"He's going to leave the mechanics, the timing and the specifics of how Congress moves forward on impeachment to them".

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell requested the timeline after Democrats earlier in the day said that the House of Representatives could send the impeachment charge - passed last week in response to the deadly storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters - to the Senate as early as Friday. Democrats say lawmakers can move quickly because they were all witnesses to the siege, many of them fleeing for safety as the rioters descended on the Capitol. She said Trump doesn't deserve a "get-out-of-jail card" just because he has left office and Biden and others are calling for national unity.

Donald Trump appears to be finally getting serious about his upcoming impeachment trial.

Last week, Democrats, along with 10 members of the GOP caucus, voted to impeach Trump.

Pelosi said it would be "harmful to unity" to forget that "people died here on January 6th, the attempt to undermine our election, to undermine our democracy, to dishonour our Constitution".

Bowers has represented former Republican governors in SC and served in the US Justice Department under former President George W. Bush, according to his website.

Though Biden's Democratic party holds narrow majorities in the House and Senate, the legislation will likely need bipartisan support to clear procedural hurdles and emerge from the Senate. However, it is considered unlikely that the president would be convicted, with the Senate divided 50-50 between the two parties, and a conviction needing a 2/3 Senate majority vote.

Lawyers had not exactly been lining up for this task of representing Trump in the aftermath of January 6. He also reportedly spoke with him after leaving the White House and arriving at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida on Wednesday. Members of his past legal team have indicated they do not plan to join the effort this time around.

Some Democrats, including House Whip James Clyburn, have proposed that Trump may be removed from office using the 14th Constitutional Amendment, which forbids the holding of office of any person who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" or gives "aid or comfort" to enemies of the state.

"Because I gave an earlier speech [at the January 6 Trump rally], I am a witness and therefore unable to participate in court or Senate chamber", he told the news outlet. This time around, Pelosi noted, the House is not seeking to convict the president over private conversations but for a very public insurrection that they themselves experienced and that played out on live television.

Pelosi added that she was "not worried" about impeachment sowing further diversion.

"It's still unresolved as to when she's sending it over", Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the chamber's No. 2 Democrat, told reporters earlier on Thursday.