Under the leadership of Representative Jamie Raskin, the House impeachment team is wrapping up their case.

"We're almost done," he says.

They're dotting the I's and crossing the T's - addressing their key points one more time.

Raskin even calls up manager Ted Lieu for just a few minutes for a single issue: refuting Republican's claims that the impeachment process was rushed.

Taking the podium again, Raskin says that his team has shown "overwhelming evidence that would convince anyone using their common sense".

Joe Neguse is up next, to help close out the prosecution's arguments.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Image source, Reuters

The central focus of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial defence has been, and will continue to be, that the entire trial is invalid; that as an ex-president he is ineligible for punishments meant for presidents.

If that doesn’t work, however, Trump’s next line of defence is that he was exercising his constitutional right to free speech during his rally on the morning of the Capitol riots and in the days leading up to it.

Towards the end of the prosecution presentation, head impeachment manager Jamie Raskin - himself a constitutional law professor - attempted to respond to that defence in advance.

He asserted that Trump, with his speech, directed a mob to take away the free speech rights of members of Congress. He said that his conduct was an assault on the rule of law and, by extension, the entire Constitution, including the First Amendment, which protects free speech. And he repeated an analogy he made in his opening remarks on Tuesday.

Trump’s words were not like a private citizen yelling fire in a crowded theatre, he said. It was like a fire chief who directs a mob to burn down a theatre and then celebrates as the flames spread.

He took just a few minutes to outline his “prebuttal”. Trump’s defenders will have up to 16 hours in days ahead to make their case.

Image source, Getty Images

The question at the heart of this trial is, did Donald Trump incite his supporters to storm the Capitol on 6 January?

The Democrats, who have brought the impeachment case, say yes. They have spent the last two days presenting evidence to show why.

Trump’s lawyers have argued he was exercising his right to free speech and will soon begin setting out their case.

You can decide for yourself in our near hour-by-hour account of what then President Trump said on 6 January and what his supporters did.

Image source, Getty Images

Donald Trump's attorney David Schoen took to Fox News earlier today to counter the arguments made against his client.

Speaking while the House impeachment managers continued their arguments on the floor, he said Democrats are presenting the case as "an entertainment package", making "movies" that aren't directly tied to Trump.

Schoen called it "offensive" to "the healing process" the country needs after the riot.

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

Among the “harms” that the House impeachment managers said resulted from the riot at the US Capitol were not just physical and psychological, they were also damage to US security and prestige.

Congressman Joaquin Castro detailed the documents and information that were ransacked by rioters when they stormed the Capitol. He noted that one woman tried to give a laptop from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to a friend to sell to Russian intelligence.

The damage, he said, goes beyond that, however. He quoted leaders in Russia, Iran and China celebrating what they saw as US humiliation. He also quoted allies, like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who lamented that the riot was “shocking, deeply disturbing, and frankly saddening."

“When other countries have seen chaos, our constitution has helped keep order in America,” Castro said. “This is why we have a constitution. We stand up for the rule of law because the rule of law doesn’t just stand up for itself.”

It was a play to the Senate’s sense of patriotism. Many of the senators in the room take a keen interest in foreign affairs. Twenty of them serve on the chamber’s foreign relations committee. The entire Senate votes to confirm US ambassadors and ratify US treaties.

Failure to convict Donald Trump, he concluded would “forfeit” US power and diminish the nation on the world stage. Perhaps, Castro thought, the senators listening would find that concerning.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects freedom of speech.

Lawyers for former president Trump have said the article of impeachment against their client violates that right to free speech.

Impeachment manager Joe Neguse is up to argue "their argument is meant as a distraction".

"According to President Trump, everything he did and everything we showed you he did was perfectly OK for him to do, and for a future president to do again," he said.

"And the Constitution - in their view - apparently forbids you from doing anything to stop that."

But Neguse said legal scholars had called that argument "legally frivolous" because it is "wrong on the facts and wrong on the law".

Trump was "not just some guy" making "a controversial speech at a rally", Neguse said.

His supporters were "poised for violence" and "he struck a match".

Image source, Getty Images

There's been a lot of talk about the deaths, injuries and trauma caused by the attack on the Capitol.

