Samantha Granville
BBC News, Capitol Hill

The Democratic House managers seem to be having a hard time keeping the attention of their Republican colleagues.

During the first two hours of debate today, Senator Rand Paul was doodling (again). It looked like he was drawing a sketch of the Capitol - and a quite good one too!

Senator Josh Hawley was sitting up in the gallery reading papers, not on the Senate floor with the other members.

Explaining why he was not on the floor, he told CNN: “I've got the trial briefs with me, and I'm taking notes."

"I'm sitting up there A, because it's a little less claustrophobic than on the floor, but B, I've also got a straight shot. Where I sit in the Senate chamber, as you know, I'm kind of in the corner."

OK we're hearing a lot about court cases right now as Democrats break down accusations that Trump wanted to "steal the election for himself", as Dean just put it, and pressure state Republicans to go against the results.

The Trump campaign filed dozens of court cases to contest the outcomes in a number of key states, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, whose voters helped hand victory to Joe Biden.

Our Reality Check team broke down some of the big legal challenges here, if you want all the details.

Lawmakers are back from their break and the trial has resumed. Next up on the agenda: detailing Trump's "increasingly desperate attempts to stop the steal" and overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Pressuring the justice department, "bullying his own vice-president", filing dozens of court cases - these are some of the actions impeachment manager Madeleine Dean is now getting into.

Image source, EPA

Prosecutors in Georgia have launched a criminal investigation into a telephone call by Trump to a top state official last month, asking him to "find" enough votes to help reverse his election loss.

Fani Willis, the Democratic prosecutor in Fulton County, sent a letter to state government officials asking them to preserve any documents related to the call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

According to NBC, which saw the letter, external, the request comes as part of a criminal investigation into several charges ranging from false statements to "any involvement in violence or threats related to the election's administration."

"I just want to find 11,780 votes," the former president was recorded telling Raffensperger, in a recording released by the Washington Post on 4 January.

Joe Biden's win in Georgia and other swing states secured him the presidency.

At the time of the recording, Trump continued to make unsubstantiated allegations that there had been widespread fraud in several states including Georgia. However, the state has since reaffirmed Joe Biden's victory.

This development comes as Donald Trump faces ongoing criminal and civil investigations in New York over his businesses.

Read more here

What's happened so far in the Trump trial and where is it headed? The BBC's Robin Levinson-King put your questions to North America reporter Anthony Zurcher.

House impeachment managers are making note of several actions and events that preceded the violence at the Capitol on 6 January.

They say that Donald Trump built up the emotions of the mob, repeatedly rallying them to the false claim that he had in fact won the election.

Here are some snapshots from November and December, when pro-Trump protesters descended on the nation's capitol to "stop the steal".

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

We're hearing now from impeachment manager Eric Swalwell. He's walking through Trump's election fraud claims and past remarks sowing doubt in the voting process.

"What President Trump did was different. It was the polar opposite of what any of us would do if we lost an election. Because once the outcome is clear and the judge rules, we concede. We recognise the will of the American people."

"An act of war - that's how Donald Trump prepared his supporters for January 6th," says Swalwell, referencing a tweet where Trump said if a Democratic candidate had an election "rigged and stolen", liberals would "fight to the death".

He says Trump was "inciting something historic".

You can watch our breakdown of some of Trump's claims here.

Senators at the trial are now taking a short break.

Laura Trevelyan
BBC World News America presenter

Image source, Getty Images

House impeachment managers are going all the way back to a pivotal TV interview on Fox News, on 19 July 2020, when President Trump refused to commit to recognising November’s election result and by implication to a peaceful transfer of power.

Democrats are trying to build their case, point by point. They are trying to demonstrate that Trump’s followers were told from July onwards that there could be problems with the upcoming election, and the only way Trump could lose was if the election were rigged.

The road from 19 July to 6 January is the one Democrats are trying to demonstrate.

We've just heard from Joaquin Castro about what Democrats say was Trump's plot to disrupt the election outcome if it wasn't in his favour.

"He didn't care if the claims were true, he wanted to make sure that his supporters were angry, like the election was being ripped away from them," Castro says, as tweets from Trump appear on the screen.

Castro notes how Trump was tweeting about a rigged election, a "scandal of our times" months before the November election even took place.

"This was to rile up his base, to make them angry. These were just a few of the many times President Trump tweeted about this. and he did it in speeches, rallies, and on television too."

Now up: Clips of the then-president insisting, many times before Election Day, that it would be rigged.

And below, you can watch our clip of Trump refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power back in September.

Image source, Getty Images

Democrat Joe Neguse, at 36, is the youngest impeachment manager in history.

His delivery is slow and plodding. He favours rhetorical questions, taking lengthy pauses after asking.

"How many lives would we have saved?" he asks, if Donald Trump had acted differently.

He gesticulates, making eye contact with the Senators in front of him.

The son of Eritrean refugees, Neguse told the Washington Post newspaper that as he hid inside the House chamber on the day of the Capitol riots, he texted his wife to tell her he loved her, and that "everything was going to be fine".

Neguse has read out statements from interviews and charging documents of rioters - including some of the extremists, like the Proud Boys, who allegedly came with violent intentions.

