Former president Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team will finish its case Friday, Trump’s senior adviser Jason Miller wrote in a tweet Thursday.

That means Trump’s defense team will use less than two days to defend the former president, who was impeached last month for inciting an insurrection. House impeachment managers are expected to wrap up their arguments Thursday after beginning on Wednesday. The trial could now conclude as soon as this weekend after Trump attorney David Schoen, an observant Jew, withdrew a request to not work sundown Friday through Saturday.

This trial is all but certain to be shorter than Trump’s first impeachment trial in 2020. Trump is widely expected to be acquitted, with Senate Republicans signaling they will not vote to convict Trump. The Senate voted Tuesday that the trial was constitutional, with six GOP Senators joining Democrats. A conviction would require votes from all 50 Democrats plus 17 Republicans.

While the president's acquittal is likely, Trump’s attorneys, Bruce Castor and Schoen, have faced criticism, including from the former president himself, for a meandering performance on Tuesday.

One of the Republican senators who voted that the trial was constitutional, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, said that Trump’s defense did a “terrible job,” arguing that they “didn’t talk about the issue at hand” and “had nothing,” Cassidy said. The Louisiana Republican had previously voted that the trial was unconstitutional.

“If anyone disagrees with my vote and would like an explanation, I ask them to listen to the arguments presented by the House Managers and former President Trump’s lawyers,” Cassidy wrote in a statement. “The House managers had much stronger constitutional arguments. The president’s team did not.”

Schoen defended the team's performance speaking with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Tuesday, saying the team "will be very well prepared in the future."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she will introduce legislation to award Congress' highest honor to Capitol Police and other law enforcement that protected the Capitol from rioters last month.

“It has been such a sad time for us, but as we see what is being presented, we also see the extraordinary valor of the Capitol police, who risked and gave their lives to save our Capitol, our democracy, our lives. They are martyrs for our democracy, those who lost their lives,” Pelosi said at a news conference where she announced plans to award the Congressional Gold Medal. “We must always remember their sacrifice ... We will never forget."

Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was among those who died after suffering injuries during the deadly insurrection. Sicknick laid in honor at the U.S. Capitol last week. Two police officers have also died by suicide since responding to the Capitol insurrection.

The announcement comes amid the Senate’s impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, who has been charged with inciting the insurrection.

Impeachment managers unveiled new footage Wednesday showing Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman directing Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) to safety while Goodman was rushing to respond to rioters breaching the Capitol. Rioters were “just feet” from the Senate chamber, Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) said Wednesday.

Goodman had previously earned praise for diverting rioters away from the Senate chamber, prompting some lawmakers to call for him to receive a Congressional Gold Medal. Pelosi said she wanted to recognize Goodman for his “valor.”

“We want to honor them in the best way that we possibly can, and we will continue to do so beyond a medal, but in our hearts,” Pelosi said.

House impeachment managers unveiled new footage of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, including film of Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman pointing Sen. Mitt Romney to safety and former Vice President Mike Pence being evacuated.

The new video, displayed next to a map of the Capitol building, underscores just how close rioters got to lawmakers during the deadly insurrection. Rioters were within 100 feet of Pence and his family and "just feet" from the Senate chamber, Del. Stacey Plaskett said.

The first new video shown, presented by Plaskett of the Virgin Islands, showed one officer trying to fend off rioters breaching the Capitol near the Senate chamber. The officer tried to spray a rioter entering, but a surge of rioters quickly overcame him. Some were wearing body armor and some had riot shields, while one had a baseball bat, Plaskett said. Among them were members of the Proud Boys, she said.

Another new video showed Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman sprinting to respond to the security breach, pointing to Romney and directing for him to leave for safety. Goodman has previously been praised for getting the mob away from the Senate chamber, with some lawmakers calling for him to get the Congressional Gold Medal.

Another new video showed Goodman "provok[ing]" rioters towards fellow officers, all while Pence was still not in a secure location, Plaskett said. More footage showed Pence and his family being evacuated down a set of stairs.

During that time, rioters were flowing throughout the Capitol, looking for Pence, Plaskett said.

“The mob was looking for Vice President Pence because of his patriotism, because the Vice President had refused to do what the president demanded and overturn the election results,” Plaskett said.

During the insurrection, rioters had set up gallows and chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”

More security footage shows House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s staff moving to a conference room where they hid. Seven minutes after they barricaded themselves, rioters came into the hallway, Plaskett said.

