar with his evaluation. The disease is considered severe when the blood oxygen level falls to the low 90s.

It has been previously reported that Trump had trouble breathing and a fever on Oct. 2, the day he was taken to the hospital, and the types of treatment he received indicated that his condition was serious. But the new details about his condition and about the effort inside the White House to get him special access to an unapproved drug to fight the virus help to flesh out one of the most dire episodes of Trump’s presidency.

The new revelations about Trump’s struggle with the virus also underscore the limited and sometimes misleading nature of the information disclosed at the time about his condition.

The former president resisted being taken from the White House to Walter Reed, relenting when aides told him that he could walk out on his own, or risk waiting until the U.S. Secret Service was forced to carry him out if he got sicker, two people familiar with the events said.

While Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed, his medical team sought to downplay the severity of the situation, saying that he was on an upswing. At 74 and overweight, he was at risk for severe disease, and was prescribed an aggressive course of treatments. He left the hospital after three days in which he at one point staged a brief ride in his armored sport utility vehicle to wave at the crowd of supporters outside the building.

A person close to the former president denied that he had been seriously ill, echoing comments Trump himself made after he was sick.

There are still unanswered questions about whether Trump was already sick with COVID-19 when he participated in a presidential debate on Sept. 29, just two days before the public announcement that he had been diagnosed with the disease and three days before his deteriorating condition forced him to go to Walter Reed.

Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, repeatedly downplayed concerns about Trump’s condition during his illness. At one briefing, Conley said Trump was receiving X-ray and CT scans. But when asked about whether there was evidence of pneumonia or damage to the tissue, he would only say there were “expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern.”

Conley also told reporters that while Trump’s oxygen level had dropped to 93%, it had never dropped to the “low 80s.”

Trump had trouble breathing at the White House. He was twice given oxygen before being taken to Walter Reed, as Conley acknowledged after it was reported by The New York Times.

While still at the White House, Trump received a drug developed by biotechnology firm Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. The antibody mixture — not widely available at the time — helps people infected with the virus fight it off.

After Trump was hospitalized, he began a regimen for a steroid, dexamethasone, which is usually recommended only for COVID-19 patients who have severe or critical forms of the disease, often those who need mechanical ventilation or supplemental oxygen.

And he received a five-day course of the antiviral drug remdesivir. Medical experts at the time believed that his medication course was a clear signal of significant lung issues related to his lungs.

In news conferences outside the hospital that weekend, Conley offered data that made it appear his patient was recovering quickly. He noted that Trump had fared well on a spirometry test, which measures lung capacity. “He’s maxing it out,” Conley said. “He’s doing great.”

Medical experts say a spirometry test is virtually meaningless with COVID-19 patients.

When Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, tried to surreptitiously tell reporters that the situation was more dire, Trump erupted in anger, according to people who spoke with him.

On Sunday, Oct. 4, Conley acknowledged that he had given a rosy version of Trump’s condition.

“I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, his course of illness has had,” he said. “I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction, and in doing so, you know, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true.”

Trump’s medical team said that on that Friday, he had a “high fever” and that his oxygen level dropped, requiring him to be administered oxygen. Trump’s oxygen level dropped again on Saturday.

Trump appeared to still be struggling with the disease when he returned to the White House, where he stationed himself on a balcony in a choreographed scene, tearing his mask off and saluting his helicopter. Doctors at the time noted how Trump used his neck muscles to help him breathe in those moments, a classic sign that someone’s lungs are not taking in enough oxygen.

On the night of his diagnosis, Oct. 1, White House officials scrambled to get the Regeneron antibody drug — not at that point authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment — to Trump.

A top lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office, Patrick Philbin, called Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner at the time, to discuss how the agency could approve the drug’s use for two senior administration officials he did not want to identify, according to one person who heard about the call.

Philbin was exploring how the president could quickly get access to the drug through normal FDA procedures. Regeneron had already signed off on the use of the doses, Philbin told Hahn.

Hahn and other FDA officials, including Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, the top federal drug regulator, worked to clear the drug through a standard process known as an emergency investigational new drug application, often used for very ill patients who agree to take an experimental drug still being tested in clinical trials. The agency reviews the medical histories of those patients to identify whether there might be severe risks to take a treatment.

Regeneron shipped a package of doses that included extras, “in case of any administration issues,” a company spokeswoman said.

The extras were never returned. Conley at one point told associates they had been sitting in a refrigerator in the White House’s medical office.

Only in the days following the application’s approval did White House officials acknowledge that the doses were for Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, who also tested positive for COVID-19 but turned down the drug, which is infused intravenously for about an hour. The person close to the former president also denied that Melania Trump had turned down the drug.

Around that time, as other people close to Donald Trump started getting sick, his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, offered to facilitate getting the Regeneron treatment for them, two people with knowledge of the discussions said. An aide to Kushner disputed that he had made such an offer at that time.

In the weeks after his hospitalization, Trump was convinced that the Regeneron treatment had saved his life, telling aides, “I’m proof it works.”

That line became a running joke among top health officials, who would ask each other whether anyone was going to break it to Trump that he was in fact a failed clinical trial result for Regeneron, since the aim is to prevent people from being hospitalized after receiving it, one former senior administration official said.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was sicker with COVID-19 in October than publicly acknowledged at the time, with extremely depressed blood oxygen levels at one point and a lung problem associated with pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, according to four people familiar with his condition.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was sicker with COVID-19 in October than publicly acknowledged at the time, with extremely depressed blood oxygen levels at one point and a lung problem associated with pneumonia caused by the coronavirus, according to four people familiar with his condition. His prognosis became so worrisome before he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center that officials believed he would need to be put on a ventilator, two of the people familiar with his condition said. The people familiar with Trump’s health said he was found to have lung infiltrates, which occur when the lungs are inflamed and contain substances such as fluid or bacteria. Their presence, especially when a patient is exhibiting other symptoms, can be a sign of an acute case of the disease. They can be easily spotted on an X-ray or scan, when parts of the lungs appear opaque, or white. Trump’s blood oxygen level alone was cause for extreme concern, dipping into the 80s, according to the people familiar with his evaluation. The disease is considered severe when the blood oxygen level falls to the low 90s. It has been previously reported that Trump had trouble breathing and a fever on Oct. 2, the day he was taken to the hospital, and the types of treatment he received indicated that his condition was serious. But the new details about his condition and about the effort inside the White House to get him special access to an unapproved drug to fight the virus help to flesh out one of the most dire episodes of Trump’s presidency. The new revelations about Trump’s struggle with the virus also underscore the limited and sometimes misleading nature of the information disclosed at the time about his condition. The former president resisted being taken from the White House to Walter Reed, relenting when aides told him that he could walk out on his own, or risk waiting until the U.S. Secret Service was forced to carry him out if he got sicker, two people familiar with the events said. While Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed, his medical team sought to downplay the severity of the situation, saying that he was on an upswing. At 74 and overweight, he was at risk for severe disease, and was prescribed an aggressive course of treatments. He left the hospital after three days in which he at one point staged a brief ride in his armored sport utility vehicle to wave at the crowd of supporters outside the building. A person close to the former president denied that he had been seriously ill, echoing comments Trump himself made after he was sick. There are still unanswered questions about whether Trump was already sick with COVID-19 when he participated in a presidential debate on Sept. 29, just two days before the public announcement that he had been diagnosed with the disease and three days before his deteriorating condition forced him to go to Walter Reed. Trump’s physician, Dr. Sean Conley, repeatedly downplayed concerns about Trump’s condition during his illness. At one briefing, Conley said Trump was receiving X-ray and CT scans. But when asked about whether there was evidence of pneumonia or damage to the tissue, he would only say there were “expected findings, but nothing of any major clinical concern.” Conley also told reporters that while Trump’s oxygen level had dropped to 93%, it had never dropped to the “low 80s.” Trump had trouble breathing at the White House. He was twice given oxygen before being taken to Walter Reed, as Conley acknowledged after it was reported by The New York Times. While still at the White House, Trump received a drug developed by biotechnology firm Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. The antibody mixture — not widely available at the time — helps people infected with the virus fight it off. After Trump was hospitalized, he began a regimen for a steroid, dexamethasone, which is usually recommended only for COVID-19 patients who have severe or critical forms of the disease, often those who need mechanical ventilation or supplemental oxygen. And he received a five-day course of the antiviral drug remdesivir. Medical experts at the time believed that his medication course was a clear signal of significant lung issues related to his lungs. In news conferences outside the hospital that weekend, Conley offered data that made it appear his patient was recovering quickly. He noted that Trump had fared well on a spirometry test, which measures lung capacity. “He’s maxing it out,” Conley said. “He’s doing great.” Medical experts say a spirometry test is virtually meaningless with COVID-19 patients. When Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, tried to surreptitiously tell reporters that the situation was more dire, Trump erupted in anger, according to people who spoke with him. On Sunday, Oct. 4, Conley acknowledged that he had given a rosy version of Trump’s condition. “I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, his course of illness has had,” he said. “I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction, and in doing so, you know, it came off that we were trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true.” Trump’s medical team said that on that Friday, he had a “high fever” and that his oxygen level dropped, requiring him to be administered oxygen. Trump’s oxygen level dropped again on Saturday. Trump appeared to still be struggling with the disease when he returned to the White House, where he stationed himself on a balcony in a choreographed scene, tearing his mask off and saluting his helicopter. Doctors at the time noted how Trump used his neck muscles to help him breathe in those moments, a classic sign that someone’s lungs are not taking in enough oxygen. On the night of his diagnosis, Oct. 1, White House officials scrambled to get the Regeneron antibody drug — not at that point authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for treatment — to Trump. A top lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office, Patrick Philbin, called Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner at the time, to discuss how the agency could approve the drug’s use for two senior administration officials he did not want to identify, according to one person who heard about the call. Philbin was exploring how the president could quickly get access to the drug through normal FDA procedures. Regeneron had already signed off on the use of the doses, Philbin told Hahn. Hahn and other FDA officials, including Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, the top federal drug regulator, worked to clear the drug through a standard process known as an emergency investigational new drug application, often used for very ill patients who agree to take an experimental drug still being tested in clinical trials. The agency reviews the medical histories of those patients to identify whether there might be severe risks to take a treatment. Regeneron shipped a package of doses that included extras, “in case of any administration issues,” a company spokeswoman said. The extras were never returned. Conley at one point told associates they had been sitting in a refrigerator in the White House’s medical office. Only in the days following the application’s approval did White House officials acknowledge that the doses were for Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, who also tested positive for COVID-19 but turned down the drug, which is infused intravenously for about an hour. The person close to the former president also denied that Melania Trump had turned down the drug. Around that time, as other people close to Donald Trump started getting sick, his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, offered to facilitate getting the Regeneron treatment for them, two people with knowledge of the discussions said. An aide to Kushner disputed that he had made such an offer at that time. In the weeks after his hospitalization, Trump was convinced that the Regeneron treatment had saved his life, telling aides, “I’m proof it works.” That line became a running joke among top health officials, who would ask each other whether anyone was going to break it to Trump that he was in fact a failed clinical trial result for Regeneron, since the aim is to prevent people from being hospitalized after receiving it, one former senior administration official said.