There was also plenty to clean up.

As impeachment manager David Cicilline pointed out earlier, janitorial staff, "many of them people of colour, were forced to clean up the mess left by mobs of white nationalists".

He described how one janitor said he felt "degraded" as "he had to clean up faeces that had been smeared on the wall, blood of a rioter who had died, broken glass and other objects strewn all over the floor".

An inventory of the damage from the office of the Architect of the Capitol said most of it was broken glass, busted doors and graffiti.

Vandals defaced several objects and stole a few items - including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's lectern and a framed photo of the Dalai Lama.

The Democrats are now detailing how Trump's actions harmed the US both domestically and internationally.

Congressman Joaquin Castro is at the podium, talking about how the world reacted to the attack on the US Capitol.

He points specifically to the horror expressed by US allies and the mockery conveyed by adversaries.

"The world is watching and wondering whether we are who we say we are," said Castro.

Here's how media outlets around the world covered the violence of 6 January:

Anthony Zurcher
BBC North America reporter

On Wednesday, the House impeachment managers laid out a three-part roadmap for their prosecution.

First, they tried to show how Trump provoked the attack on the Capitol. Then, they went step by step through the events of that day.

Today, they are discussing the "harm" that the president had done with his words and actions – harm to property, to people and to democracy itself.

It is harm, they said, that will cast a shadow well beyond the violence on 6 January if the Senate doesn't act.

The House’s impeachment prosecution hinges on proving that Donald Trump knowingly incited his crowd of supporters in front of the White House on 6 January to attack the Capitol and stop the joint meeting of Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.

To prove this, they’ve documented the months the then-president spent convincing his followers that the November presidential election was fixed; that his victory was stolen away.

They’ve argued that the president has a history of inciting violence, from targeting protestors at his rallies to expressing sympathy for "both sides" following the violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

If that isn’t enough to convince the Senate jurors – and the American public – Congressman Ted Lieu pointed to Trump’s behaviour after the Capitol as an indication that he had no interest in forcefully condemning the violence.

He played clips of the two short videos the then-president released and noted that he never visited the Capitol to review the damage or pay honour to the police officer killed by the mob.

His silence and inaction, Lieu said, spoke volumes.

"When you or I make a mistake and something very bad happens, we would show remorse," Lieu said.

"We would accept responsibility. President Trump didn't do any of that. Why not? Because he intended what happened on 6 January."

Image source, Getty

The trial has just resumed after a short break. If you're just tuning in, here's a quick run-down of what has happened so far in today's session:

• Democratic prosecutors have presented the testimony of some rioters as evidence that they were following Donald Trump's lead in the 6 January riots
• Clips of then-President Trump's comments about extremist groups have also been used to argue that he stoked fearand hatred
• Lead prosecutor Jamie Raskin told the Senate that Trump "used a crowd that he knew would readily engage in political violence"
• Democrats are concluding their arguments for impeachment today, then Trump's defence team will begin their case

Samantha Granville
BBC News, Capitol Hill

While most senators were present at the start of the day, Republicans have been shifting around since then.

Three senators who ran against Trump in the 2016 election - Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham - were watching closely as archive footage showed former President Trump making light of political violence.

Then, when the next presentation started, they left.

Senator Rick Scott had a blank map of Asia on his desk and was filling in the names of countries... Unclear why!

Also, call the fashion police, because it’s 36F (2C) in Washington DC today and Senator Richard Burr chose not to wear socks.

Both Senator Murray and Senator Capito have blankets over their laps. Capito has a vibrant red-orange blanket and Murray has a black one.

Earlier, we heard Cicilline talk about the five people who lost their lives due to the Capitol riot.

Here's a reminder of who they are:

• Brian Sicknick, a 13-year veteran of the Capitol Police, died after he was beaten by rioters at age 42
• Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran was shot and killed by police as she joined a mob of Trump supporters trying to break into the House chamber
• Kevin Greeson, 55, was among a pro-Trump crowd outside the Capitol when he suffered a heart attack and fell to the ground
• Rosanne Boyland died amid the chaos on 6 January; the 34-year-old Trump supporter is believed to have been killed in a stampede of fellow rioters
• Benjamin Philips, 50, died of a stroke in Washington; the founder of a pro-Trump website had driven to DC for the former president's rally

Before the recess, Cicilline shared clips of rioters screaming at police to illustrate the attitude of Trump's supporters to law enforcement.