One rioter broke open an outer door to the conference room, but was unable to get through an inner door. Another tried and failed to break into the inner door later on. “They’re pounding on doors trying to find [Pelosi],” a staffer said in a recording that Plaskett showed.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager and a former constitutional law professor, introduced one of his former students as a fellow impeachment manager Wednesday at the Senate trial — Del. Stacey Plaskett.

Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who taught constitutional law at American University’s Washington College of Law for more than 25 years, said he instructed Plaskett, who earned her degree in 1994 from the school.

“I hope I’m not violating any federal education records laws when I say she was an ‘A’ student then and she is an ‘A+’ student now,” Raskin said before ceding the floor to Plaskett.

Plaskett, a Democrat who represents the Virgin Islands, went on to continue the managers’ case against former President Donald Trump, who has been charged with inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. During her speech, she accused Trump of knowing that the deadly riot on Jan. 6 was foreseeable, arguing it was part of a months-long campaign to rile up violent supporters and send them “straight at our door.”

“When the violence erupted as a response to his calls to fight against the stolen election, he did not walk it back. He did not tell them no. He did the opposite. The opposite. He praised and encouraged the violence so it would continue. He fanned the flame of violence and it worked,” Plaskett said.

Plaskett pointed to Trump’s call for the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” when asked to condemn white supremacists as evidence that Trump incited the Proud Boys, showing video of Trump's quote from a presidential debate. Several members of the Proud Boys have been charged in connection with the insurrection.

Louisiana's state Republican Party said Tuesday that it was “profoundly disappointed” in Sen. Bill Cassidy’s vote that the impeachment trial over former President Donald Trump is constitutional, joining several other state parties which have criticized or censured lawmakers for their votes against the former president.

“The Republican Party of Louisiana is profoundly disappointed by Senator Bill Cassidy’s vote,” the party said in a statement Tuesday. “We feel that an impeachment trial of a private citizen is not only an unconstitutional act, but also an attack on the very foundation of American democracy, which will have far reaching and unforeseen consequences for our republic.”

The party said that Trump was “innocent of the politically motivated, bogus charges” brought by a “kangaroo court” and praised Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) for voting that the trial was unconstitutional.

Cassidy (R-La.) was one of six Senate Republicans who voted with Democrats Tuesday to affirm the Senate’s authority to hold Trump’s impeachment trial for inciting an insurrection. Cassidy was lone GOP lawmaker to switch positions after previously voting that the Senate impeachment trial was not constitutional.

Cassidy defended his decision Tuesday, arguing that House impeachment managers made a better case than Trump’s defense, which he said did “a terrible job.” Trump’s attorneys, Bruce Castor and David Schoen, “didn’t talk about the issue at hand” and “had nothing,” Cassidy said.

“A sufficient amount of evidence of constitutionality exists for the Senate to proceed with the trial. This vote is not a prejudgment on the final vote to convict,” Cassidy wrote in a statement. “If anyone disagrees with my vote and would like an explanation, I ask them to listen to the arguments presented by the House Managers and former President Trump’s lawyers. The House managers had much stronger constitutional arguments. The president’s team did not.”

Trump himself was not pleased with his defense attorneys, who made weaving arguments at times.

With the Republican party in the midst of a conflict between Trump loyalists and those less eager to fully embrace the former president in the aftermath of his single term in office, several state parties have chastised lawmakers seen as insufficiently loyal to Trump.

The Wyoming Republican Party voted Saturday to censure Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) for voting to impeach Trump, and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) faces potential censure from the Nebraska GOP's central committee for not backing Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

Sasse responded the committee in a sharply-worded video.

"Politics isn’t about the weird worship of one dude,” Sasse said. “The party can purge Trump skeptics. But I’d like to convince you that not only is that civic cancer for the nation, it’s just terrible for our party.”

The Arizona Republican Party censured GOP Gov. Doug Ducey after he didn't back Trump's election subversion bid. The party also censured former Sen. Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain, Sen. John McCain's widow, after they endorsed Joe Biden for president.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead House impeachment manager, gave an emotional speech during former President Trump’s Senate trial on Tuesday, remembering his late son, whom he buried the day before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and breaking down while talking about being separated from his daughter during the deadly siege.

Raskin’s son, Tommy, who was 25, died by suicide on Dec. 31 and was buried on Jan. 5. The next day, after what the lawmaker called “the saddest day of our lives,” Raskin took his youngest daughter, Tabitha, 24, and son-in-law, Hank, to the Capitol to watch the counting of the electoral votes, he said in the speech Tuesday. He said he considers Hank, the husband of his oldest daughter, a “son, too, even though he eloped with my daughter and didn’t tell us what they were going to do,” to laughter from the audience.

Before they went to the Capitol that day, they asked the Maryland Democrat whether it would be safe, with Trump calling on followers to come to Washington in protest. They wanted to be with him during such a difficult week for the family.

“Of course it should be safe,” Raskin said he told them. “This is the Capitol.”

Jan. 6 started out as a day of being “lifted up from the agony” of his son’s death, he said, with dozens of lawmakers visiting him, Tabitha and Hank in House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office.

And amid Trump’s attempts to subvert the results of the election, Raskin said that through his tears, he was writing a speech quoting Abraham Lincoln and calling for unity for the House ahead of the counting of the votes, a speech that he ended up giving just before rioters stormed the Capitol.

Tabitha and Hank were watching the speech from the gallery and went back to Hoyer’s office after it ended. But Raskin couldn’t get back to the office before the rioters had gotten into the Capitol.

“It was too late. I couldn’t get out there to be with them in that office,” Raskin said.

People were calling their family members, saying what they thought were their last goodbyes. The new chaplain said a prayer for everyone. Then all were told to put on their gas masks before Raskin heard a sound he said he’d never forget: pounding on the door “like a battering ram.”

“It’s the most haunting sound I ever heard, and I will never forget it,” Raskin said.

Meanwhile, Tabitha and Hank were locked and hiding in the office with Raskin’s chief of staff, sending what they thought were goodbye texts and making quiet calls, he said.

More than an hour later, they were reunited. Raskin hugged them and said he was sorry, vowing to Tabitha that it wouldn’t happen again the next time she returned to the Capitol.

“Dad, I don’t want to come back to the Capitol,” she said, which Raskin choked up while recounting.

“Of all of the terrible, brutal things that I saw and I heard on that day, and since then, that one hit me the hardest,” Raskin said.

“That and watching someone use an American flagpole, with the flag still on it, to spear and pummel one of our police officers ruthlessly, mercilessly tortured by a pole with a flag on it that he was defending with his very life,” Raskin said.

Raskin then urged the Senate to vote to rule Trump’s impeachment constitutional, saying the Senate shouldn’t create a “January exception;" many Republicans have argued Trump can’t be impeached because he is no longer president.

“Senators, this cannot be our future,” Raskin said, sniffling. “This cannot be the future of America. We cannot have presidents inciting and mobilizing mob violence against our government and our institutions because they refuse to accept the will of the people under the Constitution of the United States.”

Trump is facing a Senate impeachment trial that began Tuesday, as the former president has been charged with inciting the deadly insurrection at the Capitol. Jan. 6. On Tuesday, the Senate is voting on whether the trial should proceed.

“History does not support a January exception in any way, so why would we invent one for the future?” Raskin said.

Donald Trump’s lead impeachment attorney on Friday suggested he’ll take aim at Democrats’ own words in his arguments during the former president's Senate impeachment trial next week.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked Trump attorney Bruce Castor if he'll be using “dueling video” with Democrats expected to make their case that Trump incited the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection by using video clips of rioters and Trump’s rally remarks on the Ellipse.

“Will you then respond with Maxine Waters, a number of other Democrat officials not speaking out about the Antifa and other extremist rallies over the last summer?” Ingraham asked.

“I think you can count on that,” Castor said. “If my eyes look a little red to the viewers, it's because I've been looking at a lot of video.”

Earlier in the segment with Ingraham, Castor alleged “there’s a lot of tape of cities burning and courthouses being attacked and federal agents being assaulted by rioters in the streets, cheered on by Democrats throughout the country,” seemingly referring to ongoing unrest in Portland, Ore.

Trump repeatedly pushed hard against the nationwide racial justice protests last year, railing in particular against the Black Lives Matter movement.

Portland saw more than 100 days of protest around a federal courthouse in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in May. Trump misleadingly blamed violence in the city on the far left while downplaying far-right groups' role.

Castor, who will defend Trump alongside attorney David Schoen, continued: “Many of them in Washington are using really the most inflammatory rhetoric possible to use. And certainly there would be no suggestion that they did anything to incite any of the actions."

“But here, when you have the president of the United States give a speech and says that you should peacefully make your thinking known to the people in Congress, he's all of a sudden a villain. You better be careful what you wish for,” he continued.

House impeachment managers have argued that Trump's speech at the Capitol Jan. 6 "foreseeably resulted in" the riots, specifically pointing to Trump saying that "if you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore."