Trump was sicker than acknowledged with Covid-19

Calling Donald Trump a "clear and present danger," a group of scholars and civil rights advocates on Friday urged Facebook to permanently ban the former US president from the platform.

The group, which includes prominent longtime critics of the social media company, called on Facebook's oversight board to remove Trump from the omnipresent platform after the ex-president's account was frozen in the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Facebook's oversight board has the final say on what is removed or allowed to remain on the world's biggest social network, but the group warned of the dangers of allowing Trump to return.

"Overturning the Trump ban is an invitation to violence, hate and disinformation that will cost lives and undermine democracy," the group said in a letter to the board. "Don't strike the match."

They described Trump as a serial abuser of social media rules who poses a danger "to democracy and human life."

Rival social media giant Twitter banned Trump after January 6 and on Wednesday announced the former president will not be permitted back on the network he used constantly, even if he runs for office again.

"Our policies are designed to ensure that people are not inciting violence," Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal said on CNBC.

Conservatives on Capitol Hill and beyond say the moves by Facebook and Twitter to "deplatform" Trump demonstrate political bias and inhibit free speech.

In the letter to Facebook's board, the group also lambasts the social media company for employing the board as a "fig leaf" to evade responsibility for tough decisions.

"More than ever, this demonstrates why we need independent, democratically accountable oversight," the group said.

They also called for "laws that change financial incentives for big tech, heavy regulation and a reckoning with the algorithms that are laying waste to democratic society."

Signers of the letter include Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change; Anti-Defamation League head Jonathan Greenblatt; and Harvard professor Lawrence Tribe.

Facebook and its Instagram platform suspended Trump after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, an attack on the seat of democracy that led to Trump's second impeachment by lawmakers.

Members of Facebook's oversight board come from various countries and include jurists, human rights activists, journalists, a Nobel peace laureate and a former Danish prime minister.

Calling Donald Trump a "clear and present danger," a group of scholars and civil rights advocates on Friday urged Facebook to permanently ban the former US president from the platform.

Calling Donald Trump a "clear and present danger," a group of scholars and civil rights advocates on Friday urged Facebook to permanently ban the former US president from the platform. The group, which includes prominent longtime critics of the social media company, called on Facebook's oversight board to remove Trump from the omnipresent platform after the ex-president's account was frozen in the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Facebook's oversight board has the final say on what is removed or allowed to remain on the world's biggest social network, but the group warned of the dangers of allowing Trump to return. "Overturning the Trump ban is an invitation to violence, hate and disinformation that will cost lives and undermine democracy," the group said in a letter to the board. "Don't strike the match." They described Trump as a serial abuser of social media rules who poses a danger "to democracy and human life." Rival social media giant Twitter banned Trump after January 6 and on Wednesday announced the former president will not be permitted back on the network he used constantly, even if he runs for office again. "Our policies are designed to ensure that people are not inciting violence," Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal said on CNBC. Conservatives on Capitol Hill and beyond say the moves by Facebook and Twitter to "deplatform" Trump demonstrate political bias and inhibit free speech. In the letter to Facebook's board, the group also lambasts the social media company for employing the board as a "fig leaf" to evade responsibility for tough decisions. "More than ever, this demonstrates why we need independent, democratically accountable oversight," the group said. They also called for "laws that change financial incentives for big tech, heavy regulation and a reckoning with the algorithms that are laying waste to democratic society." Signers of the letter include Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change; Anti-Defamation League head Jonathan Greenblatt; and Harvard professor Lawrence Tribe. Facebook and its Instagram platform suspended Trump after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, an attack on the seat of democracy that led to Trump's second impeachment by lawmakers. Members of Facebook's oversight board come from various countries and include jurists, human rights activists, journalists, a Nobel peace laureate and a former Danish prime minister.

Trump critics call for permanent Facebook ban of ex-president

A day after presenting video evidence of the extent of the terror on the day US Capitol was attacked, US House prosecutors on Thursday urged the Senate to convict former president Donald Trump for inciting the deadly January 6 assault. Meanwhile, citing coronavirus fears, Myanmar's military chief urged protesters to end their demonstrations across the country against the military coup.&nbsp;

Click on headlines to read more

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/convict-trump-as-he-is-overwhelmingly-guilty-prosecutors-urge-us-senate-over-capitol-attack-363025">Convict Trump as he is overwhelmingly guilty: Prosecutors urge US Senate over Capitol attack</a>

<img src="https://cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/styles/story_page/public/2020/11/05/168611-untitled-design-1.jpg?itok=yJdwZu8T" /> 
US House prosecutors wrapped up their impeachment case against Donald Trump on Thursday urging the Senate to convict the former president for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/myanmar-military-warns-protesters-to-return-to-work-amid-nationwide-demonstrations-363028">Myanmar military warns protesters to return to work amid nationwide demonstrations</a>

<img src="https://cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/styles/story_page/public/2021/02/12/182410-far11.jpg?itok=ph7YiWrU" />

Myanmar's military chief Min Aung Hlaing urged demonstrators to end their protest citing coronavirus fears on Thursday as people from all walks of life continued their protest across the country demanding the restoration of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi's government.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/china-bans-bbc-world-news-for-its-reporting-on-uighur-genocide-covid-19-363002">China bans BBC World News for its reporting on Uighur genocide, Covid-19</a>

<img src="https://cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/styles/story_page/public/2020/01/29/126481-bbc111.jpg?itok=XmgwkLPC" />

The National Radio and Television Administration of China has banned British television channel BBC World News from airing in Chinese mainland.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/melbourne-orders-snap-coronavirus-lockdown-during-australian-open-tennis-363038">Melbourne orders snap coronavirus lockdown during Australian Open tennis</a>

<img src="https://cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/styles/story_page/public/2021/02/12/182414-manas111.jpg?itok=aK7lqnU7" />

Melbourne authorities imposed a snap five-day lockdown in Australia's second-biggest city to contain the outbreak of "hyper-infectious" UK strain on Thursday casting doubt on the fate of the Australian Open grand slam tennis tournament which began this week.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/british-government-reiterates-farmers-protests-indias-internal-matter-363034">British government reiterates farmers' protests India's 'internal matter'</a>

<img src="https://cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/styles/story_page/public/2019/12/13/119806-cxjwhgc8.jpg?itok=rMLscrEj" /> 
The United Kingdom government in the House of Commons said that farmers protest is India's internal matter.

