WASHINGTON —

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House "will proceed" with bringing legislation to impeach President Donald Trump to the floor.

Pelosi made the announcement in letter late Sunday to colleagues.

THIS IS A BREAKING STORY. Earlier story follows:

With impeachment planning intensifying, two Republican senators want President Donald Trump to resign immediately as efforts mount to prevent Trump from ever again holding elective office in the wake of deadly riots at the Capitol.

House Democrats are expected to introduce articles of impeachment on Monday and vote as soon as Tuesday. The strategy would be to condemn the president's actions swiftly but delay an impeachment trial in the Senate for 100 days. That would allow President-elect Joe Biden to focus on other priorities as soon as he is inaugurated Jan. 20.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and a top Biden ally, laid out the ideas Sunday as the country came to grips with the siege at the Capitol by Trump loyalists trying to overturn the election results.

"Let's give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running," Clyburn said.

Pressure was mounting for Trump to leave office even before his term ended amid alarming concerns of more unrest ahead of the inauguration. The president whipped up the mob that stormed the Capitol, sent lawmakers into hiding and left five dead.

Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania on Sunday joined Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in calling for Trump to "resign and go away as soon as possible."

"I think the president has disqualified himself from ever, certainly, serving in office again," Toomey said. "I don't think he is electable in any way."

Murkowski, who has long voiced her exasperation with Trump's conduct in office, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that Trump simply "needs to get out."

A third Republican, Sen. Roy Blunt, of Missouri, did not go that far, but on Sunday he warned Trump to be "very careful" in his final days in office.

Corporate America began to tie its reaction to the Capitol riots by tying them to campaign contributions.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's CEO and President Kim Keck said it will not contribute to those lawmakers — all Republicans — who supported challenges to Biden's Electoral College win. The group "will suspend contributions to those lawmakers who voted to undermine our democracy," Kim said.

Citigroup did not single out lawmakers aligned with Trump's effort to overturn the election, but said it would be pausing all federal political donations for the first three months of the year. Citi's head of global government affairs, Candi Wolff, said in a Friday memo to employees, "We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law."

House leaders, furious after the insurrection, appear determined to act against Trump despite the short timeline.

Late Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., convened a conference call with her leadership team and sent a letter to her colleagues reiterating that Trump must be held accountable. She told her caucus, now scattered across the country on a two-week recess, to "be prepared to return to Washington this week" but did not say outright that there would be a vote on impeachment.

"It is absolutely essential that those who perpetrated the assault on our democracy be held accountable," Pelosi wrote. "There must be a recognition that this desecration was instigated by the President."

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said an impeachment trial could not begin under the current calendar before Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.

Clyburn said that Pelosi "will make the determination as when is the best time" to send articles of impeachment to the Senate if and when they are passed by the House.

Another idea being considered was to have a separate vote that would prevent Trump from ever holding office again. That could potentially only need a simple majority vote of 51 senators, unlike impeachment, in which two-thirds of the 100-member Senate must support a conviction.

The Senate was set to be split evenly at 50-50, but under Democratic control once Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the two Democrats who won Georgia's Senate runoff elections last week are sworn in. Harris would be the Senate's tie-breaking vote.

House Democrats were considering two possible packages of votes: one on setting up a commission to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office and one on the impeachment charge of abuse of power.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who was part of the weekend leadership call, said he expected a "week of action" in the House.

While many have criticized Trump, Republicans have said that impeachment would be divisive in a time of unity.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said that instead of coming together, Democrats want to "talk about ridiculous things like 'Let's impeach a president'" with just days left in office.

Still, some Republicans might be supportive.

Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse said he would take a look at any articles that the House sent over. Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic, said he would "vote the right way" if the matter were put in front of him.

The Democratic effort to stamp Trump's presidential record — for the second time — with the indelible mark of impeachment had advanced rapidly since the riot.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I, a leader of the House effort to draft impeachment articles accusing Trump of inciting insurrection, said Sunday that his group had 200-plus co-sponsors.

The articles, if passed by the House, could then be transmitted to the Senate for a trial, with senators acting as jurors to acquit or convict Trump. If convicted, Trump would be removed from office and succeeded by the vice president. It would be the first time a U.S. president had been impeached twice.

Potentially complicating Pelosi's decision about impeachment was what it meant for Biden and the beginning of his presidency. While reiterating that he had long viewed Trump as unfit for office, Biden on Friday sidestepped a question about impeachment, saying what Congress did "is for them to decide."

A violent and largely white mob of Trump supporters overpowered police, broke through security lines and windows and rampaged through the Capitol on Wednesday, forcing lawmakers to scatter as they were finalizing Biden's victory over Trump in the Electoral College.

Toomey appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" and NBC's "Meet the Press." Clyburn was on "Fox News Sunday" and CNN. Kinzinger was on ABC's "This Week," Blunt was on CBS' "Face the Nation" and Rubio was on Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures."

___

Superville reported from Wilmington, Delaware. Associated Press writers Alexandra Jaffe, Lisa Mascaro and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is likely to become the Senate majority leader following a pair of Democratic pickups last week in the Georgia runoff elections, said last week providing Americans with additional stimulus funds will be his first priority.

The Senate’s majority leader sets the agenda for the chamber. When Democrats along with President Donald Trump called on stimulus checks to grow from $600 to $2,000 per person late last month, current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the bill from getting a vote despite a majority of senators indicating they would support the proposal.

Additional stimulus also has the support of members of the House, who already voted in favor of increasing the last round of stimulus checks to $2,000, and President-elect Joe Biden.

“One of the first things that I want to do when our new senators are seated is deliver the $2,000 checks to the American families,” Schumer said last Wednesday morning.

But things changed quickly after Schumer’s speech. Following last Wednesday's riot at the Capitol, Democrats have found a new goal: Impeaching Trump.

While the House is expected to move swiftly on impeaching Trump on Wednesday, the US Senate is not set to reconvene until next week. On Tuesday, Schumer requested McConnell to call senators back to Washington to hold an immediate trial of Trump. Democrats say that Trump’s comments last Wednesday incited a riot at the US Capitol. Five people died in last week’s riot.

