Donald Trump's entire lawyer team resigns

The team, led by South Carolina lawyer Butch Bowers, resigned due to disagreements over Trump's defence approach, sources said. Lawyers had planned to argue the constitutionality of maintaining a trial, since Trump is now a former president.

Disagreements over the strategy changed, sources told ABC News, but Trump wanted his team to argue there was fraud in the election, while lawyers and some senior former president councillors wanted the focus to remain on constitutionalising a trial with the president no longer in the office.

A source near the former presidents described the change as a “mutual decision” between the parties.

Trump stands accused of “inciting the uprising” following the violent siege in the US Capitol that left one police officer and four others dead. The violence, which took place on 6 January, was preceded by a Trump rally when he told his supporters to head to the Capitol and repeatedly said they must fight for it.

“The Democrats' attempts to blame a president who has already left office is totally unconstitutional and so bad for our country. In fact, 45 senators have already voted that it is unconstitutional. We've done a lot of work, but we haven't made a final decision on our legal team, which will soon become”, said Jason Miller, Trump's spokesman for ABC News on Saturday.

The Senate trial is scheduled to begin on 8 February. Two-thirds of the Senate, or 67 senators, will have to vote for the Trump sentence to succeed. That means 17 republican senators will have to go to the side of the semicratics.