Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., answered a pointed question from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on the Brandenburg case -- the landmark for incitement of a riot in a criminal proceeding -- and whether the case prohibits holding public officials accountable through the impeachment process for any incitement of violence.

"They (Trump's defense attorneys) are treating their client like he is a criminal defendant. They are talking about beyond a reasonable doubt," Raskin said, pressing his view that impeachment is the proper course of action, while Trump's defense attorneys have argued, in part, Trump hasn't reached the Brandenburg standard.

"They think we are making a criminal case here. My friends, the former president is not going to spend one hour or one minute in jail, but this is about protecting a Republican articulating and defining the standards of presidential conduct -- and if you want this to be a standard for totally appropriate presidential conduct going forward be my guest," Raskin said. "We are headed for a different kind of country at that point."

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?"

After the Senate decided it will not call any witnesses, lead House manager Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., was the first to speak during closing arguments. He reiterated the prosecution's case, calling for the conviction of Trump.

"It was suggested by defense counsel that Donald Trump's conduct during the attack, as described in Congresswoman Beutler's statement, is somehow not part of the Constitutional offense for which former President Trump has been charged," Raskin began. "I want to reject that falsehood and that fallacy immediately. After he knew that violence was underway at the Capitol, President Trump took actions that further incited the insurgents to be more inflamed and to take even more extreme, selective, and focused action against Vice President Mike Pence."

Raskin went on to use his time to describe Trump's months-long campaign to discredit the 2020 election results by spreading misinformation, which he argued laid the groundwork for deadly events of Jan. 6. He went on to claim that the former president assembled the mob, incited it and then sent it off to the Capitol during his speech. At every point, Trump sided with the insurrectionists rather than the Congress, Raskin said.

Once when the violence began, Raskin declared that Trump ignored the violence and further incited it by aiming the attacks on his own vice president.

"There has never been a greater betrayal by the president of the United States of his office, and of his oath to the Constitution."

Raskin then took a moment to suggest the GOP used "cancel culture" against one of its leaders, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who voted to impeach Trump in the House.

"Liz Cheney is a hero for standing up for the truth, and resisting this retaliatory cancel culture that she was subjected to."

Raskin emphasized his gratitude toward the Capitol Police, and finished his argument by saying convicting Trump is a vote for the "security of our democracy."

"They attacked this building, they disrupted the peaceful transfer of power, they injured and killed people, convinced that they were acting on his instructions, and with his approval, and protection," Raskin finished. "And while that happened, he further incited them, while failing to defend us. If that's not ground for conviction, if that's not a high crime and misdemeanor against the republic in the United States of America then nothing is. President Trump must be convicted for the safety and security of our democracy and our people."