“I've asked him to call the Senate back. All he needs is my agreement. I'm still minority leader, and his agreement, he's majority leader. And we could come back ASAP and vote to convict Donald Trump and get him out of office now, before any further damage is done,” Schumer said.

Schumer and Democrats are hoping to have a trial concluded by the time Biden takes office on Jan. 20, but without McConnell’s consent, that proposition is practically impossible.

Having a trial drag into the start of Biden’s administration could hamper Biden’s ability to get approval for additional stimulus. Biden acknowledged that an impeachment trial after he takes the oath of office could slow down his push for additional stimulus.

"Can we go half day on dealing with the impeachment and half day getting my people nominated and confirmed in the Senate, as well as moving on the package?" Biden said “That's my hope and expectation."

President Donald Trump's fiery speech at a rally just before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol is at the center of the impeachment charge against him, even as the falsehoods he spread for months about election fraud are still being championed by some Republicans.

A Capitol police officer died from injuries suffered in the riot, and police shot and killed a woman during the siege. Three other people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies.

Follow along below for updates: (all times eastern)

9 a.m.

The House has opened its proceedings Wednesday, poised to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time exactly a week after his supporters stormed the Capitol to protest his election defeat.

At least five Republicans have said they will join Democrats in voting to remove Trump from office. The article of impeachment charges the president with “incitement of insurrection.”

The House chaplain opened the session with a prayer for “seizing the scales of justice from the jaws of mob-ocracy.”

A vote is expected by the end of the day.

---

8:15 a.m.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger is predicting more Republicans will join him in voting to impeach President Donald Trump.

The House is set to vote Wednesday afternoon on impeaching Trump for a second time, accusing him of rallying a violent mob of supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol last week. If that isn't an impeachable offense, Kinzinger said, “I don't know what is.”

Several other Republicans are backing impeachment, including No. 3 GOP leader Liz Cheney.

“This is one of these moments that transcends politics,” the Illinois lawmaker told “CBS This Morning” in an interview ahead of the vote.

Besides Kinzinger and Cheney, other Republicans backing impeachment are John Katko of New York, Fred Upton of Michigan and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington.

Kinzinger wouldn’t say how many more GOP lawmakers might vote to impeach, but said, “there’ll be more than the five you’ve seen so far.”

---

President Donald Trump will likely become the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice during his time in office on Wednesday, as Congress considers his role in last week's riot at the U.S. Capitol that killed five people.

The House of Representatives is considering one article of impeachment against Trump — inciting an insurrection.

In the early debate of the article on Wednesday morning, Democrats argued that while Trump will be leaving office soon, he must be held accountable for his actions.

"For years we have been asked to turn a blind eye to the criminality, corruption, and blatant disregard to the rule of law by the tyrant president we have in the White House," Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, said. "We as a nation can no longer look away."

Several Republican members rose to argue that the Democrats' push to impeach was rushed. Rep. Nancy Mace, a newly-elected congresswoman from South Carolina, said that while she thought Trump needed to be held accountable for his actions, she did not feel she could vote in favor of impeachment.

Unlike Trump's first impeachment — where the House charged him with "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress" — this time, the push to charge Trump comes with bipartisan support. Six Republican House members — Reps. Herrera Beutler, R-Wa., John Katko, R-N.Y., Liz Cheney, R-Wy., Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Fred Upton, R-Mich. and Dan Newhouse, R-Wa. — have said they plan to vote to charge Trump.

In late 2019, no Republicans voted for impeachment, and a handful of Democrats voted against charging Trump as well.

The House's move to impeachment comes after a resolution passed on Tuesday night calling on Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet to consider their powers under the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Prior to the vote, Pence released a statement saying that he did not plan to invoke the 25th Amendment.

"I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution," Pence said.

If half the members in the House vote for impeachment on Wednesday — which seems likely, with Democrats in control — a trial will be held in the Senate in the coming days and weeks. After the trial, if two-thirds of Senators vote to impeach, Trump would be the first president convicted in an impeachment trial.

It's very likely that Trump will have already left office by the time the Senate concludes its trial. Democrats say it's vital to complete the impeachment process to hold him accountable for his actions.

If Trump is convicted in the impeachment process, the Senate could also vote to bar Trump from holding public office ever again — which would prevent him from running for president in 2024.

While Sen. Mitch McConnell — the most powerful Republican in the upper chamber — often sways his fellow Republicans to toe the line, reportedly said Wednesday that he would allow his fellow Senators to vote as they see fit.

The New York Times reports that McConnell is "pleased" with the impeachment efforts, seeing it as a way to "purge" Trump from the Republican party.

Moments before last week's riot, Trump addressed supporters at a rally on the National Mall, where he encouraged supporters to go to the Capitol building and encourage lawmakers to use a largely ceremonial rubber-stamp session to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"We're going walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators, and congressmen and women," Trump said at that speech. "We're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong."

On Wednesday, as the House debated an article of impeachment and days after the FBI warned that more violent rallies may follow, Trump released the following statement.

"In light of reports of more demonstrations, I urge that there must be NO violence, NO lawbreaking and NO vandalism of any kind. That is not what I stand for, and it is not what America stands for. I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers. Thank You."

The riots briefly disrupted the electoral certification. Video from the riots showed some insurrectionists calling for Pence's execution, following his decision to follow his Constitutional duty and not overturn the election.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped nine of her most trusted allies in the House to argue the case for President Donald Trump’s impeachment.

The impeachment managers include the following representatives:

• Jamie Raskin
• Diana DeGette
• David Cicilline
• Joaquin Castro
• Eric Swalwell
• Ted Lieu
• Stacey Plaskett
• Madeleine Dean
• Joe Neguse

All of the Democrats are lawyers and many of them have deep experience investigating the president.

DeGette of Colorado said plan to present a serious case and “finish the job” that the House started.

When Pelosi named the managers, she said it was their “constitutional and patriotic duty” to present the case for Trump’s impeachment and removal.

“It is their constitutional and patriotic duty to present the case for the President’s impeachment and removal,” wrote Pelosi. “They will do so guided by their great love of country, determination to protect our democracy and loyalty to our oath to the Constitution. Our Managers will honor their duty to defend democracy For The People with great solemnity, prayerfulness and urgency.”