Watch |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-wuhan-virus-origins-probe-is-the-who-team-divided-over-the-results-363024">Gravitas: Wuhan virus origins probe: Is the WHO team divided over the results?</a>

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-wuhan-virus-origins-probe-is-the-who-team-divided-over-the-results-363024/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

&nbsp;

A day after presenting video evidence of the extent of the terror on the day US Capitol was attacked, US House prosecutors on Thursday urged the Senate to convict former president Donald Trump for inciting the deadly January 6 assault.

A day after presenting video evidence of the extent of the terror on the day US Capitol was attacked, US House prosecutors on Thursday urged the Senate to convict former president Donald Trump for inciting the deadly January 6 assault. Meanwhile, citing coronavirus fears, Myanmar's military chief urged protesters to end their demonstrations across the country against the military coup. Click on headlines to read more Convict Trump as he is overwhelmingly guilty: Prosecutors urge US Senate over Capitol attack US House prosecutors wrapped up their impeachment case against Donald Trump on Thursday urging the Senate to convict the former president for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Myanmar military warns protesters to return to work amid nationwide demonstrations Myanmar's military chief Min Aung Hlaing urged demonstrators to end their protest citing coronavirus fears on Thursday as people from all walks of life continued their protest across the country demanding the restoration of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi's government. China bans BBC World News for its reporting on Uighur genocide, Covid-19 The National Radio and Television Administration of China has banned British television channel BBC World News from airing in Chinese mainland. Melbourne orders snap coronavirus lockdown during Australian Open tennis Melbourne authorities imposed a snap five-day lockdown in Australia's second-biggest city to contain the outbreak of "hyper-infectious" UK strain on Thursday casting doubt on the fate of the Australian Open grand slam tennis tournament which began this week. British government reiterates farmers' protests India's 'internal matter' The United Kingdom government in the House of Commons said that farmers protest is India's internal matter. Watch | Gravitas: Wuhan virus origins probe: Is the WHO team divided over the results?

Morning news brief: Myanmar protesters warned, Trump impeachment trial, and more

US House prosecutors wrapped up their impeachment case against Donald <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-impeachment-trial-on-thursday-to-focus-on-toll-of-capitol-riots-362931">Trump</a> on Thursday urging the Senate to convict the former president for&nbsp;inciting the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Watch:

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/day-2-of-trumps-impeachment-senators-witness-never-before-seen-footage-of-capitol-attack-362924/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Prosecutors also appealed barring Trump from ever holding office again. It is Trump's second impeachment trial.

"Senators, the evidence is clear. We showed you statements, videos, affidavits that prove President Trump incited an insurrection and that he alone had the power to stop and the fact that he didn't stop it, the fact that he incited a lawless attack and abdicated his duty to defend us from it, the fact that he actually further inflamed the mob, attacking his vice president while assassins were pursuing him (vice-president Mike Pence) in this capital, more than requires conviction and disqualification," &nbsp;Joe Neguse, Democrat from Colorado, impeachment manager, said.

"We humbly, humbly ask you to convict President Trump for the crime for which he is overwhelmingly guilty of, because if you don't, if we pretend this didn't happen or worse, if we let it go unanswered - who's to say it won't happen again?" Neguse added.

House impeachment managers rested their case after two days of arguments that included hours of graphic video from the assault on the Capitol. Trump supporters were seeking to halt certification of Democrat Joe Biden's November 3 election victory.

Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy had joined Senate Democrats and five Republicans this week in a vote to confirm that the impeachment trial was, in fact, constitutional and should proceed.

Cassidy said he will wait to make a judgment after he hears both sides as he has a number of questions for the Trump defence team after the Democrats' presentation.

"You don't make a decision as a juror until you hear both sides, period, end of story and so that's why if you ask me the questions I wish to have addressed, I would like to have those addressed but I don't make a decision until I've heard the other side," Senator Bill Cassidy said.

US President Joe Biden&nbsp;has said that the devastating presentations by Democratic impeachment managers in the trial may have changed some Republicans' minds who until now were opposed to convicting the former president.

"I, like other Americans, watch the news. I didn't watch any of the hearing live because I was going straight through last night till a little after nine. But I watched some this morning. I think the Senate has a very important job to complete and I think, my guess is, some minds may have been changed, I don't know," President Joe Biden said.

Trump's lawyers will begin their defence on Friday.

US House prosecutors wrapped up their impeachment case against Donald Trump on Thursday urging the Senate to convict the former president for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

US House prosecutors wrapped up their impeachment case against Donald Trump on Thursday urging the Senate to convict the former president for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Watch: Prosecutors also appealed barring Trump from ever holding office again. It is Trump's second impeachment trial. "Senators, the evidence is clear. We showed you statements, videos, affidavits that prove President Trump incited an insurrection and that he alone had the power to stop and the fact that he didn't stop it, the fact that he incited a lawless attack and abdicated his duty to defend us from it, the fact that he actually further inflamed the mob, attacking his vice president while assassins were pursuing him (vice-president Mike Pence) in this capital, more than requires conviction and disqualification," Joe Neguse, Democrat from Colorado, impeachment manager, said. "We humbly, humbly ask you to convict President Trump for the crime for which he is overwhelmingly guilty of, because if you don't, if we pretend this didn't happen or worse, if we let it go unanswered - who's to say it won't happen again?" Neguse added. House impeachment managers rested their case after two days of arguments that included hours of graphic video from the assault on the Capitol. Trump supporters were seeking to halt certification of Democrat Joe Biden's November 3 election victory. Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy had joined Senate Democrats and five Republicans this week in a vote to confirm that the impeachment trial was, in fact, constitutional and should proceed. Cassidy said he will wait to make a judgment after he hears both sides as he has a number of questions for the Trump defence team after the Democrats' presentation. "You don't make a decision as a juror until you hear both sides, period, end of story and so that's why if you ask me the questions I wish to have addressed, I would like to have those addressed but I don't make a decision until I've heard the other side," Senator Bill Cassidy said. US President Joe Biden has said that the devastating presentations by Democratic impeachment managers in the trial may have changed some Republicans' minds who until now were opposed to convicting the former president. "I, like other Americans, watch the news. I didn't watch any of the hearing live because I was going straight through last night till a little after nine. But I watched some this morning. I think the Senate has a very important job to complete and I think, my guess is, some minds may have been changed, I don't know," President Joe Biden said. Trump's lawyers will begin their defence on Friday.

Convict Trump as he is overwhelmingly guilty: Prosecutors urge US Senate over Capitol attack

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Former US President Donald Trump will not be permitted to be back on Twitter, even though he again runs for office and victory, the company's chief financial officer said.

Twitter CFO confirms permanent ban against US Former President Donald Trump

United States: Impeachment prosecutors wrap up the case against Donald Trump

Asylum seekers forced to remain in Mexico while their cases are being resolved in the United States will begin to be admitted into the US as of next week, President Joe Biden's administration announced Friday.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Biden instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this month to take action to end the controversial "Remain in Mexico" program put in place by his predecessor Donald Trump.&nbsp;&nbsp;

It saw tens of thousands of non-Mexican asylum seekers -- mostly from Central America -- sent back over the border pending the outcome of their asylum applications, creating a humanitarian crisis in the area, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.&nbsp;

"Beginning on February 19, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will begin phase one of a program to restore safe and orderly processing at the southwest border," the agency announced in a statement.

It said there are approximately 25,000 active cases still. Candidates will be tested first for the coronavirus, a senior DHS official who asked not to be identified told reporters.

At least 70,000 people were returned to Mexico under the agreement from January 2019, when the program began to be implemented, through December 2020, according to the NGO American Immigration Council.