"We were looking for Nancy Pelosi to shoot her in the [expletive] brain but we didn't find her," one Proud Boy member said, according to an affidavit.

"These defendants themselves have told you exactly why they were here," Neguse continues.

BBC Newsnight took a closer look at the actions of far-right extremists during the riot - check out the video below.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Is there a reason that Congress cannot skip impeachment and allow the Justice Department to pursue charges? - Noah, Italy

Impeachment was a choice Democrats made in the days after the 6 January Capitol riot. It was an action they had fully within their control, and they felt they needed to do something quickly to mark the moment in history and register their outrage at Donald Trump’s behaviour.

There’s no reason why, even if the ongoing Senate trial results in Trump’s acquittal, that the Justice Department or other law enforcement agencies couldn’t also bring a case against the ex-president. In fact, Trump’s own lawyer Bruce Castor on Tuesday suggested this was the proper legal remedy for holding former presidents accountable, not impeachment.

Any decision to charge Trump with a crime, whether by the federal government or, for instance, the local District of Columbia district attorney’s office, would ignite a political firestorm, of course. Prosecutors might think twice about stepping into that maelstrom.

The vast majority of Republican senators opposed the impeachment trial for Donald Trump before it even began.

Some have suggested it is a waste of time and the country should move on.

Marco Rubio, of Florida, went a step further by saying the attack on the Capitol should be litigated by the US criminal justice system instead of by him and his colleagues.

Rubio has said the Senate's ongoing trial "isn’t about accountability".

"It’s about demands from vengeance from the radical left. And a new ‘show’ for the ‘Political Entertainment Industry’.”

He has repeated his claim that Trump does bear "some responsibility" for what happened on 6 January, but also that a second impeachment is "bad for America".

He was among the Senate jurors who voted both yesterday and last week to end the trial before the prosecution could make its case.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Image source, Getty Images

On day two of Donald Trump’s Senate trial, the House impeachment managers – the prosecutors - have the spotlight to themselves.

Lead manager Jamie Raskin quickly picked up where he left off yesterday, using Trump’s own words on the day of the Capitol insurrection to tie him to the unrest.

Trump was no “innocent bystander”, Raskin said. He was the “inciter-in-chief”.

He said Trump’s “remember this day forever” tweet while the Capitol was being ransacked were not words of sadness, but of celebration. And if the Senate doesn’t convict Trump and prohibit him from holding office in the future, Raskin concluded, such violence will happen again.

From here, the managers will lay out the details of their case, including more videos and accounts. But Raskin has set the stage.

OK so we're still firmly in the "provocation" part of the Democrats' argument.

Impeachment manager Neguse is walking the chamber through a number of Trump's comments in the weeks and months after the election - even as Biden has been called as the winner.

We're hearing Trump tell his supporters things like "never surrender", "we will stop the steal", and "save the date" for the January march.

"We will not let them silence your voices," Trump tells them on 6 January.

Of course, these clips of Trump rallies past are not the new "extraordinary footage" of the riot - we're expecting those later today.

Democratic impeachment manager Joe Neguse has been indicating how he plans to prove Trump's role in inciting the events of 6 January.

There are three key moments: The provocation, the attack and the ensuing harm.

"[Trump's] false claims of election fraud - that was the drumbeat being used to inspire, instigate and ignite them," Neguse says of the rioters.

We will be explaining all the aspects of this trial - and the actors taking part - step by step. But, if you have any questions you want the answers to rightaway, these four pieces will help guide you.

• What is Trump accused of?

• Who are the key players?

• Did Trump's words incite a riot?
• The other impeached presidents

Image source, Getty Images

"Trump watched it on TV like a reality show - he revelled in it and he did nothing to help us," says Raskin, continuing to detail the events of 6 January.

"It will show that Donald Trump surrendered his role as Commander-in-Chief" to become the "Inciter-in-Chief."Alright, let's take a step out of the Senate chamber now and look back at what Trump said ahead of the Capitol riot.

In his 70-minute address, Trump exhorted his followers to march on Congress where politicians had met to certify Democrat Joe Biden's win.

The attack began moments after he took the applause.

Here's our breakdown of the key parts of Trump's speech as the Senate seeks to answer the question: Did Trump's words really incite violence?

Raskin does not mince his words as he lays out the prosecution's case.

Republicans will argue that Donald Trump was "essentially an innocent victim of circumstances", he says.

This is not the case, Raskin argues.

“There was method in the madness that day,” Raskin says. “This was an organised attack.”

"Donald Trump surrendered his role as commander-in-chief," he adds. "This was the greatest betrayal of the presidential oath in the history of the United States."

Image source, Getty Images

Democrat Jamie Raskin is up first.

"Some people think this is a contest of lawyers, or even worse a competition between political parties," he says. "It's neither. It's a moment of truth for America."

"We are having a trial on the facts."

Raskin gave an emotional plea yesterday - recalling being separated from his daughter who was visiting the Capitol on 6 January.

Raskin and his Democratic colleagues are expected to appeal to emotions again today - providing never before seen footage of the riots.