The manages face the arduous task of convincing skeptical Senate Republicans to convict Trump.

A single article of impeachment for “incitement of insurrection” was approved by the House on Wednesday, one week after a violent mob of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol. Lawmakers were counting the votes that cemented Trump’s election defeat at the time.

Wednesday’s vote made Trump the first president in U.S. history to be impeached twice. Still, the case for conviction will be tough. An impeached president has never been convicted by the U.S. Senate.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A petition seeking the impeachment of Kentucky’s attorney general was filed Friday by three grand jurors who criticized his handling of an investigation into Breonna Taylor’s shooting death by police.

The petition’s allegations against Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron include breach of public trust and failure to comply with his duties as the state’s chief law enforcement official. They do not accuse him of any crimes, but impeachment is not considered a criminal proceeding.

The petition is the latest in a flurry of tit-for-tat efforts to impeach Kentucky elected officials. Four Kentucky citizens recently petitioned the state House of Representatives to impeach Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for executive actions he took in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and the matter was assigned to a House committee for review.

Beshear’s actions had been upheld by the state Supreme Court, and the governor says there are “zero grounds” for his removal.

Kentucky law requires impeachment petitions to be referred to a House committee but does not require any further action. Under the state’s constitution, the House possesses the sole power of impeachment. An impeachment trial is held in the state Senate, with a conviction requiring the support of two-thirds of the senators present.

The petition against Cameron, signed by a handful of Kentuckians, was submitted to the overwhelmingly Republican Kentucky House. Cameron is a close ally of U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and is seen as a rising GOP star.

Cameron’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The petition’s signers include an attorney who did so on behalf of three grand jurors who have accused Cameron of misleading the public when describing the grand jury proceedings.

Cameron was the special prosecutor who investigated the actions of the Louisville police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Taylor during a warrant search last year. The investigation culminated in a grand jury ruling that did not charge any of the officers in the Black woman’s death. The shooting sparked protests in Louisville alongside national protests over racial injustice and police misconduct.

The petition is the latest seeking the ouster of prominent Kentucky officeholders. Another petition is seeking the ouster of Republican state Rep. Robert Goforth for an incident in which he allegedly tried to strangle a woman. Goforth, a former gubernatorial candidate, pleaded not guilty after his indictment on charges of strangulation and assault. The case is pending.

The petition against Cameron revives allegations raised anonymously by the three grand jurors. It accuses him of deceiving the public regarding his handling of the investigation into Taylor’s death.

Cameron had said in a widely viewed news conference that the grand jury had agreed that the officers who shot Taylor were justified because they were fired at by Taylor’s boyfriend. Officers fired 32 rounds into the home, five of which struck Taylor.

The three grand jurors said they did not agree and wanted to explore criminal charges, but said they were denied because Cameron’s prosecutors believed none of those charges would stick.

The impeachment petition was signed on their behalf by their Louisville attorney, Kevin Glogower.

“The grand jurors did not choose this battle,” Glogower said in a statement Friday. “This battle chose them. These are randomly selected citizens who were compelled to sit on a grand jury and were terribly misused by the most powerful law enforcement official in Kentucky.”

___

Lovan reported from Louisville, Kentucky.

File video above: Celebrities uplift Vanessa Bryant after eulogizing her late husband and daughter

This week will come with reflections of tragedies and the next phase of former President Donald Trump's second impeachment case.

This week will have been one year after a deadly helicopter crash claimed nine lives and 35 years after the space shuttle Challenger explosion claimed seven lives.

Here's what to know.

Impeachment case moves forward

The House of Representatives is moving forward on the second impeachment of former President Donald Trump, less than a week after he left office.

It involves a single charge of incitement of insurrection for the deadly attack on the Capitol that unfolded on Jan. 6.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will send the article of impeachment late Monday, with senators sworn in as jurors Tuesday.

In December 2019, Trump was impeached by the House on two articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. House Democrats claimed the president abused power like no other leader in U.S. history when he pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, ahead of the 2020 election. The Senate acquitted him on both articles in February.

Opening arguments for the second trial, of which no president has ever faced previously, will move to February.

1 year passes since Kobe helicopter crash

Tuesday marks one year since a tragic helicopter crash killed basketball legend Kobe Bryant along with his daughter Gianna and her basketball teammate and six other people.

In addition to Bryant, 41, and his 13-year-old daughter, the crash claimed the lives of Payton Chester, 13; Sarah Chester, 45; Alyssa Altobelli, 14; Keri Altobelli, 46; John Altobelli, 56; Christina Mauser, 38; and the helicopter's pilot, Ara Zobayan, 50.

Bryant was posthumously selected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in early 2020, but an enshrinement ceremony for that class is slated for May 13-15.

Remembering the Challenger tragedy

Thursday will mark 35 years after the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, claiming the lives of seven people: Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Dick Scobee and Michael Smith.

This year, NASA's annual Day of Remembrance ceremony will be livestreamed on Facebook at 11 a.m. ET due to social distancing precautions, the Kennedy Space Center said.

The explosion happened 73 seconds after liftoff.

The Associated Press and CNN contributed.

Senators took oaths Tuesday to ensure “impartial justice” as jurors in Donald Trump's historic impeachment trial, proceedings that will test Republican loyalty to the former president and the power he still wields after the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

But some Republican senators are challenging the legitimacy of the trial and questioning whether Trump's repeated demands to overturn Joe Biden’s election really constitute “incitement of insurrection” in the Jan. 6 riot.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said he plans to force a vote on whether the impeachment trial of a former president is allowed under the Constitution.

“A sham, this is, a travesty, a dark blot on the history of our country,” Paul said in a fiery speech on the Senate floor.

He called on Senate colleagues to stop this “kangaroo court” and compared the way Trump egged on the crowd outside the White House before the mob stormed the Capitol to past speeches by Democratic lawmakers, including now-Vice President Kamala Harris.

What seemed for some Democrats like an open-and-shut case that played out for the world on live television — as Trump encouraged a rally mob to “fight like hell" for his presidency — is running into a Republican Party that feels very differently. Not only are there legal concerns, but senators are wary of crossing the former president and his legions of followers. Security remains tight at the Capitol.