Rep. Waters (D-Calif.) in 2018 called on supporters at a rally to confront Trump officials in public to protest the Trump administration's child separation policy, which many Republicans have pointed to in defense of Trump.

Any move to use Democrats' words against them might not take center stage, though. Castor told Ingraham that the “primary issue” will be the argument that the Senate can’t impeach Trump because he is no longer in office. Most Senate Republicans voted last week in favor of a motion saying that the Senate trial was unconstitutional because Trump is no longer president.

“By the House impeachment resolution logic, they can go back and impeach Abraham Lincoln,” Castor told Ingraham. "They could impeach Donald Trump if he was dead because he's not in office."

Republican senators have urged Trump not to focus on false claims about the election in his defense. But in a brief, Trump's legal team denied that Trump attempted to subvert the election results and said Trump had a First Amendment right to give his opinion about them. Castor said on Fox earlier on Friday that there have been many “misstatements” about the brief’s claims, which argue that Trump's claims that he won "in a landslide" weren't false.

“I don't have to prove that he was accurate,” Castor said. “All I have to say is you prove that they were false.”

Castor and Schoen were not originally on Trump’s defense team, as Trump’s first team left after disagreeing over whether to wade into Trump’s election claims. A spokesperson for Trump has previously said he “will not testify in an unconstitutional proceeding.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Wednesday that Republicans fearful of casting a vote to impeach President Donald Trump are privileged to not face more regular threats for their work on Capitol Hill.

House Democrats have signaled in recent days that their Republican colleagues are fearful that a vote to impeach the president might incur threats against themselves and their families. Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive and one of the most high-profile lawmakers on Capitol Hill, has said that death threats are “a normal part of [her] existence.”

“I get it, but some of us just spent the last 2 years taking stances that have led to repeated attempts on our lives - for demanding guaranteed healthcare, immigrant justice, etc,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote in a tweet Wednesday afternoon, reacting to reports of trepidation within the GOP caucus. “Sorry if this lacks empathy, but it’s a privilege if this is their first time. They can do one vote.”

“Many of them rode the wave of this violent rhetoric, or at the very least sat idly by it. Now is our chance to stop it,” Ocasio-Cortez continued in a second post. “This is what we are sent to Congress to do - the tough stuff. All the easy choices are taken. If any GOP need advice on how to deal with it, they can call me.”

The House is set to impeach President Donald Trump Wednesday afternoon for for “willful incitement of insurrection" after pro-Trump rioters violently stormed the Capitol last week. Trump had addressed many of the rioters earlier that day, imploring them to march to the Capitol and "show strength."

Some Republicans in the House have voiced support for impeachment, including House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise are both against impeaching Trump. House Freedom Caucus Member Jim Jordan called for Cheney's removal from leadership due to her impeachment stance.

Ocasio-Cortez was been joined by other Democrats in her sentiments Wednesday.

“Welcome to the club,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said on MSNBC Wednesday morning, addressing fears he said he'd enountered among his GOP colleagues. “That’s leadership. Our country is in a challenging time. Many of us have felt that way for a long time because we’ve stood up for our democracy and we expect them to do the same.

Crow said that while he was not unsympathetic, he had many conversations with Republican lawmakers Tuesday night, including “a couple” with those who he said broke down in tears in fear of their lives if they voted to impeach Trump. He said a majority of GOP lawmakers are “paralyzed with fear.”

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a House impeachment manager, said on MSNBC Wednesday morning that he had also heard Republicans fearful for their safety, but said that the fear only “enables” Trump.

“It inspires his supporters to believe they can do this again,” Swalwell said. “You just have to stand up to the bully who incited this attack. I understand the fear, but I don’t think the fear should guide any decision-making.”

Conservative hard-liners are moving against House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney after she pledged to impeach President Donald Trump — the first serious signs of blowback since she made her position public.

Less than 24 hours after Cheney said she would vote to remove Trump from office for his role in the deadly Capitol riots, some of the president’s closest allies are now taking steps to oust the No. 3 Republican from leadership.

Members of the Freedom Caucus began circulating a petition Wednesday to force a special conference meeting so they could debate and vote on a resolution calling on Cheney to resign from her post. Just 20 percent, or 42 members, of the House GOP is required to sign the petition in order to force the meeting. But a majority of the conference would need to agree to the resolution in order for it to be adopted. That vote would be conducted via secret ballot.

“The conference ought to vote on that,” Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), a co-founder of the arch-conservative caucus, said in the Capitol on Wednesday. “We ought to have a second vote.” Cheney was just unanimously reelected to her position in November.