US authorities emphasized that they are working closely with the Mexican government and with international organizations and NGOs at the border.&nbsp;&nbsp;

DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas, who is the first Latino and the first immigrant to head the department, stressed that Washington is committed to "rebuilding a safe, orderly and humane immigration system."&nbsp;&nbsp;

"This latest action is another step in our commitment to reform immigration policies that do not align with our nation's values," Mayorkas said in a statement.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The program was part of Trump's hardline plan to fight illegal immigration, one of the hallmarks of his administration and which included efforts to build a border wall and the policy which separated children from thousands of migrant families.

After Biden took office on January 20, his administration announced that it would reverse the most controversial measures and created a task force to reunite families that remain separated, a policy his administration has termed a "national shame." &nbsp;&nbsp;

On the day Biden was inaugurated, the DHS announced the suspension of new registrations in the "Remain in Mexico" program and asked all those enrolled to stay where they are while waiting to be informed about their cases.&nbsp;

Washington said Friday that those waiting "should not approach the border until instructed to do so."&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

Asylum seekers forced to remain in Mexico while their cases are being resolved in the United States will begin to be admitted into the US as of next week, President Joe Biden's administration announced Friday.

Asylum seekers forced to remain in Mexico while their cases are being resolved in the United States will begin to be admitted into the US as of next week, President Joe Biden's administration announced Friday. Biden instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this month to take action to end the controversial "Remain in Mexico" program put in place by his predecessor Donald Trump. It saw tens of thousands of non-Mexican asylum seekers -- mostly from Central America -- sent back over the border pending the outcome of their asylum applications, creating a humanitarian crisis in the area, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. "Beginning on February 19, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will begin phase one of a program to restore safe and orderly processing at the southwest border," the agency announced in a statement. It said there are approximately 25,000 active cases still. Candidates will be tested first for the coronavirus, a senior DHS official who asked not to be identified told reporters. At least 70,000 people were returned to Mexico under the agreement from January 2019, when the program began to be implemented, through December 2020, according to the NGO American Immigration Council. US authorities emphasized that they are working closely with the Mexican government and with international organizations and NGOs at the border. DHS chief Alejandro Mayorkas, who is the first Latino and the first immigrant to head the department, stressed that Washington is committed to "rebuilding a safe, orderly and humane immigration system." "This latest action is another step in our commitment to reform immigration policies that do not align with our nation's values," Mayorkas said in a statement. The program was part of Trump's hardline plan to fight illegal immigration, one of the hallmarks of his administration and which included efforts to build a border wall and the policy which separated children from thousands of migrant families. After Biden took office on January 20, his administration announced that it would reverse the most controversial measures and created a task force to reunite families that remain separated, a policy his administration has termed a "national shame." On the day Biden was inaugurated, the DHS announced the suspension of new registrations in the "Remain in Mexico" program and asked all those enrolled to stay where they are while waiting to be informed about their cases. Washington said Friday that those waiting "should not approach the border until instructed to do so."

Biden begins dismantling Trump's 'Remain in Mexico' asylum policy

Donald Trump's impeachment trial will continue on Friday with defence lawyers making their case on Friday why the former president is not guilty of inciting last month's deadly riot at the US Capitol.

The Senate is, meanwhile, racing toward a final vote in his impeachment trial as soon as Saturday.

The defence team is expected to take "three to four hours" on Friday to lay out its arguments against convicting Trump for inciting the January 6 riot, which sent lawmakers scrambling for safety and resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer.

Democratic prosecutors on Thursday wrapped up two days of arguments for Trump's conviction, saying the Republican knew what would happen when he exhorted supporters to march on the Capitol and that he should be held accountable. Congress had gathered that very day to certify Democrat Joe Biden's election win.

In their arguments, the Democratic prosecutors provided numerous examples of Trump's actions prior to the rampage to illustrate what he intended when he told supporters to go to the Capitol and "fight like hell" as lawmakers convened for the election certification.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-impeachment-trial-on-thursday-to-focus-on-toll-of-capitol-riots-362931">Also read |&nbsp;Trump impeachment trial on Thursday to focus on toll of Capitol riots</a>

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives charged Trump on January 13 with inciting the insurrection, but Democrats are unlikely to gain a Senate conviction and bar Trump from running for office again.

Conviction requires a two-thirds majority in the 100-member Senate, which means at least 17 Republicans would have to defy Trump despite his continued popularity among Republican voters.

Trump falsely claimed his November 3 election loss was the result of widespread fraud.

Trump is the first US president to be impeached twice and the first to face trial after leaving office. His first impeachment trial, which stemmed from his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden, ended in an acquittal a year ago in what was then a Republican-controlled Senate.

Senators on Wednesday were shown searing security footage the pro-Trump mob stalking the Capitol hallways chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" and searching for Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On Thursday, they have planned to illustrate the "terrible toll" of the riot and Trump's "role in assembling, inciting and inflaming the insurrectionists," a House aide said.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/convict-trump-as-he-is-overwhelmingly-guilty-prosecutors-urge-us-senate-over-capitol-attack-363025">Also read |&nbsp;Convict Trump as he is overwhelmingly guilty: Prosecutors urge US Senate over Capitol attack</a>

House managers said Trump had planted the seeds for the riot by encouraging violence and making false claims the election was stolen long before January 6. They also said he did little to stop the violence as it spiralled out of control, despite pleas from many Republicans to ask his supporters to stop.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted largely along party lines to move ahead with the impeachment trial even though Trump's term ended on January 20. Six of 50 Republican senators broke with their caucus to side with Democrats.

(with inputs from agencies)

Donald Trump's impeachment trial will continue on Friday with defence lawyers making their case on Friday why the former president is not guilty of inciting last month's deadly riot at the US Capitol.

Donald Trump's impeachment trial will continue on Friday with defence lawyers making their case on Friday why the former president is not guilty of inciting last month's deadly riot at the US Capitol. The Senate is, meanwhile, racing toward a final vote in his impeachment trial as soon as Saturday. The defence team is expected to take "three to four hours" on Friday to lay out its arguments against convicting Trump for inciting the January 6 riot, which sent lawmakers scrambling for safety and resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer. Democratic prosecutors on Thursday wrapped up two days of arguments for Trump's conviction, saying the Republican knew what would happen when he exhorted supporters to march on the Capitol and that he should be held accountable. Congress had gathered that very day to certify Democrat Joe Biden's election win. In their arguments, the Democratic prosecutors provided numerous examples of Trump's actions prior to the rampage to illustrate what he intended when he told supporters to go to the Capitol and "fight like hell" as lawmakers convened for the election certification. Also read | Trump impeachment trial on Thursday to focus on toll of Capitol riots The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives charged Trump on January 13 with inciting the insurrection, but Democrats are unlikely to gain a Senate conviction and bar Trump from running for office again. Conviction requires a two-thirds majority in the 100-member Senate, which means at least 17 Republicans would have to defy Trump despite his continued popularity among Republican voters. Trump falsely claimed his November 3 election loss was the result of widespread fraud. Trump is the first US president to be impeached twice and the first to face trial after leaving office. His first impeachment trial, which stemmed from his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden, ended in an acquittal a year ago in what was then a Republican-controlled Senate. Senators on Wednesday were shown searing security footage the pro-Trump mob stalking the Capitol hallways chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" and searching for Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On Thursday, they have planned to illustrate the "terrible toll" of the riot and Trump's "role in assembling, inciting and inflaming the insurrectionists," a House aide said. Also read | Convict Trump as he is overwhelmingly guilty: Prosecutors urge US Senate over Capitol attack House managers said Trump had planted the seeds for the riot by encouraging violence and making false claims the election was stolen long before January 6. They also said he did little to stop the violence as it spiralled out of control, despite pleas from many Republicans to ask his supporters to stop. On Tuesday, the Senate voted largely along party lines to move ahead with the impeachment trial even though Trump's term ended on January 20. Six of 50 Republican senators broke with their caucus to side with Democrats. (with inputs from agencies)

Trump's defence to make the case for his acquittal on inciting Capitol riot

The impeachment trial of former US President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump </a>on Wednesday was focussed around chilling footage of lawmakers running for their lives as rioters rampaged through the halls of the Congress.&nbsp;

Hours of video footage from security cameras, police bodycams was shown of the day when the Congress was to certify <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden's </a>election victory.&nbsp;

Watch |&nbsp;

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/us-in-senate-democrats-show-unseen-videos-of-attack-on-the-capitol-hill-362757/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

The mob was seen violently searching for then-Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/twitter-trump-ban-permanent-no-matter-if-he-runs-for-president-again-362782">Twitter: Trump ban permanent, no matter if he runs for president again</a>

Pence, who was in the Capitol to preside over the certification of Biden's win, was also seen in the video being hurried down to safety by the security personnel, along with his family.&nbsp;

Chants of "hang Mike Pence" can also be heard in the footage.&nbsp;

Top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer is also seen narrowly avoiding the pro-Trump mob.&nbsp;

Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who has often opposed Trump, is being taken by an officer to safety moments before an angry group of rioters entered.&nbsp;

In another segment, rioters were seen vandalising the office of Pelosi and shouting, "Nancy, where are you Nancy?".&nbsp;

"We know from the rioters themselves that if they had found Speaker Pelosi, they would have killed her," impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett, a House delegate from the US Virgin Islands said.&nbsp;

"The vice president, the speaker of the house -- the first and second in line to the presidency -- were... put in danger because president Trump put his own desires, his own need for power, over his duty to the constitution and our democratic process," he added.&nbsp;

Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin said Trump "surrendered" his role as the commander-in-chief and became the "inciter-in-chief of a dangerous insurrection".

