Trump’s defense lawyers rest their case, arguing their client had no connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection other than sending peaceful wishes to his supporters at the Capitol.

Defense lawyer Bruce Castor presented footage of Trump at his rally the day the Capitol was stormed, requesting his followers make their voices heard peacefully and patriotically. Castor argued Democrats manipulated Trump’s words. 

“The managers would have you believe the president’s supporters usually follow his every word but in this case imputed some imaginary meaning to them while ignoring his most clear instructions,” Castor said. 

Throughout their case, Trump’s lawyers showed footage of the evidence the House managers presented next to what they referred to as reality. 

“Mr. Trump did the opposite of advocating for lawless action, the opposite,” Trump’s lawyer Michael van der Veen said. “He expressly advocated for peaceful action at the Save America rally.”

In that same speech, Trump also used the word fight 20 times. 

The defense argued Trump’s words were misunderstood as a result of Democratic House impeachement managers editing the footage they used as evidence. Castor said Trump asked members of Congress to fight, and if they would, they should be primaried while alluding to the fact that no senator is anxious to be challenged. 

“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,” van der Veen said.

Another video produced by Trump’s lawyers showed Democrats including Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Chuck Schumer and others saying the word “fight.” Defense lawyer David Schoen said this highlights the hypocrisy of the Democrats’ argument, many of the videos were clips and had little context. Some of the video footage the defense provided was edited with music in the background.  

Trump’s defense called out House impeachment managers for relying on reported evidence on the day of the insurrection and said rioters were at the Capitol before Trump’s speech allegedly incited the mob. 

Dirk Deam, teaching professor of political science, said most of the defense case sounded similar to that of far-right rhetoric media, such as TalkRadio and the entertainment side of Fox News.  

Following their case, the Senate had the opportunity to ask both the House impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team questions about their cases. 

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Me., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Al., asked a for greater detail about the day of the insurrection. 

Collins and Murkowski asked the defense: Exactly when did President Trump learn of the Capitol’s breach, and what specific actions did he take to bring the rioting to an end? And when did he take them? Please be as detailed as possible.

Van der Veen deferred answering the specifics of the question, and instead, Trump “certainly” was informed about the breach some time before his 2:38 p.m. tweet. From 12:53 to 1:03 p.m., the first barriers at the Capitol were breached.

Van der Veen then said because the rush of impeachment, the House managers did zero investigation into it. 

“The American people deserve a lot better than coming in here with no evidence, hearsay on top of hearsay, on top of reports, on top of hearsay,” van der Veen said. “Due process was required here, and that was denied.”

Due process is not required in impeachment trials, according to Article 2 Section 4 of the Constitution on “impeachment for, and on conviction of, treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors.”  

“This implies that the impeachment process is not tightly linked to the criminal law. The test is not satisfied by all crimes. With only two named offenses to provide context for the inclusive phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the standard remains undefined,” according to the Legal Information Institute. 

Deam said he was disappointed by the trial’s questioning portion because it didn’t provide any additional information that could have been useful about to know.

“It is pretty standard for people in Congress who are showboating, and I was sorry to see that it happened with both the Democrats and Republicans,” Deam said. 

The Senate will reconvene at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday.