WASHINGTON _ Over the last two days, House Democrats have presented compelling evidence in the form of snappy video clips, punchy PowerPoint slides and impassioned oratory, building a case that convicting President Donald Trump and removing him from office is imperative to protect the Constitution and the country.
Next up, Trump's lawyers will get their say.
Beginning Saturday morning, the president's legal team will have 24 hours, split over three days, to argue his defense. And while it's not yet clear if they will use all their allotted time, the outlines of an expected blistering defense moved into sharper focus Friday.
If there is a theme, it may be from Trump's top liaison to lawmakers, Eric Ueland, who was overheard vowing "revenge" as he left the Senate chamber after one of the House presentations.
Alan Dershowitz, the veteran defense attorney who has joined Trump's defense team, won't appear until Monday. He is preparing his hourlong argument in Miami Beach, poring over old legal texts to find support for his position that abuse of power is "too vague" to constitute an impeachable offense.
"I've been sniffling from the dust," he said Friday in a phone interview.
In his view, Democrats have misinterpreted the writings of Alexander Hamilton, who House managers have cited numerous times to make their case that Trump's efforts to seek help from a foreign power _ in this case Ukraine _ in a U.S. election is the classic definition of an impeachable offense.
"His gravest concern was what happened here: a strictly partisan vote in the House. That's not the way he thought impeachment should go," Dershowitz said.
Republican lawmakers claimed to be enthusiastic Friday after House managers had spent a good part of Thursday trying to knock down unsubstantiated allegations that former Vice President Joe Biden engaged in corrupt activity in Ukraine to protect his son, Hunter, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company.
Trump's efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, who is running for president, is key to the article of impeachment for abuse of power, and Democrats clearly sought to inoculate Biden _ and undermine the president's defense _ before Trump's lawyers get to make their case.
Trump's lawyers are expected to argue that Trump's demands to Ukraine to investigate a political rival were legitimate, publicly tarring Biden from the Senate floor days before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses sound the starting gun on the Democratic nomination battle.
"It's been a lot about Joe Biden and Burisma," Jay Sekulow, the president's outside counsel, said of the House managers' case. "They kind of opened the door."
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Trump's most ardent defenders, urged the president's legal team to go after the Bidens' dealings in Ukraine.
"When the (House) managers tell me this has been looked at and debunked _ by who?" Graham said. "That's becoming relevant because they talked about it almost fifty times that the president had no reason to believe that anything improper occurred in the Ukraine with the Bidens. The question is, will that withstand scrutiny?"
He added: "You're going to hear more about that."
During their presentation, the House managers sought to preempt likely defense arguments: that Trump's actions were warranted, that Trump did not commit a crime, and that impeachment is a political vendetta by Democrats seeking to overturn the 2016 election and worried about next fall.
"When the president's counsel now gets up and makes those arguments, every Republican senator and the American people would've heard already why they're utter nonsense," Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., told a news conference Friday before the trial resumed.
Schumer said impeachment was "too important" for White House attorneys to resort to "name-calling" and "conspiracy theories" when it's their turn.
He also lay down a challenge for Republican lawmakers to allow for witnesses, noting that four Republicans would have to switch sides and vote with the 47 Democrats to make that happen.
"We're seeking the truth at a momentous time in the American republic," Schumer said. "It is on the shoulders of four Republican senators to join us in demanding it. Will four Republican senators, just four, rise to the occasion, do their duty to the constitution and to their country to seek the truth?"
Trump, who is intensely focused on media coverage and its effect on public opinion, has tried to counter-program this week's impeachment proceedings.
He spent two days at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, returning on Wednesday night after firing off 142 tweets and retweets, a personal record for the president, mostly about the impeachment. He will speak Friday at the March for Life on the National Mall, the first president to do so.
In an unusual flurry of activity, administration issued new rules that weakened water protection for the nation's wetlands and streams, and threatened to cut federal funds to California over its mandate that insurers cover abortion.
And next week, as the Senate trial continues, he will play host to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, and will sign a revised trade pact with Canada and Mexico on Wednesday.
But even as he seeks to divert public attention, he remains intensely focused on the trial, eager for a robust in the Senate and on TV. In a tweet Friday, he complained about the Saturday morning opening slot for his lawyers, although the schedule was set by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
"After having been treated unbelievably unfairly in the House, and then having to endure hour after hour of lies, fraud & deception by Shifty Schiff, Cryin' Chuck Schumer & their crew, looks like my lawyers will be forced to start on Saturday, which is called Death Valley in T.V.," Trump tweeted.
