Trump impeachment trial live updates: Biden says charge 'not in dispute' in 1st comments on acquittal

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., asked both Trump's defense team and House managers if Trump knew about the rioters and that Vice President Mike Pence was still in the Capitol.

"The tweet and lack of response suggests President Trump did not care if Vice President Pence was endangered or law enforcement was overwhelmed. Does this show that President Trump was tolerant of the intimidation of Vice President Pence?" Cassidy asked.

"Directly, no," Michael van der Veen answered on behalf of Trump. He went on to dispute the facts cited in the question, which claimed that Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., spoke to Trump at 2:15 p.m. and then Trump went on to tweet at 2:24 p.m. that Pence lacked courage, possibly endangering his own vice president if insurrectionists had found him and his family.

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"I have a problem with the facts in the question," van der Veen said.

Cassidy, who joined Democrats and five other Republicans in voting that the trial is constitutional, changing his vote from an earlier motion on the issue, said on Thursday he hoped the defense team can explain the timeline of events and Trump's repeated assertions that the election was stolen.

Cassidy's spokesperson tweeted this afternoon he was "weighing both sets of arguments and is reviewing memos from both points of view as part of his thought process before coming to a conclusion" after a photographer caught Cassidy carrying papers, which read, "The House Managers did not connect the dots to show President Trump knew that the attack on the Capitol was going to be violent and result in the loss of life."

When the House managers turn to answer came, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said, "The council for the president keeps blaming the House for not having the evidence that's within the sole possession fo their client, who we invited to come and testify last week."

"We went a letter on February 4th, I sent it directly to President Trump, inviting him to come and to explain and fill in the gaps of what we know about what happened there, and they sent back the contemptuous response," Raskin continued.

"Rather than yelling at us and screaming about how we didn't have time to get all of the facts about what your client did, bring your client up here and have him testify, under oath, about why he was sending out tweets denouncing the vice president of the United States, while the vice president was being hunted down by a mob that wanted to hang him," he said.

Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands, answered a question from moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., asking would the president have been made aware of the FBI and intelligence information of a possible attack on the Capitol and would he be responsible then for not preparing to protect people for the attack.

She said it's the "responsibility" of the president as commander-in-chief to know "what is happening in the country that he has a duty to protect."

"Additionally, the president would have known -- just like the rest of us, all of the reports that were out there and publicly available," she said, rejecting the idea Trump was ignorant of the events.

"He incited the attacks. The insurgents were following his command as we saw when we read aloud his tweets attacking the vice president," she said. "He may not have commanded the Guard to help them, but it took way too long for his command Guards to help us. This is all connected."

She hammered the managers' point that Trump's incitement was "a pattern and practice from months" of repeated false claims of election fraud.

"All of it in its totality is a dereliction of duty of the president of the United States against the people who elected him -- all of the people of this country," Plaskett said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked the House managers about how a tweet from Trump at 6:01 p.m. on Jan. 6 -- furthering baseless claims about election fraud and saying, "remember this day forever" -- was relevant to Trump's guilt.

House manager Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, responded by saying that tweet was "key."

"So if he was not guilty of inciting this insurrection, if this is not what he wanted, if it wasn't what he desired, by that time, the carnage had been on television for hours -- he saw what was going on, everybody saw what was going on -- if it wasn't what he wanted, why would he have said 'remember this day forever'? Why commemorate a day like that, an attack on the U.S. Capitol, for God’s sake?" Castro said. "Why would you do that, unless you agreed, that it was something to praise, not condemn, something to hold up and commemorate?"

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz -- one a handful of Republican senators seen meeting with Trump's defense team on Thursday and Friday outside of the Senate chamber -- asked both sides a lengthy question which equated Vice President Kamala Harris, president of the Senate, having said she would raise bail money for protesters in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd while in police custody, with the insurrection charge the House has made against Trump.

Lead House impeachment managers Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said he was not familiar with the statement and would let the vice president speak for herself but that it's "completely irrelevant" to the proceeding.

"The president's lawyers are pointing out that we have never had any situation like this before in the history of the United States, and its true," Raskin said. "There has never been a president that has encouraged a violent insurrection against our own government. ... So what we do in this trial will establish a standard going forward for all time."

Raskin also noted how the permit for Trump supporters to march from the Ellipse to the Capitol was not authorized until Trump got involved in planning.

"He synchronized with exactly the time that we would be in joint session and as Rep. Cheney said, he summoned that mob," Raskin said.

Trump attorney Michael van deer Veer blasted Raskin for being unfamiliar with the clip of Harris.

"I don't know why he said he never heard Kamala Harris say about the riots and the people rioting and ruining our businesses and our streets that, 'they are not going to let up and they should not' because we played it three times today," he said. "That's what she said, but it's protected speech. Her speech is protected, also, senator."