On Monday, the nine House Democrats prosecuting the case against Trump carried the sole impeachment charge of “incitement of insurrection” across the Capitol in a solemn and ceremonial march along the same halls the rioters ransacked three weeks ago.

In a scene reminiscent of just last year — Trump is the first president twice impeached — the lead House prosecutor, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, stood before the Senate to read the House resolution charging “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

But Republican denunciations of Trump have cooled since the riot.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked if Congress starts holding impeachment trials of former officials, what's next: “Could we go back and try President Obama?”

Besides, he suggested, Trump has already been held to account. “One way in our system you get punished is losing an election.”

Arguments in the Senate trial will begin the week of Feb. 8, and the case against Trump, the first former president to face impeachment trial, will test a political party still sorting itself out for the post-Trump era.

For Democrats the tone, tenor and length of the trial so early in Biden's presidency poses its own challenge, forcing them to strike a balance between their vow to hold Trump accountable and their eagerness to deliver on the new administration's priorities following their sweep of control of the House, Senate and White House.

Chief Justice John Roberts is not expected to preside at the trial, as he did during Trump’s first impeachment, potentially affecting the gravitas of the proceedings. The shift is said to be in keeping with protocol because Trump is no longer in office.

Instead, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D- Vt., who serves in the largely ceremonial role of Senate president pro tempore, is set to preside.

Leaders in both parties agreed to a short delay in the proceedings that serves their political and practical interests, even as National Guard troops remain at the Capitol amid security threats on lawmakers ahead of the trial.

The start date gives Trump’s new legal team time to prepare its case, while also providing more than a month's distance from the passions of the bloody riot. For the Democratic-led Senate, the intervening weeks provide prime time to confirm some of Biden’s key Cabinet nominees.

An early vote to dismiss the trial probably would not succeed, given that Democrats now control the Senate. The House approved the charge against Trump on Jan. 13, with 10 Republicans joining the Democrats.

Mounting Republican opposition to the proceedings indicates that many GOP senators will eventually vote to acquit Trump. Democrats would need the support of 17 Republicans — a high bar — to convict him.

As Republicans say the trial is not legitimate, Democrats reject that argument, pointing to an 1876 impeachment of a secretary of war who had already resigned and to opinions by many legal scholars.

Democrats also say that a reckoning of the first invasion of the Capitol since the War of 1812, perpetrated by rioters egged on by a president as Electoral College votes were being tallied, is necessary.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said failing to conduct the trial would amount to a “get-out-jail-free card” for others accused of wrongdoing on their way out the door. He said there’s only one question “senators of both parties will have to answer before God and their own conscience: Is former President Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection against the United States?”

A few GOP senators have agreed with Democrats, though not close to the number that will be needed to convict Trump.

___

Associated Press writer Hope Yen contributed to this report.

Video above: Historic second impeachment case against Trump now in the U.S. Senate's hands

Former President Donald Trump has parted ways with his lead impeachment lawyers just over a week before his Senate trial is set to begin, two people familiar with the situation said Saturday.

Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, both South Carolina lawyers, are no longer with Trump's defense team. One of the people described the parting as a "mutual decision" that reflected a difference of opinion on the direction of the case. Both insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.

One said new additions to the legal team were expected to be announced in a day or two.

The upheaval injects fresh uncertainty into the makeup and strategy of Trump's defense team as he prepares to face charges that he incited the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. However, all but five Senate Republicans this week voted in favor of an effort to dismiss the trial before it even started, making clear a conviction of the former president is unlikely regardless of his defense team.

Greg Harris and Johnny Gasser, two former federal prosecutors from South Carolina, are also off the team, one of the people said.

Trump has struggled to find attorneys willing to defend him after becoming the first president in history to be impeached twice. He is set to stand trial the week of Feb. 8 on a charge that he incited his supporters to storm Congress before President Joe Biden's inauguration in an attempt to halt the peaceful transition of power.

After numerous attorneys who defended him previously declined to take on the case, Trump was introduced to Bowers by one of his closest allies in the Senate, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Bowers, a familiar figure in Republican legal circles, had years of experience representing elected officials and political candidates, including then-South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford against a failed impeachment effort that morphed into an ethics probe.

Bowers and Barbier did not immediately return messages seeking comment Saturday evening.

Republicans and Trump aides have made clear that they intend to make a simple argument in the trial: Trump's trial is unconstitutional because he is no longer office.

While Republicans in Washington had seemed eager to part ways with Trump after the deadly events of Jan. 6, they have since eased off of their criticism, weary of angering the former president's loyal voter base.

CNN was first to report the departure of the lawyers.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A Republican-led legislative panel dismissed two petitions Friday calling for Gov. Andy Beshear’s impeachment but kept alive another effort by citizens seeking the Democrat’s ouster for his restrictions to combat the spread of COVID-19 in Kentucky.

The rejected petitions were the latest in a flurry of filings aiming to unseat prominent political leaders in Kentucky, an unprecedented phenomenon in the state’s recent history. Another pending petition targets the state’s Republican attorney general.

The two anti-Beshear petitions were dismissed for failing to meet statutory requirements, said Republican Rep. Jason Nemes, the committee chairman.

But the House panel renewed its request for more information from Beshear as it reviews the remaining petition, the first one filed against the governor, Nemes said. Just four Kentuckians signed that petition, though one of them signaled he wants to withdraw. All three petitions claim the governor improperly infringed on individual rights with his coronavirus-related orders.

Kentucky’s Supreme Court ruled last year that the governor had the authority to put restrictions on businesses and individuals to try to contain the coronavirus.

The House impeachment panel previously sought information from Beshear on how his virus-related ban on mass gatherings last spring was temporarily enforced against churches, a move that especially angered conservatives. The committee resubmitted its request Friday that the governor turn over emails, phone logs or other communications related to that order.

In his letter to the governor’s lawyer, Nemes said the records “may be subpoenaed” if necessary. The lack of those records has “delayed the process,” Nemes said.

Beshear’s office said a response will be submitted Monday. His general counsel previously replied that the “extraneous information” being sought “cannot form the basis for impeachment.”

