Trump impeachment trial live updates: Biden says charge 'not in dispute' in 1st comments on acquittal

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asked both the House managers and Trump's lawyers whether, in their judgement, Trump lost the 2020 presidential election or if he "was perpetrating a big lie when he repeatedly claimed that the election was stolen from him and that he actually won the election by a landslide."

"As we all know, President Trump did lose the election by 7 million votes, 306 electoral votes. By the time of the January 6th attack, the courts, the Justice Department, all 50 states across the country had done -- agreed that the votes were counted," Del. Stacey Plaskett, D-Virgin Islands, said. "The people had spoken and it was time for the peaceful transfer of power, as our Constitution and the rule of the law of demands."

Trump's defense lawyer, Michael van der Veen, first asked that the question be re-read and then side-stepped it by saying his judgement of whether or not Trump lost the election is "irrelevant in this proceeding."

His initial response prompted a clamor on the Senate floor. He then asked for the question to be read again.

"In my judgment it's irrelevant to the question before this body. What is relevant in this impeachment article is, were Mr. Trump's words insightful to the point of violence and riot?" Van der Veen said. "That is the charge and that is the question and the answer is no, he did not have speech that was insightful to violence or riot."

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., asked House managers in a somewhat hypothetical question whether the former president is innocent of inciting insurrection because he told protesters to "be peaceful."

Lead House manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., responded with an allegory.

"If you rob a bank and, on the way out the door, you yell 'respect private property,' that's not a defense to robbing the bank," Raskin said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked the House impeachment managers, "The defense’s presentation highlighted the fact that Democratic members of Congress raised objections to counting of electoral votes in past joint sessions of Congress. To your knowledge, were any of those Democratic objections raised after insurrectionists stormed the Capitol in order to prevent the counting of electoral votes and after the president's personal lawyer asked senators to make these objections specifically to delay the certification?"

Lead impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., who was shown in video by Trump's defense attorneys objecting to Trump's electoral victory, took the lectern.

"My counsel on the other side had some fun because I was one of the people who took, I think, about 30 seconds in 2016 to point out that the electors from Florida were not actually conforming to the letter of the law ... but I think the vice president and President Biden properly gaveled me down and said we are going to indicate the will of the people," Raskin said.

"That's pretty much what happened, and nobody has stormed the Capitol," he went on to say, quoting GOP Rep. Liz Cheney who also blames Trump for the mob.

"Please don't mix up what Republican and Democrats have done in every election, for a long time -- there are improprieties going on in terms of conforming with state election laws -- with the idea of mobilizing a mob insurrection against the government that got five people killed, 140 Capitol officers wounded and threatened the actual peaceful succession of power and transfer of power in America."

Raskin said a lawmaker can talk about reforming the Electoral College but, "You don't do it with violence."

Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., asked both the House managers and Trump's defense council, "if the Senate's power to disqualify is not derivative of the power to remove a convicted president from office, could the Senate disqualify a sitting president, but not remove him or her?"

The House managers and Trump's defense team had starkly different answers to the constitutionality of this question.

"No," Bruce Castor, Trump's lawyer, said. He then proceeded to attack Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and other House managers on the process and grounds of their case.

"That was profoundly inaccurate and irrelevant to what the question is, so I'm going to get back to the question," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said in response to Castor's answer.

"Under Article Two, Section Four, a president who is in office must be convicted before removal. And then must be removed before disqualification, OK? But if the president is already out of office, then he can be separately disqualified."

Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, went on to explain that senators could vote to convict and then vote not to disqualify if they didn't want to prevent Trump from reelection.

"If they felt that the evidence demonstrated that the president was guilty of incitement to insurrection, they could vote to convict," Raskin said. "But if they felt that they didn't want to exercise the further power established by the Constitution to disqualify, they wouldn't have to do that."