US senators are due to vote later today, Saturday, on whether to convict former President Donald Trump of inciting insurrection.
At the day’s resumption of proceedings, both sides are expected to make their closing arguments, although analysts believe the House managers, who are prosecuting the case against Mr. Trump, will have an insurmountable task in convincing the necessary seventeen Senate Republicans to vote with the Democrats.
On Friday, defence lawyers accused Democrats of wanting to take revenge on Mr. Trump.
The ex-president’s lawyers took roughly three hours to argue their case that the impeachment proceedings were unconstitutional.
They said the case against Mr. Trump was a politically-motivated act of vengeance. Mr. Trump’s comment that his supporters should “fight like hell” was mere political rhetoric, they argued.
On the issue of whether to convict the former president, the 100-member Senate is clearly split on party lines. Before the trial, only a handful of Senate Republicans had indicated that their minds were not yet made up.
But on Friday evening, one of the undecided GOP senators was reportedly seen with a note written before the end of proceedings saying that Democrats had not proved their case.
Mr. Trump, who is already the first US leader to be impeached twice, opted not to show up personally in his own defence. But with his acquittal by the Senate widely expected to happen, the Democrats will not have succeeded in the effort to prevent the former Republican president from ever standing for office again.