Republican senators praised Trump’s three-hour defence, during which his lawyers accused House impeachment managers of taking the former president’s words and actions out of context, complained about what they saw as the news media’s unfair coverage of their client and presented many of Trump’s own talking points and narratives.

It was almost as if Trump was delivering his defence himself. And lawmakers praised it as a huge improvement over the rambling and disorganised argument delivered on Tuesday by one of his lawyers, Bruce L. Castor Jr., a performance that was widely panned and infuriated Trump.

The defence lawyers said the House managers manipulated their client’s words and pointed to Trump’s call to his supporters in his January 6 speech to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”.

Castor said, “The House managers took from that: ‘Go down to the Capitol and riot.‘”

But that is not what Trump was asking his supporters to do, Castor said: “He wanted them to support primary challenges.”

The former president stood for law and order, Michael van der Veen, one of Trump’s lawyers, said, picking up a phrase the president has used repeatedly.

“Mr Trump did the opposite of advocating for lawless action, the opposite,” van der Veen said. “He expressly advocated for peaceful action at the Save America rally.”

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin raved about the defence.

“The president’s lawyers blew the House managers’ case out of the water — they just legally eviscerated their case,” he told reporters. Johnson was among the Republican lawmakers who had planned on January 6 to challenge the Electoral College tally of Joe Biden’s victory. But his plans changed after the attack.

“We’ve seen a much stronger presentation from the defence,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, told reporters. Murkowski voted with Democrats to find the Senate trial of a former president constitutional, and Democrats have hoped they could count on her to vote to convict Trump.