The resolution obtained by POLITICO states that Cheney’s position “does not reflect that of the majority of the Republican Conference and has brought the Conference into disrepute and produced discord.”

Cheney, however, made clear she has no intentions of leaving voluntarily.

"I'm not going anywhere. This is a vote of conscience,” she told POLITICO in the Capitol. “It's one where there are different views in our conference. But our nation is facing an unprecedented, since the civil war, constitutional crisis.

“That's what we need to be focused on,” she added. “That's where our efforts and attention need to be."

Meanwhile, GOP Rep. John Katko of New York— who also voted for impeachment — began circulating a letter Wednesday expressing support for Cheney and rejecting the calls for her step down, according to a copy obtained by POLITICO.

The pushback from the party’s right flank underscores how supporting Trump’s removal may still be a politically toxic move in the GOP, even after he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol. Aside from facing condemnation from their colleagues, Republicans who vote to impeach could also find themselves the subject of pro-Trump primary challenges.

Besides Cheney and Katko, just eight other Republicans voted Wednesday to impeach Trump: Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan, Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Dan Newhouse of Washington, David Valadao of California, Tom Rice of South Carolina, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Peter Meijer of Michigan.

Yet Cheney has told colleagues she wants to be on the right side of history and has framed it as a “vote of conscience” in private conversations, according to sources.

Cheney, who is the highest-ranking Republican to publicly back impeachment, released a statement Tuesday explaining her support for Trump’s impeachment, saying he “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack” on the U.S. Capitol last week.

“There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” she said.

Cheney’s stance puts her directly at odds with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) — both of whom oppose impeachment — and sets up a dramatic rift in GOP leadership.

Some in the GOP conference are frustrated with all its leaders.

"I think that when Kevin and Steve supported an unconstitutional challenge to the election, and when [Liz Cheney] is supporting a constitutionally flawed impeachment, we have leadership issues," Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) told reporters.

McCarthy declined to answer questions from reporters Wednesday about whether he thinks Cheney deserves to remain in leadership. But one plugged-in House Republican, who is not a member of the Freedom Caucus and doesn’t want to see Cheney step down, predicted that the majority of the GOP conference will support booting her from leadership.

Cheney’s allies, however, expect her to remain safe, and also argue it would be a bad look for the GOP to punish Cheney and not Trump.

Other Republicans came to Cheney’s defense Wednesday, including freshman Rep. Nancy Mace. The South Carolina Republican is not voting to impeach Trump, but she’s been critical of the president and her GOP colleagues for their role in the crisis.

“We should not be silencing voices of dissent,” Mace said. “That is one of the reasons we are in this today, is that we have allowed QAnon conspiracy theorists to lead us.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) also rejected calls for Cheney to step down even though they differed on impeachment. "Liz should be commended, not condemned, for standing up in defense of the Constitution and standing true to her beliefs," he said.

And Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) tweeted that Cheney "has a hell of a lot more backbone than most" and "will continue to be a much needed leader in the conference, with my full support."

"We can disagree without tearing each other apart," he added.

Aside from backing impeachment, Cheney also irked some of her colleagues for taking such a public stance against challenging the election results ahead of the Jan. 6 vote, even sending a 21-page memo arguing why objecting to president-elect Joe Biden’s victory would be unconstitutional. Over 120 House Republicans ended up joining in on the objections.

The same Republicans who backed the president’s baseless election fraud allegations, which fueled the deadly siege of the Capitol, are now leading the charge against Cheney. But some of those lawmakers are now facing calls for censure, resignation or investigation for their own roles.

The episode is just the latest chapter in the ongoing clash between Cheney and the right wing of the House GOP conference. While Cheney has long pushed back on Trump over foreign policy and national security issues, hard-liners began to turn on her last summer when she criticized Trump’s handling of the coronavirus and also backed a primary opponent to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

At the time, some conservatives even discussed recruiting someone to challenge her for conference chair, but it never came to fruition; Cheney was unanimously selected in November to serve another two-year term in leadership.

But some Republicans expressed regret that they didn’t force a roll call vote after she put out a statement calling on Trump to respect the “sanctity” of the election if he can’t prove his voter fraud claims in court. The Freedom Caucus, a band of roughly 30 conservative hard-liners, make up a key voting bloc in the House GOP, though their power has waned in the minority.

“She should not be serving this conference,” said Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). “That’s it.”

Ben Leonard and Olivia Beavers contributed to this report.