 
&nbsp;

The impeachment trial of former US President Donald Trump on Wednesday was focussed around chilling footage of lawmakers running for their lives as rioters rampaged through the halls of the Congress.

The impeachment trial of former US President Donald Trump on Wednesday was focussed around chilling footage of lawmakers running for their lives as rioters rampaged through the halls of the Congress. Hours of video footage from security cameras, police bodycams was shown of the day when the Congress was to certify Joe Biden's election victory. Watch | The mob was seen violently searching for then-Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Also read | Twitter: Trump ban permanent, no matter if he runs for president again Pence, who was in the Capitol to preside over the certification of Biden's win, was also seen in the video being hurried down to safety by the security personnel, along with his family. Chants of "hang Mike Pence" can also be heard in the footage. Top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer is also seen narrowly avoiding the pro-Trump mob. Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who has often opposed Trump, is being taken by an officer to safety moments before an angry group of rioters entered. In another segment, rioters were seen vandalising the office of Pelosi and shouting, "Nancy, where are you Nancy?". "We know from the rioters themselves that if they had found Speaker Pelosi, they would have killed her," impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett, a House delegate from the US Virgin Islands said. "The vice president, the speaker of the house -- the first and second in line to the presidency -- were... put in danger because president Trump put his own desires, his own need for power, over his duty to the constitution and our democratic process," he added. Lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin said Trump "surrendered" his role as the commander-in-chief and became the "inciter-in-chief of a dangerous insurrection".

Trump impeachment trial: Disturbing footage of Capitol Hill violence shown

In the final months of the Trump administration, senior Justice Department officials repeatedly sought to block federal prosecutors in Manhattan from taking a crucial step in their investigation into Rudy Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, delaying a search warrant for some of Giuliani’s electronic records, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The actions by political appointees at the Justice Department in Washington effectively slowed the investigation as it was gaining momentum last year.

In the final months of 2020, the prosecutors were still delving into whether Giuliani had illegally lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs who had helped him look for dirt in 2019 on Joe Biden, then a leading Democratic candidate, the people said.

Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer, Robert J. Costello, declined Wednesday to comment “on media speculation.”

Unflinchingly loyal to former President Donald Trump, Giuliani has been a central figure in both of the former president’s impeachments, first working on Trump’s behalf in Ukraine and then spearheading a drive to overturn the election results that culminated in the Jan. 6 rally shortly before Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol.

Last summer, prosecutors and FBI agents in Manhattan were preparing to seek the search warrant for Giuliani’s records related to his efforts in Ukraine, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

But first, the investigators in Manhattan had to notify Justice Department officials in Washington, who must be consulted about search warrants involving lawyers because of concerns that prosecutors might inadvertently obtain confidential communications with clients. The warrant involving Giuliani was particularly sensitive because of his most prominent client — Trump.

While career Justice Department officials in Washington largely supported the search warrant, senior officials raised concerns that the warrant would be issued too close to the election, the people with knowledge of the matter said.

In the 60 days before an election, the Justice Department generally tries to avoid taking aggressive investigative actions that could affect the outcome of the vote if the actions were to become public.

The Manhattan prosecutors noted to officials in Washington that they initially raised the idea in the summer, before the 60-day cutoff, the people said. And after the election, the prosecutors tried again.

But even then, political appointees in Trump’s Justice Department, including officials in the deputy attorney general’s office at the time, did not approve, noting Trump was still contesting the election results in several states — a legal effort being led by Giuliani, the people said.

The opposition rankled both the Manhattan prosecutors and some career officials in Washington, who questioned whether senior officials were treating all politically sensitive investigations equally after the election. While Manhattan prosecutors still faced opposition to examining Giuliani’s records, federal prosecutors in Delaware were allowed to issue subpoenas for a tax investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

And while the political appointees were skeptical that there was enough evidence to charge Giuliani, the career officials involved felt there was sufficient reason to believe that the search would turn up evidence of a crime, the legal standard to obtain a warrant.

Ultimately, senior officials in Washington proposed delaying a decision on the subpoena until the Biden administration took over. It is unclear whether the prosecutors have obtained a warrant since Biden was sworn in.

The episode was not the only time Trump’s Justice Department had tried to intervene in a politically sensitive investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, one of the most independent prosecutor’s offices in the country. In June, Trump fired the head of the office, Geoffrey S. Berman, who oversaw a number of investigations into Trump’s allies, including Stephen Bannon.

CNN first reported Wednesday that the potential search warrant was met with resistance from Justice Department officials in Washington who questioned the strength of the evidence against Giuliani. In December, NBC News reported that the Manhattan prosecutors had discussed making a legal request for Giuliani’s electronic communications.

The investigation into Giuliani has centered on his dealings with the Ukrainian officials and oligarchs who claimed to have damaging information about Biden’s son, Hunter, who was on the board of an Ukrainian energy company, the people said.

As part of that focus, federal prosecutors in Manhattan scrutinized Giuliani’s ties to Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who is under indictment in the United States, according to documents and people with knowledge of the matter.

Hoping to avoid extradition to the United States, Firtash hired two lawyers close to Giuliani to argue his case at the highest levels of the Justice Department, while Giuliani sought Firtash’s help in gathering negative information on the Bidens, these people said.

It is unclear whether the investigation will result in any charges against Giuliani, the onetime mayor of New York City and former U.S. attorney in charge of the same office that is now examining his conduct.

Although Giuliani has not been accused of wrongdoing, he remains vulnerable to federal scrutiny because Trump left office last month without granting him a pardon, despite months of speculation that Giuliani might receive preemptive clemency.

Before Trump issued a wave of pardons on his last day in office, Giuliani said on his radio show that he did not need a pardon. “I don’t commit crimes,” he said.

In the final weeks of the Trump administration, Giuliani discussed with associates whether he should seek a pardon before ultimately opting not to do so, two people with direct knowledge of the discussions said.

The White House Counsel’s Office had cautioned against preemptively pardoning Giuliani, one of the people said, because doing so might raise questions about whether he needed clemency for his involvement in the Jan. 6 rally, the focus of Trump’s current impeachment trial. It is unclear whether the federal prosecutors in Washington investigating the riot are also examining Giuliani’s speech at the rally.

In Manhattan, the federal investigation into Giuliani grew out of a case against two Soviet-born men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who aided his mission in Ukraine.

Even before his work for Trump, Giuliani had business in Ukraine, including a 2017 contract to help the town of Kharkiv improve its emergency services and bolster its image as a destination for investment. The deal was arranged by Pavel Fuks, a wealthy Ukrainian-Russian developer who said that Giuliani was hired to lobby for the town, a claim that Giuliani denies.

The Manhattan prosecutors have examined Giuliani’s dealings with Fuks, the people briefed on the matter said.

The Manhattan prosecutors also interviewed at least one witness who testified before Congress during Trump’s impeachment proceedings as part of the examination of Giuliani’s potential business dealings in Ukraine and his role in pressing the Trump administration to oust the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv.

While pressuring Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rivals, Giuliani became fixated on removing the ambassador, whom he saw as an obstacle to those efforts. At the urging of Giuliani and other Republicans, Trump ultimately removed the ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch, a decision that was at the heart of the first impeachment trial.