The impeachment frenzy reflects a willingness by some Kentuckians to shatter long-established political norms in an increasingly bitter political divide. It follows closely on the heels of the second impeachment of former President Donald Trump.

Beshear says there are “zero grounds” for his removal and maintains his COVID-19 orders have saved lives. He portrays the petitioners seeking his ouster as anti-government extremists.

Information compiled by Johns Hopkins University shows that Kentucky has recorded 87.7 deaths per 100,000 people, the 42nd highest per-capita rate nationally and better than neighboring states.

The House committee met behind closed doors for nearly three hours Friday, continuing its practice of long private discussions to review the impeachment petitions. The panel consists of four Republicans and three Democrats.

“The committee is slow moving, but that’s very necessary because of how serious this task is,” Democratic Rep. Angie Hatton, a committee member, told reporters after Friday’s meeting. “We at least are satisfied that we are getting a say.”

The committee also requested additional information from Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron. The petition calling for Cameron’s impeachment includes three grand jurors who criticized his handling of the investigation into Breonna Taylor’s shooting death by police last year.

The committee on Friday asked Cameron to produce any audio recording or transcript of his team’s instructions to the Taylor grand jury not already released and which he possesses. Cameron’s office declined comment on the committee request.

In the Taylor case, one officer was charged for allegedly firing into an adjacent apartment, but the three grand jurors said prosecutors never gave them the option to consider charges against the officers who fatally shot the Louisville woman.

Cameron has stood by his investigation into Taylor’s death, which fueled protests over racial injustice. He said his team followed the law and presented a thorough case to the grand jury, adding that the petition against him was “so lacking in legal and factual support” it should be dismissed.

The petition alleges Cameron breached public trust and failed to comply with his duties in his handling of the Taylor case and then misrepresented the grand jury’s work to the public.

The House committee set a Monday evening deadline for Beshear and Cameron to submit the additional information. Nemes said the panel will reconvene sometime after that.

Nemes said he didn’t know how long the committee’s reviews of the remaining petitions will last, saying the lawmakers are doing their “due diligence.”

“I don’t know how long it will take, how many meetings,” he said. “But we’re working with all deliberate speed to get this very important matter taken care of appropriately.”

The panel had no update on another impeachment petition filed against GOP state Rep. Robert Goforth, a former gubernatorial candidate who was indicted for allegedly trying to strangle a woman. Goforth has pleaded not guilty, and the case is pending.

Impeachment is a card rarely played in any serious way in the Bluegrass State, though Kentucky has had its share of provocative elected officials. Four constitutional officers have been impeached in Kentucky history, but only one was convicted. James “Honest Dick” Tate, a 19th-century state treasurer, was ousted for stealing $250,000 from the state and fled the country.

___

Hudspeth Blackburn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

WASHINGTON —

Lawyers for Donald Trump on Monday blasted the impeachment case against him as an act of “political theater” and accused House Democrats on the eve of the former president's trial of exploiting the chaos and trauma of last month’s Capitol riot for their party's gain.

Trump's legal brief is a wide-ranging attack on the House case, foreshadowing the claims his lawyers intend to present on the same Senate floor that was invaded by rioters on Jan. 6. The sharp-tongued tone, with accusations that Democrats are making “patently absurd" arguments and trying to “silence a political opponent,” makes clear that Trump's lawyers are preparing to challenge both the constitutionality of the trial and any suggestion that he was to blame for the insurrection.

“While never willing to allow a ‘good crisis’ to go to waste, the Democratic leadership is incapable of understanding that not everything can always be blamed on their political adversaries, no matter how very badly they may wish to exploit any moment of uncertainty on the part of the American people," the defense lawyers say.

In their brief, they suggest that Trump was simply exercising his First Amendment rights when he disputed the election results and argue that he explicitly encouraged his supporters to have a peaceful protest and therefore cannot be responsible for the actions of the rioters. They also say the Senate is not entitled to try Trump now that he has left office, an argument contested by even some conservative legal scholars, and they deny that the goal of the Democrats' case is justice.

“Instead, this was only ever a selfish attempt by Democratic leadership in the House to prey upon the feelings of horror and confusion that fell upon all Americans across the entire political spectrum upon seeing the destruction at the Capitol on Jan. 6 by a few hundred people,” the lawyers wrote.

House impeachment managers filed their own document Monday, asserting that Trump had “betrayed the American people” and that there is no valid excuse or defense.

“His incitement of insurrection against the United States government — which disrupted the peaceful transfer of power — is the most grievous constitutional crime ever committed by a president," the Democrats said.

The trial will begin Tuesday with a debate and vote on whether it's even constitutional to prosecute the former president, an argument that could resonate with Republicans keen on voting to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior. Opening arguments would begin Wednesday at noon, with up to 16 hours per side for presentations.

Under a draft agreement between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the proceedings will break Friday evening for the Jewish Sabbath at the request of Trump's defense team and resume on Sunday. There will likely be no witnesses, and the former president has declined a request to testify.

This impeachment trial will be different because of COVID-19 restrictions.

Rather than sitting at their desks through the trial, senators may be spread out, including in the “marble room” just off the Senate floor, where proceedings will be shown on TV, and in the public galleries above the chamber, to accommodate social distancing, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Trump's second impeachment trial is opening with a sense of urgency — by Democrats who want to hold him accountable for the violent Capitol siege and Republicans who want it over as quickly as possible.

The proceedings are expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated trial that resulted in Trump's acquittal a year ago on charges that he privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on a Democratic rival, Joe Biden, now the president. This time, Trump's rally cry to “fight like hell” and the storming of the Capitol played out for the world to see. Trump very well could be acquitted again, and the trial could be over in half the time.

Biden will be busy with the business of the presidency and won't spend “too much time watching,” press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked on Monday.

Trump is the first president to be twice impeached, and the only one to face trial after leaving the White House. The Democratic-led House approved a sole charge, “incitement of insurrection,” acting swiftly one week after the riot, the most violent attack on Congress in more than 200 years. Five people died, including a woman shot by police inside the building and a police officer who died of injuries the next day.