In the uncensored video, the senators heard expletives, racial slurs, cries of "traitor". One black officer described being called a racial slur over a dozen times that day.

You may recall, Trump frequently referred to himself as the "law and order" president. Shortly after the storming of the Capitol, Trump tweeted: "Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country."

Police have described the riot as a "medieval battle" scene. You can read more of their first-hand accounts here.

Senators are taking a quick recess. The trial will resume in 15 minutes.

Cicilline shares quotes from staff members who say they "won't forget" the sound of windowpanes breaking as rioters broke in.

One staff member, he says, quit her job over the riot.

Another employee, who is a mother of three, said "the insurrection shattered all my sense of security at work".

Another said: "I honestly feared for my life. I have two children at home."

Cicilline himself was sheltering-in-place during the riot - and began drafting the Democrats' impeachment measure against Trump at that time.

Below, you can watch members of Congress describe the attack.

Image source, Getty Images

House manager David Cicilline is now working to demonstrate the harm done to "Congress and the Democratic process" by Donald Trump and the 6 January riots.

In painstaking detail, Cicilline reviews the "immediate" threat posed to those inside the Capitol on that day.

"These weren't idle threats," Cicilline says. He plays footage of a mob at the Capitol, an angry crowd shouting "Hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence," Trump's vice-president.

Cicilline points to court documents showing that rioters planned to murder Pence and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi "if they found them".

Others spoke of "sealing" lawmakers in the basement where they hid and "turning on the gas".

"Never did any of us imagine that we would face mortal peril by a mob riled up by the president of the United States," he says.

How did you react to the new footage of the Capitol riot shown yesterday? Did it change your mind about whether Trump should be convicted or not?

It just underscored what we already knew. The media coverage of the insurrection has been pretty robust in terms of exactly how bad it was. As far as the trial goes, if you don't think that Trump should be convicted now, you probably won't ever think that.

The Republicans' argument is about the constitutionality of the trial and they're not focusing on whether he actually incited the riot. Because it is pretty obvious. It was obvious in the delay in his denunciation of the riot and the video on Twitter saying "we love you, you're special". But if you've been paying attention to literally anything in the past four years, you were not shocked at all.

I 100% feel he should be convicted, but I know that won't happen.

Impeachment manager DeGette has hearkened back to a particularly shocking Twitter moment from last year.

It concerns Couy Griffin, a New Mexico state official who has recently been arrested for his involvement in the 6 January riot.

Last May, Griffin said in a video clip shared online: "I've come to the conclusion the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat."

Trump retweeted Griffin and "thanked him for that sentiment", DeGette says.

And after receiving that retweet from Trump, Griffin said it meant a lot because "I know that the president of the United States has my back".

Trump and Griffin were not strangers, she adds, and the two had spoken for nearly 30 minutes a year earlier.

Griffin had also promised "to make blood come running out of this building" in a video the day after the riot, DeGette says.

Image source, Getty Images

House manager DeGette argues that rioters believed they were fighting on behalf of former President Donald Trump.

In the days shortly after the 6 January attack, DeGette says, Trump supporters took to the internet to plan for future acts of violence.

Many of them were "eager to participate" in other attacks and "confirmed that they were waiting on President Trump's instructions about what to do next", she says.

Image source, EPA

Diana DeGette's back, and is turning now to the impact and "long-term harm" of Trump's conduct.

She'll start with how Trump's actions affected domestic security.

Threats from extremist groups, she says, "were and are made worse by President Trump's refusal to take accountability and his refusal to forcibly denounce what his own FBI identified as some of the most dangerous elements of our country".

She notes that intelligence officials reported that since the Capitol riot, "violent online rhetoric" regarding the inauguration spiked. Threats were made to all 50 state capitol buildings, too.

And a motivating factor, according to the intelligence community, was a "shared false narrative of a stolen election, an opposition to the change and control of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government".

Want to know more? We took a look at what was going on in far-right extremist groups in the lead up to Inauguration Day.