Giuliani has said he acted as Trump’s lawyer, but the federal prosecutors in Manhattan have explored whether he was also working covertly for Ukrainian officials or oligarchs who wanted the ambassador gone for their own reasons, according to people briefed on the matter.

Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, it is a federal crime to try to influence or lobby the U.S. government at the request or direction of a foreign official without disclosing it to the Justice Department.

Yuriy Lutsenko, one of the officials who pressed Giuliani and his associates to fight for the ambassador’s removal, aided their Ukrainian dirt-digging mission. And at the same time, Giuliani pursued hundreds of thousands of dollars in business from Lutsenko, a potential deal that drew the scrutiny of the prosecutors and the FBI. Giuliani has said he turned down the deal.

In the final months of the Trump administration, senior Justice Department officials repeatedly sought to block federal prosecutors in Manhattan from taking a crucial step in their investigation into Rudy Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, delaying a search warrant for some of Giuliani’s electronic records, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

In the final months of the Trump administration, senior Justice Department officials repeatedly sought to block federal prosecutors in Manhattan from taking a crucial step in their investigation into Rudy Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, delaying a search warrant for some of Giuliani’s electronic records, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The actions by political appointees at the Justice Department in Washington effectively slowed the investigation as it was gaining momentum last year. In the final months of 2020, the prosecutors were still delving into whether Giuliani had illegally lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs who had helped him look for dirt in 2019 on Joe Biden, then a leading Democratic candidate, the people said. Giuliani has denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer, Robert J. Costello, declined Wednesday to comment “on media speculation.” Unflinchingly loyal to former President Donald Trump, Giuliani has been a central figure in both of the former president’s impeachments, first working on Trump’s behalf in Ukraine and then spearheading a drive to overturn the election results that culminated in the Jan. 6 rally shortly before Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol. Last summer, prosecutors and FBI agents in Manhattan were preparing to seek the search warrant for Giuliani’s records related to his efforts in Ukraine, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation. But first, the investigators in Manhattan had to notify Justice Department officials in Washington, who must be consulted about search warrants involving lawyers because of concerns that prosecutors might inadvertently obtain confidential communications with clients. The warrant involving Giuliani was particularly sensitive because of his most prominent client — Trump. While career Justice Department officials in Washington largely supported the search warrant, senior officials raised concerns that the warrant would be issued too close to the election, the people with knowledge of the matter said. In the 60 days before an election, the Justice Department generally tries to avoid taking aggressive investigative actions that could affect the outcome of the vote if the actions were to become public. The Manhattan prosecutors noted to officials in Washington that they initially raised the idea in the summer, before the 60-day cutoff, the people said. And after the election, the prosecutors tried again. But even then, political appointees in Trump’s Justice Department, including officials in the deputy attorney general’s office at the time, did not approve, noting Trump was still contesting the election results in several states — a legal effort being led by Giuliani, the people said. The opposition rankled both the Manhattan prosecutors and some career officials in Washington, who questioned whether senior officials were treating all politically sensitive investigations equally after the election. While Manhattan prosecutors still faced opposition to examining Giuliani’s records, federal prosecutors in Delaware were allowed to issue subpoenas for a tax investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. And while the political appointees were skeptical that there was enough evidence to charge Giuliani, the career officials involved felt there was sufficient reason to believe that the search would turn up evidence of a crime, the legal standard to obtain a warrant. Ultimately, senior officials in Washington proposed delaying a decision on the subpoena until the Biden administration took over. It is unclear whether the prosecutors have obtained a warrant since Biden was sworn in. The episode was not the only time Trump’s Justice Department had tried to intervene in a politically sensitive investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, one of the most independent prosecutor’s offices in the country. In June, Trump fired the head of the office, Geoffrey S. Berman, who oversaw a number of investigations into Trump’s allies, including Stephen Bannon. CNN first reported Wednesday that the potential search warrant was met with resistance from Justice Department officials in Washington who questioned the strength of the evidence against Giuliani. In December, NBC News reported that the Manhattan prosecutors had discussed making a legal request for Giuliani’s electronic communications. The investigation into Giuliani has centered on his dealings with the Ukrainian officials and oligarchs who claimed to have damaging information about Biden’s son, Hunter, who was on the board of an Ukrainian energy company, the people said. As part of that focus, federal prosecutors in Manhattan scrutinized Giuliani’s ties to Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who is under indictment in the United States, according to documents and people with knowledge of the matter. Hoping to avoid extradition to the United States, Firtash hired two lawyers close to Giuliani to argue his case at the highest levels of the Justice Department, while Giuliani sought Firtash’s help in gathering negative information on the Bidens, these people said. It is unclear whether the investigation will result in any charges against Giuliani, the onetime mayor of New York City and former U.S. attorney in charge of the same office that is now examining his conduct. Although Giuliani has not been accused of wrongdoing, he remains vulnerable to federal scrutiny because Trump left office last month without granting him a pardon, despite months of speculation that Giuliani might receive preemptive clemency. Before Trump issued a wave of pardons on his last day in office, Giuliani said on his radio show that he did not need a pardon. “I don’t commit crimes,” he said. In the final weeks of the Trump administration, Giuliani discussed with associates whether he should seek a pardon before ultimately opting not to do so, two people with direct knowledge of the discussions said. The White House Counsel’s Office had cautioned against preemptively pardoning Giuliani, one of the people said, because doing so might raise questions about whether he needed clemency for his involvement in the Jan. 6 rally, the focus of Trump’s current impeachment trial. It is unclear whether the federal prosecutors in Washington investigating the riot are also examining Giuliani’s speech at the rally. In Manhattan, the federal investigation into Giuliani grew out of a case against two Soviet-born men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who aided his mission in Ukraine. Even before his work for Trump, Giuliani had business in Ukraine, including a 2017 contract to help the town of Kharkiv improve its emergency services and bolster its image as a destination for investment. The deal was arranged by Pavel Fuks, a wealthy Ukrainian-Russian developer who said that Giuliani was hired to lobby for the town, a claim that Giuliani denies. The Manhattan prosecutors have examined Giuliani’s dealings with Fuks, the people briefed on the matter said. The Manhattan prosecutors also interviewed at least one witness who testified before Congress during Trump’s impeachment proceedings as part of the examination of Giuliani’s potential business dealings in Ukraine and his role in pressing the Trump administration to oust the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv. While pressuring Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rivals, Giuliani became fixated on removing the ambassador, whom he saw as an obstacle to those efforts. At the urging of Giuliani and other Republicans, Trump ultimately removed the ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch, a decision that was at the heart of the first impeachment trial. Giuliani has said he acted as Trump’s lawyer, but the federal prosecutors in Manhattan have explored whether he was also working covertly for Ukrainian officials or oligarchs who wanted the ambassador gone for their own reasons, according to people briefed on the matter. Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, it is a federal crime to try to influence or lobby the U.S. government at the request or direction of a foreign official without disclosing it to the Justice Department. Yuriy Lutsenko, one of the officials who pressed Giuliani and his associates to fight for the ambassador’s removal, aided their Ukrainian dirt-digging mission. And at the same time, Giuliani pursued hundreds of thousands of dollars in business from Lutsenko, a potential deal that drew the scrutiny of the prosecutors and the FBI. Giuliani has said he turned down the deal.

Trump Justice Department sought to block search of Giuliani records

US President Joe Biden has said his first phone call with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping since taking office lasted two hours.

"Last night, I was in the phone for two straight hours with Xi Jinping," Biden told reporters on Thursday.

This is being seen as an unusually long interaction for a US president with his Chinese counterparts, with whom even face-to-face meetings rarely stretch beyond an hour.

Biden warned afterwards that if the United States doesn't&nbsp;"get moving" on China policy, "they're going to eat our lunch."

The new American president said he challenged Xi on human rights, trade and regional muscle-flexing during the call, which aimed at setting the tone for the US-China relationship.

Beijing has tested US ties since Xi came to power, and under former president Donald Trump found itself on the receiving end of trade tariffs as relations frayed. Biden -- who met Xi during his time as vice president under Barack Obama -- hence, is under pressure&nbsp;to maintain Trump's stance.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/in-first-phone-call-to-president-xi-biden-asserts-importance-of-indo-pacific-xinjiang-human-rights-abuses-362769">Also read |&nbsp;In first phone call to President Xi, Biden asserts importance of Indo-Pacific; Xinjiang human rights abuses</a>

Earlier on Wednesday, the White House said Biden "underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing's coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan," during the call.&nbsp;

The two leaders also spoke about the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and weapons proliferation, the White House added.