So far, it appears there will be few witnesses called, as the prosecutors and defense attorneys speak directly to senators who have been sworn to deliver “impartial justice” as jurors. Most are also witnesses to the siege, having fled for safety that day as the rioters broke into the Capitol and temporarily halted the electoral count certifying Biden's victory.

Instead, House managers prosecuting the case are expected to rely on videos from the siege, along with Trump's incendiary rhetoric refusing to concede the election, to make their case. His new defense team has said it plans to counter with its own cache of videos of Democratic politicians making fiery speeches.

“We have the unusual circumstance where on the very first day of the trial, when those managers walk on the floor of the Senate, there will already be over 100 witnesses present,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led Trump's first impeachment, said on NBC's “Meet the Press.” "Whether you need additional witnesses will be a strategic call.”

Democrats argue it’s all about holding the former president accountable for his actions, even though he’s out of office. For Republicans, the trial will test their political loyalty to Trump and his enduring grip on the GOP.

Initially repulsed by the graphic images of the siege, Republican senators including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell denounced the violence and pointed fingers of blame at Trump. But in recent weeks they have rallied around Trump, arguing his comments do not make him responsible for the violence and questioning the legitimacy of trying someone no longer in office.

Senators were sworn in as jurors late last month, shortly after Biden was inaugurated, but the trial proceedings were delayed as Democrats focused on confirming the new president's initial Cabinet picks and Republicans sought to put as much distance as possible from the bloody riot.

At the time, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky forced a vote to set aside the trial as unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office, drawing 44 other Republicans to his argument.

The 45 votes in favor of Paul's measure suggest the near impossibility of reaching a conviction in a Senate where Democrats hold 50 seats but a two-thirds vote — or 67 senators — would be needed to convict Trump. Only five Republicans joined with Democrats to reject Paul’s motion: Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

___

Associated Press writer Hope Yen contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON —

Donald Trump's historic second impeachment trial is opening this week with a sense of urgency — by Democrats who want to hold the former president accountable for the violent U.S. Capitol siege and Republicans who want it over as fast as possible.

Scheduled to begin Tuesday, just over a month since the deadly riot, the proceedings are expected to diverge from the lengthy, complicated trial that resulted in Trump's acquittal a year ago on charges that he privately pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on a Democratic rival, Joe Biden, now the president. This time, Trump's Jan. 6 rally cry to “fight like hell” and the storming of the Capitol played out for the world to see. While Trump very well could be acquitted again, the trial could be over in half the time.

Senate leaders reached an agreement Monday, giving the impeachment managers and Trump's lawyers up to 16 hours each to present their cases and creating the option for a debate and vote to call witnesses if the House impeachment managers seek it.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on the Senate floor Monday that the trial rules had been agreed to by Senate Republican and Democrats, as well as the House managers and Trump's legal team. The Senate will vote on the rules on Tuesday, and the trial will kick off with a four-hour debate on the constitutionality of the proceeding followed by a vote.

"The structure we have agreed to is eminently fair," Schumer said. "It will allow for the trial to achieve its purpose: truth and accountability."

Both Trump's lawyers and the House managers exchanged another round of pretrial legal briefs on Monday ahead of the beginning of the trial, in what amounted to a preview of the arguments that senators will hear on the floor in the coming days.

The House managers will begin their presentation at noon ET Wednesday, with up to 16 hours to make their case to the Senate. Then Trump's lawyers will have the same amount of time, followed by a session in which senators can ask questions to both legal teams, just like in previous impeachment trials, Schumer said Monday.

At the request of the managers, there would be an option to hold a debate and vote on calling witnesses. And at the request of Trump's attorney David Schoen, an observant Jew, there would be no trial proceedings during the Sabbath, after 5 p.m. ET, on Friday through Saturday. Then the trial would reconvene on Sunday afternoon.

"We are finalizing a resolution that's been agreed to by all parties -- the House managers, the former President's counsel, Leader McConnell and I -- that will ensure a fair, honest, bipartisan Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump," Schumer said on Monday, adding that if the managers want to call witnesses, "There'll be a vote on that -- that's what they requested."

When the trial begins, the House impeachment managers intend to make their case both to the public and the 100 senators who are jurors for the trial that Trump is responsible for last month's deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol. They've been diligently preparing a presentation for when the trial gets underway Tuesday, relying on the hours of video footage available from Jan. 6 to try to illustrate in visceral detail how the rioters were incited by Trump and his months of lies that the election was stolen from him.

While convicting Trump with a two-thirds vote is highly unlikely, the case will serve as the first detailed public accounting of how rioters temporarily halted Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's win, violently attacked police officers and actively sought out then-Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as they ransacked the Capitol.

Trump's legal team plans to argue that Trump did not incite the rioters, and that the trial of a former President is unconstitutional after the House rushed to impeach Trump without giving him the chance to mount any defense.

So far, it appears there will be few witnesses called, as the prosecutors and defense attorneys speak directly to senators who have been sworn to deliver “impartial justice” as jurors. Most are also witnesses to the siege, having fled for safety that day as the rioters broke into the Capitol and temporarily halted the electoral count certifying Biden's victory.

Defense attorneys for Trump declined a request for him to testify. Holed up at his Mar-a-Lago club, the former president has been silenced on social media by Twitter without public comments since leaving the White House.

Instead, House managers prosecuting the case are expected to rely on the trove of videos from the siege, along with Trump's incendiary rhetoric refusing to concede the election, to make their case. His new defense team has said it plans to counter with its own cache of videos of Democratic politicians making fiery speeches.

“We have the unusual circumstance where on the very first day of the trial, when those managers walk on the floor of the Senate, there will already be over 100 witnesses present,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led Trump's first impeachment. "Whether you need additional witnesses will be a strategic call.”

Trump is the first president to be twice impeached, and the only one to face trial after leaving the White House. The Democratic-led House approved a sole charge, “incitement of insurrection,” acting swiftly one week after the riot, the most violent attack on Congress in more than 200 years. Five people died including a woman shot by police inside the building and a police officer who died of injuries the next day.

Democrats argue it’s not only about winning conviction, but holding the former president accountable for his actions, even though he’s out of office. For Republicans, the trial will test their political loyalty to Trump and his enduring grip on the GOP.

Initially repulsed by the graphic images of the siege, Republican senators including Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell denounced the violence and pointed a finger of blame at Trump. But in recent weeks GOP senators have rallied around Trump arguing his comments do not make him responsible for the violence. They question the legitimacy of even conducting a trial of someone no longer in office.

On Sunday, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi described Trump's impeachment trial as a “meaningless messaging partisan exercise." Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky called the proceedings a farce with “zero chance of conviction" and described Trump’s language and rally words as “figurative” speech.

Senators were sworn in as jurors late last month, shortly after Biden was inaugurated, but the trial proceedings were delayed as Democrats focused on confirming the new president's initial Cabinet picks and Republicans sought to put as much distance as possible from the bloody riot.

At the time, Paul forced a vote to set aside the trial as unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office, drawing 44 other Republicans to his argument.

A prominent conservative lawyer, Charles Cooper, rejects that view, writing in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Sunday that the Constitution permits the Senate to try an ex-official, a significant counterpoint to that of Republican senators who have looked toward acquittal by advancing constitutional claims.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump’s ardent defenders, said he believes Trump’s actions were wrong and “he’s going to have a place in history for all of this,” but insisted it’s not the Senate’s job to judge.

“It’s not a question of how the trial ends, it’s a question of when it ends,” Graham said. “Republicans are going to view this as an unconstitutional exercise, and the only question is, will they call witnesses, how long does the trial take? But the outcome is really not in doubt.”

But 45 votes in favor of Paul's measure suggested the near impossibility of reaching a conviction in a Senate where Democrats hold 50 seats but a two-thirds vote — or 67 senators — would be needed to convict Trump. Only five Republican senators joined with Democrats to reject Paul’s motion: Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Schiff was on NBC's “Meet the Press, Wicker spoke on ABC's “This Week,” Paul was on “Fox News Sunday” and Graham was on CBS' “Face the Nation.”

___

CNN contributed to this report.

Donald Trump’s impeachment lawyers accused Democrats of waging a campaign of “hatred” against the former president as they sped through their defense of his actions and fiery words before the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, hurtling the Senate toward a final vote in his historic trial.

The defense team vigorously denied on Friday that Trump had incited the deadly riot and said his encouragement of followers to “fight like hell” at a rally that preceded it was routine political speech. They played dozens of out-of-context clips showing Democrats, some of them senators now serving as jurors, also telling supporters to “fight," aiming to establish a parallel with Trump's overheated rhetoric.

“This is ordinarily political rhetoric that is virtually indistinguishable from the language that has been used by people across the political spectrum for hundreds of years," declared Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen. "Countless politicians have spoken of fighting for our principles.”

But the presentation blurred the difference between general encouragement to battle for causes and Trump’s fight against officially accepted national election results. The defeated president was telling his supporters to fight on after every state had verified its results, after the Electoral College had affirmed them and after nearly every election lawsuit filed by Trump and his allies had been rejected in court.

The case is speeding toward a vote and likely acquittal, perhaps as soon as Saturday, with the Senate evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans and a two-thirds majority required for conviction. Trump's lawyers made an abbreviated presentation that used less than three of their allotted 16 hours.

Their quick pivot to the Democrats’ own words deflected from the central question of the trial — whether Trump incited the assault on the Capitol — and instead aimed to place impeachment managers and Trump adversaries on the defensive.

His lawyers contended he was merely telling his rally crowd to support primary challenges against his adversaries and to press for sweeping election reform.

After a two-day effort by Democrats to sync up Trump's words to the violence that followed, including through raw and emotive video footage, defense lawyers suggested that Democrats have typically engaged in the same overheated rhetoric as Trump.

But in trying to draw that equivalency, the defenders minimized Trump's months-long efforts to undermine the election results and his urging of followers to do the same. Democrats say that long campaign, rooted in a “big lie,” laid the groundwork for the mob that assembled outside the Capitol and stormed inside. Five people died.

“And so they came, draped in Trump’s flag, and used our flag, the American flag, to batter and to bludgeon," Rep. Madeleine Dean, one of the impeachment managers, said Thursday as she choked back emotion.

On Friday, as defense lawyers repeated their own videos over and over, some Democrats chuckled and whispered among themselves as many of their faces flashed on the screen. Some passed notes. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal threw up his hands, apparently amused, when his face appeared. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar rolled her eyes. Most Republicans watched intently.

During a break, some joked about the videos and others said they were a distraction or a “false equivalence” with Trump's behavior.

“Well, we heard the word ‘fight' a lot,” said Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennett said it felt like the lawyers were “erecting straw men to then take them down rather than deal with the facts."

“Show me any time that the result was that one of our supporters pulled someone out of the crowd, and then we said, ‘That’s great, good for you,’” said Delaware Sen. Chris Coons.

Trump's defenders told senators that Trump was entitled to dispute the 2020 election results and that his doing so did not amount to inciting the violence. They sought to turn the tables on prosecutors by likening the Democrats' questioning of the legitimacy of Trump's 2016 win to his challenge of his election loss.

The defense team did not dispute the horror of the violence, painstakingly reconstructed by impeachment managers earlier in the week, but said it had been carried out by people who had “hijacked” what was supposed to be a peaceful event and had planned violence before Trump had spoken.

“You can't incite what was going to happen,” he said.

Acknowledging the reality of the January day is meant to blunt the visceral impact of the House Democrats' case and pivot to what Trump's defenders see as the core — and more winnable — issue of the trial: Whether Trump actually incited the riot. The argument is likely to appeal to Republican senators who want to be seen as condemning the violence but without convicting the president.

Anticipating defense efforts to disentangle Trump's rhetoric from the rioters' actions, the impeachment managers spent days trying to fuse them together through a reconstruction of never-been-seen video footage alongside clips of the president's months of urging his supporters to undo the election results.

On Thursday, they described in stark, personal terms the terror they faced that January day — some of it in the very Senate chamber where senators now are sitting as jurors. They used security video of rioters searching menacingly for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence, smashing into the building and engaging in bloody, hand-to-hand combat with police.