"I told him I will work with China when it benefits the American people," Biden tweeted after the call.

China's state broadcaster CCTV said that the two "had an in-depth exchange of views on the bilateral relationship and major international and regional issues", the BBC reported.

Xi also warned Biden that bad relations would be a disaster for both countries, Chinese media reported.

US President Joe Biden has said his first phone call with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping since taking office lasted two hours. "Last night, I was in the phone for two straight hours with Xi Jinping," Biden told reporters on Thursday.

US President Joe Biden has said his first phone call with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping since taking office lasted two hours. "Last night, I was in the phone for two straight hours with Xi Jinping," Biden told reporters on Thursday. This is being seen as an unusually long interaction for a US president with his Chinese counterparts, with whom even face-to-face meetings rarely stretch beyond an hour. Biden warned afterwards that if the United States doesn't "get moving" on China policy, "they're going to eat our lunch." The new American president said he challenged Xi on human rights, trade and regional muscle-flexing during the call, which aimed at setting the tone for the US-China relationship. Beijing has tested US ties since Xi came to power, and under former president Donald Trump found itself on the receiving end of trade tariffs as relations frayed. Biden -- who met Xi during his time as vice president under Barack Obama -- hence, is under pressure to maintain Trump's stance. Also read | In first phone call to President Xi, Biden asserts importance of Indo-Pacific; Xinjiang human rights abuses Earlier on Wednesday, the White House said Biden "underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing's coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan," during the call. The two leaders also spoke about the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and weapons proliferation, the White House added. "I told him I will work with China when it benefits the American people," Biden tweeted after the call. China's state broadcaster CCTV said that the two "had an in-depth exchange of views on the bilateral relationship and major international and regional issues", the BBC reported. Xi also warned Biden that bad relations would be a disaster for both countries, Chinese media reported.

Biden says phone call with China President Xi Jinping lasted two hours

Twitter on Wednesday said that ban on former US President Donald Trump was permanent and it did not matter whether he ran for the post of president again. A senior executive of Twitter stressed that if anyone was removed from platform, Twitter did not allow him to come back. Twitter's Chief Financial Officer Ned Segel said this while he was being interviewed on CNBC.

He was asked whether Donald Trump's Twitter privileges could be restored if he came back to power.

“The way our policies work, when you’re removed from the platform, you’re removed from the platform,” Segal was quoted as saying.

“Whether you’re a commentator, you’re a CFO, or you are a former or current public official. Remember, our policies are designed to make sure that people are not inciting violence, and if anybody does that, we have to remove them from the service and our policies don’t allow people to come back,” he added during his interview on CNBC.

US Senate is holding trial for Donald Trump impeachment. Trump is the only American president to be impeached twice.&nbsp;

A prolific tweeter, Trump faced criticism during his presidency for what was called policy-making on Twitter. His tweets were often at odds with public stance taken by departments of his own administration.

The breaking point came when Trump supporters attacked US Capitol building on January 6. Trump was criticised for not making appeals for calm hours after the violence began. He was soon permanently banned by Twitter, Facebook and many other social media platforms.

Twitter on Wednesday said that ban on former US President Donald Trump was permanent and it did not matter whether he ran for the post of president again. A senior executive of Twitter stressed that if anyone was removed from platform, Twitter did not allow him to come back.

Twitter on Wednesday said that ban on former US President Donald Trump was permanent and it did not matter whether he ran for the post of president again. A senior executive of Twitter stressed that if anyone was removed from platform, Twitter did not allow him to come back. Twitter's Chief Financial Officer Ned Segel said this while he was being interviewed on CNBC. He was asked whether Donald Trump's Twitter privileges could be restored if he came back to power. “The way our policies work, when you’re removed from the platform, you’re removed from the platform,” Segal was quoted as saying. “Whether you’re a commentator, you’re a CFO, or you are a former or current public official. Remember, our policies are designed to make sure that people are not inciting violence, and if anybody does that, we have to remove them from the service and our policies don’t allow people to come back,” he added during his interview on CNBC. US Senate is holding trial for Donald Trump impeachment. Trump is the only American president to be impeached twice. A prolific tweeter, Trump faced criticism during his presidency for what was called policy-making on Twitter. His tweets were often at odds with public stance taken by departments of his own administration. The breaking point came when Trump supporters attacked US Capitol building on January 6. Trump was criticised for not making appeals for calm hours after the violence began. He was soon permanently banned by Twitter, Facebook and many other social media platforms.

Twitter: Trump ban permanent, no matter if he runs for president again

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Donald Trump's impeachment trial on Thursday will focus on whether the former president of the United States should be convicted of inciting the siege at the US Capitol | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-impeachment-trial-on-thursday-to-focus-on-toll-of-capitol-riots-362931">READ MORE</a>

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A day after China said it was pulling back troops from the Line of Actual Control (LAC), Tanks and infantry combat vehicles of India and China started disengaging from both the banks of Pangong lake as part of the disengagement process between the two countries | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/watch-india-china-disengagement-begins-as-tanks-combat-vehicles-move-back-362926">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/ukraine-bans-covid-19-vaccines-from-aggressor-russia-362959">Ukraine bans Covid-19 vaccines from 'aggressor' Russia</a>

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The made-in-India Koo app is set to get rid of its Chinese investor as social media users have started raising questions over the app's Beijing connection | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/india-grown-koo-to-get-rid-of-chinese-connection-app-co-founder-confirms-362903">READ MORE</a>

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Mexico will receive around a million doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine sent from India in the early hours of Sunday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/mexico-to-receive-1-million-doses-of-india-made-covid-vaccine-362890">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/same-sex-relationships-are-now-legal-in-angola-362971">Same-sex relationships are now legal in Angola</a>

A new penal code in Angola has come into force decriminalising same-sex conduct and prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/same-sex-relationships-are-now-legal-in-angola-362971">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/uk-study-finds-new-game-changer-drug-to-fight-obesity-362968">UK study finds new 'game changer' drug to fight obesity</a>

A large-scale international trial in the UK has led to the discovery of a 'game changer' drug for improving the health of people with obesity and could even play a major part in helping reduce the impact of diseases such as COVID-19 | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/uk-study-finds-new-game-changer-drug-to-fight-obesity-362968">READ MORE</a>

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Trump impeachment trial on Thursday to focus on toll of Capitol riots Donald Trump's impeachment trial on Thursday will focus on whether the former president of

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Donald Trump's impeachment trial on Thursday will focus on whether the former president of the United States should be convicted of inciting the siege at the US Capitol.

The House of Representatives has charged Trump, a Republican, with inciting an insurrection by exhorting thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol on January 6, the day Congress gathered to certify Democrat Joe Biden's election win.

The House managers who are prosecuting the case in the US Senate spent much of Wednesday recounting the events that led to the riot and highlighting the threat to former vice-president Mike Pence.

Senators on Wednesday were shown searing security footage the pro-Trump mob stalking the Capitol hallways chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" and searching for Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On Thursday, they have planned to illustrate the "terrible toll" of the riot and Trump's "role in assembling, inciting and inflaming the insurrectionists," a House aide said.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-impeachment-trial-disturbing-footage-of-capitol-hill-violence-shown-362797">Also read |&nbsp;Trump impeachment trial: Disturbing footage of Capitol Hill violence shown</a>

Previously unseen videos showed the view from inside the Capitol as rioters smashed windows and fought with police, coming within 100 feet (30 m) of the room where Pence was sheltering with his family. The mob had set up a gallows outside.

The footage, which also included body-camera views of brutal attacks on Capitol police, showed Pence and lawmakers being hustled to safety steps ahead of an advancing mob. The attack on the Capitol resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer. 
Trump had repeatedly said Pence had the power to stop the certification of the election results, even though he did not.

House managers said Trump had planted the seeds for the riot by encouraging violence and making false claims the election was stolen long before January 6. They also said he did little to stop the violence as it spiraled out of control, despite pleas from many Republicans to ask his supporters to stop.

Democrats face a difficult task in securing a Senate conviction and barring Trump from ever again seeking public office. A two-thirds majority in the Senate must vote to convict, which means at least 17 Republicans would have to defy Trump and his continued popularity among Republican voters.

Trump is the first US president to be impeached twice and the first to face trial after leaving office. His first impeachment trial, which stemmed from his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden, ended in an acquittal a year ago in what was then a Republican-controlled Senate.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted largely along party lines that the impeachment trial could move ahead even though Trump's term ended on January 20. Six of 50 Republican senators broke with their caucus to side with Democrats.