Though defense lawyers sought to boil down the case to a single Trump speech, Democrats displayed the many public and explicit instructions he gave his supporters well before the White House rally that unleashed the deadly Capitol attack as Congress was certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. And they used the rioters’ own videos and words from Jan. 6 to try to pin responsibility on Trump. “We were invited here,” said one Capitol invader. “Trump sent us,” said another. “He’ll be happy. We’re fighting for Trump.”

The prosecutors' goal was to cast Trump not as a bystander but rather as the “inciter in chief” who spread election falsehoods, then encouraged supporters to come challenge the results in Washington.

The Democrats also are demanding that he be barred from holding future federal office.

Trump's lawyers say that goal only underscores the “hatred” Democrats feel for Trump. Throughout the trial, they showed clips from Democrats questioning the legitimacy of his presidency and suggesting as early as 2017 that he should be impeached.

“Hatred is at the heart of the house managers’ fruitless attempts to blame Donald Trump for the criminal acts of the rioters — based on double hearsay statements of fringe right-wing groups, based on no real evidence other than rank speculation," van der Veen said.

Trump's lawyers noted that in the same Jan. 6 speech he encouraged the crowd to behave “peacefully,” and they contend that his remarks — and his general distrust of the election results — are all protected under the First Amendment. Democrats strenuously resist that assertion, saying his words weren’t political speech but rather amounted to direct incitement of violence.

WASHINGTON —

Video above: Tensions flare between Trump lawyer, House manager

Most every senator has pledged to listen to the evidence in former President Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial, but most minds were likely made up before the trial began. Democrats would need a minimum of 17 Republicans to vote with them to convict Trump of incitement of insurrection, and that appears unlikely.

Still, Democrats say they are holding out hope they will win over enough Republicans to convict the former president for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, in which five people died. If Trump were convicted, the Senate could take a second vote to ban him from running for office again. A final vote is likely on Saturday.

A look at the Republicans whom Democrats are eyeing as they make final arguments in the case:

THE FREQUENT TRUMP CRITICS

Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine have been clear that they believe Trump incited the riot. While none of them is a lock to vote for conviction, they have joined with Democrats twice to vote against GOP efforts to dismiss the trial.

Collins said after the siege that Trump does “bear responsibility for working up the crowd and inciting this mob.” Murkowski called on Trump to resign after the attack on the Capitol, telling a local paper three days later that “I want him out. He has caused enough damage.”

Romney tweeted on Jan. 6: “What happened at the U.S. Capitol today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States.” During the trial, the Democrats showed video of Romney narrowly escaping the mob, redirected by a Capitol Police officer as he unknowingly ran toward the violent crowd.

Sasse said that Trump had “lied to” Americans and the “consequences are now found in five dead Americans and a Capitol building that’s in shambles.” In a recent video, he said Republican politics shouldn’t be about the “weird worship of one dude.”

Murkowski, Collins and Sasse voted to acquit Trump during his first impeachment trial, in which Democrats charged that he had abused his power by urging the president of Ukraine to investigate then-White House candidate Joe Biden. Romney was the sole GOP guilty vote, leaving the Democrats far short of conviction.

HEADED OUT

Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, who is retiring in 2022, has also voted twice with Democrats to move forward with the trial. Like Murkowski, he called for Trump’s resignation after the riots, saying that would be the best way to “get this person in the rearview mirror for us.” Toomey had also aggressively pushed back on Trump’s false assertions that he had won Pennsylvania and other states in the election.

Three other GOP senators have said they will not run again in two years, potentially freeing them up to vote against Trump and anger base voters in the party. They are Rob Portman of Ohio, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Richard Shelby of Alabama. All three voted to dismiss the trial, but Portman says he still has an open mind about conviction.

Burr said Thursday that he would not comment on the trial at all. Shelby said this past week that the impeachment managers had a “strong point” that Trump could have acted sooner to stop the violence, but maintained that the trial is unconstitutional because Trump is now out of office.

CASSIDY AS WILD CARD

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who won reelection by a large margin in 2020, voted two weeks ago for a GOP effort to dismiss the trial. But he switched his vote this past week, saying Trump’s lawyers had done a “terrible” job making the case that the trial was unconstitutional.

Cassidy, who has been taking extensive notes throughout the trial, said Friday that the managers had raised some “intriguing questions” during their two days of arguments. He said that he hoped Trump’s lawyers would answer them thoroughly and that he is “trying to approach it objectively.”

During the trial's question and answer session on Friday afternoon, Cassidy asked Trump's lawyers about a conversation the then-president had with Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Jan. 6 just after Vice President Mike Pence had been evacuated from the Senate. Tuberville says he told Trump that Pence had been whisked away, making clear that Trump likely knew of the danger at that point, even though he tweeted criticism of Pence after that for not trying to overturn the election. Cassidy asked the lawyers if that showed Trump "was tolerant of the intimidation of Vice President Pence?”

Lawyer Michael van der Veen dismissed Tuberville's account as “hearsay," an answer that Cassidy later said was not sufficient.

THUNE TAKES HEAT FROM TRUMP

South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Republican leader, dismissed Trump’s attempts to challenge the certification of Biden's presidential election victory. Thune predicted the effort would “go down like a shot dog″ in the Senate.

That comment drew a furious response from Trump, who urged South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to run against Thune in a GOP primary, an idea she immediately rejected.

Thune has voted twice to dismiss the case. He said Friday that he was keeping an open mind and indicated he could be open to a censure resolution if Trump is acquitted.

“I know a couple of my colleagues who’ve seen a couple of resolutions, at least, that I think could attract some support,” Thune said.

McCONNELL SIDES WITH TRUMP

McConnell will vote to acquit Donald Trump in the former president’s impeachment trial, according to a source familiar with McConnell’s thinking who was not authorized to publicly discuss the decision and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Word of McConnell’s decision came Saturday before what is expected to be a final day in the historic trial on the charge that Trump incited an insurrection in the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

The Republican leader’s views are closely watched and carry sway among GOP senators, and his decision on Trump is likely to influence others weighing their votes.

While most Democrat are expected to convict Trump, the two-thirds vote needed for conviction appears unlikely, given that the Senate is evenly split 50-50 between the parties.