(with inputs from agencies)

Donald Trump's impeachment trial on Thursday will focus on whether the former president of the United States should be convicted of inciting the siege at the US Capitol.

Donald Trump's impeachment trial on Thursday will focus on whether the former president of the United States should be convicted of inciting the siege at the US Capitol. The House of Representatives has charged Trump, a Republican, with inciting an insurrection by exhorting thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol on January 6, the day Congress gathered to certify Democrat Joe Biden's election win. The House managers who are prosecuting the case in the US Senate spent much of Wednesday recounting the events that led to the riot and highlighting the threat to former vice-president Mike Pence. Senators on Wednesday were shown searing security footage the pro-Trump mob stalking the Capitol hallways chanting "Hang Mike Pence!" and searching for Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. On Thursday, they have planned to illustrate the "terrible toll" of the riot and Trump's "role in assembling, inciting and inflaming the insurrectionists," a House aide said. Also read | Trump impeachment trial: Disturbing footage of Capitol Hill violence shown Previously unseen videos showed the view from inside the Capitol as rioters smashed windows and fought with police, coming within 100 feet (30 m) of the room where Pence was sheltering with his family. The mob had set up a gallows outside. The footage, which also included body-camera views of brutal attacks on Capitol police, showed Pence and lawmakers being hustled to safety steps ahead of an advancing mob. The attack on the Capitol resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer. Trump had repeatedly said Pence had the power to stop the certification of the election results, even though he did not. House managers said Trump had planted the seeds for the riot by encouraging violence and making false claims the election was stolen long before January 6. They also said he did little to stop the violence as it spiraled out of control, despite pleas from many Republicans to ask his supporters to stop. Democrats face a difficult task in securing a Senate conviction and barring Trump from ever again seeking public office. A two-thirds majority in the Senate must vote to convict, which means at least 17 Republicans would have to defy Trump and his continued popularity among Republican voters. Trump is the first US president to be impeached twice and the first to face trial after leaving office. His first impeachment trial, which stemmed from his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden, ended in an acquittal a year ago in what was then a Republican-controlled Senate. On Tuesday, the Senate voted largely along party lines that the impeachment trial could move ahead even though Trump's term ended on January 20. Six of 50 Republican senators broke with their caucus to side with Democrats. (with inputs from agencies)

Trump impeachment trial on Thursday to focus on toll of Capitol riots

Did The Simpsons forecast US Capitol riots? More predictions inside!

The second day of the impeachment trial was dominated by presenting harrowing audio and visual evidence. Democrats claimed and alleged that Donald Trump's loyalists were on a mission to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Former-Vice President Mike Pence.

Day 2 of Trump's impeachment: Senators witness never-before-seen footage of Capitol attack

United States: Prosecutors trace Donald Trump's inflammatory rhetoric

The second impeachment trial of former President Donald <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/fast-pace-expected-for-trumps-second-impeachment-trial-362489">Trump </a>began on Tuesday with the US Senate declaring it constitutional with a 56-44 vote.

Watch:

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"On this vote, the yeas are 56, the nays are 44 and pursuant to res. 47, the Senate having voted in the affirmative on the foregoing question, the Senate should proceed with the trial as provided under the provisions of that resolution," Patrick Leahy, presiding Senator, announced.

The first test was about the constitutionality of the trial. It was Trump's lawyers versus Democrat impeachment managers. The vote came after hours of arguments.

Trump's lawyers said the trial was not constitutional because he is out of office, while the Democrats pointed to precedent and the opinions of many legal scholars, including conservatives, who said the trial is valid.

"The section I read [referring to US constitution] 'judgment' - in other words, the bad thing that can happen, the judgment - 'in cases of impeachment' - i.e., what we are doing - 'shall not extend further than removal from office.' What is so hard about that? Which of those words are unclear? 'shall not extend further than removal from office'. President Trump is no longer is in office. The object of the constitution has been achieved. He was removed by the voters," Bruce Castor, Trump's defense attorney said.&nbsp;

Attorney Bruce Castor added that the real reason behind House of Representatives wanting to convict Donald Trump was because they do not wish to see him as a political rival in the future.

Castor added that the storming of the Capitol "should be denounced in the most vigorous terms" and the rioters should be prosecuted. The defense contention reflected that "a small group of criminals" - not Trump - were responsible for the violence.

The impeachment managers managed to pick up one vote from Republicans &nbsp;Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Senator who blamed Trump's lawyer for bad performance.

Two weeks ago he had voted in favour of an effort to dismiss the trial, but on Tuesday he voted with Democrats to move forward, which came across as an unprecedented move.

Cassidy joined Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine and others for dismissing the Trump team's claims.

"I said, I'd be an impartial juror. Anyone listening to those arguments, the house managers were focused, they were organized, they relied upon both precedent, the constitution and legal scholars. They made a compelling argument. President Trump's team were disorganized, they did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand and when they talked about it, they kind of glided over it, almost as if they were embarrassed by their arguments," Senator Bill Cassidy said.

A graphic video showing the former president egging a rally crowd to march to the capitol and “fight like hell” against his re-election defeat and images of the attack on Congress came soon after - all were showcased as the trial opened on Tuesday.

The trial is expected to be fast with each side having upto 16 hours to make their case and final vote on whether to convict or acquit Donald Trump could take place early next week.

The timeline would make it the fastest impeachment trial for a president in American history.

The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump began on Tuesday with the US Senate declaring it constitutional with a 56-44 vote. Watch: "On this vote, the yeas are 56, the nays are 44 and pursuant to res.

The second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump began on Tuesday with the US Senate declaring it constitutional with a 56-44 vote. Watch: "On this vote, the yeas are 56, the nays are 44 and pursuant to res. 47, the Senate having voted in the affirmative on the foregoing question, the Senate should proceed with the trial as provided under the provisions of that resolution," Patrick Leahy, presiding Senator, announced. The first test was about the constitutionality of the trial. It was Trump's lawyers versus Democrat impeachment managers. The vote came after hours of arguments. Trump's lawyers said the trial was not constitutional because he is out of office, while the Democrats pointed to precedent and the opinions of many legal scholars, including conservatives, who said the trial is valid. "The section I read [referring to US constitution] 'judgment' - in other words, the bad thing that can happen, the judgment - 'in cases of impeachment' - i.e., what we are doing - 'shall not extend further than removal from office.' What is so hard about that? Which of those words are unclear? 'shall not extend further than removal from office'. President Trump is no longer is in office. The object of the constitution has been achieved. He was removed by the voters," Bruce Castor, Trump's defense attorney said. Attorney Bruce Castor added that the real reason behind House of Representatives wanting to convict Donald Trump was because they do not wish to see him as a political rival in the future. Castor added that the storming of the Capitol "should be denounced in the most vigorous terms" and the rioters should be prosecuted. The defense contention reflected that "a small group of criminals" - not Trump - were responsible for the violence. The impeachment managers managed to pick up one vote from Republicans Bill Cassidy, Louisiana Senator who blamed Trump's lawyer for bad performance. Two weeks ago he had voted in favour of an effort to dismiss the trial, but on Tuesday he voted with Democrats to move forward, which came across as an unprecedented move. Cassidy joined Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine and others for dismissing the Trump team's claims. "I said, I'd be an impartial juror. Anyone listening to those arguments, the house managers were focused, they were organized, they relied upon both precedent, the constitution and legal scholars. They made a compelling argument. President Trump's team were disorganized, they did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand and when they talked about it, they kind of glided over it, almost as if they were embarrassed by their arguments," Senator Bill Cassidy said. A graphic video showing the former president egging a rally crowd to march to the capitol and “fight like hell” against his re-election defeat and images of the attack on Congress came soon after - all were showcased as the trial opened on Tuesday. The trial is expected to be fast with each side having upto 16 hours to make their case and final vote on whether to convict or acquit Donald Trump could take place early next week. The timeline would make it the fastest impeachment trial for a president in American history.

Senate declares Trump's impeachment constitutional, begins proceedings

The impeachment trial of U.S' Former President Donald Trump has begun. Senate has declared it constitutional on the very first day. By a vote of 56 to 44, the Senate rejected arguments by Trump's attorneys, who asserted that holding an impeachment trial of a former president is unconstitutional.

Trump's Impeachment trial might conclude as early as next week

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