![]() ![]() The House impeached Trump in his final days in office, on one charge of “incitement of insurrection” of the siege on the US Capitol. The decision leave him free to pursue another tilt at the White House in 2024, though polling suggests the violent end to his presidency left his reputation badly damaged. Trump was the first US president to be impeached twice and is now the first president to be twice acquitted. “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun,” he declared triumphantly. ![]() In his statement, Trump expressed no remorse and made no mention of the violence that unfolded in his name, but signaled his desire to remain a political force within the party. Moments after the “not guilty” verdict was announced, a defiant Trump thanked Republicans who stood by him and decried what he called “yet another phase of the greatest witch-hunt in the history of our country”. “We don’t censure people for inciting insurrection.” “We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose,” she said, her voice rising in indignation. Photograph: Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty Images “He didn’t get away with anything yet.”Īt a news conference after the vote, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, denounced as “cowardly” the Republicans who voted to spare Trump on procedural grounds and said she would refuse to entertain their calls for a censure. “President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he’s in office,” McConnell said. In a floor speech after the vote, Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, said Trump’s conduct preceding the assault on the Capitol amounted to a “disgraceful dereliction of duty” by the former president, who he held “practically, and morally, responsible for provoking the events of the day”īut McConnell concluded that the Senate was never meant to serve as a “moral tribunal” and suggested instead that Trump could still face criminal prosecution. Instead, they relied on a technical argument, advanced by his attorneys and rejected by a majority of the Senate as well as leading constitutional scholars, that the proceedings were unconstitutional because Trump was no longer in office. ![]() Though many Republicans explicitly supported – or implicitly indulged – Trump’s baseless claim of a stolen election, few defended his actions during the trial. “President Trump must be convicted, for the safety and democracy of our people.”įrom the outset, Trump’s allies in the Senate made clear they had no intention of convicting him. “If this is not a high crime and misdemeanor against the United States of America then nothing is,” congressman Jaime Raskin, the lead manager, pleaded with senators in the final moments before they rendered their judgments as jurors and witnesses. Trump’s acquittal came after grave warnings from the nine Democratic House impeachment managers, serving as prosecutors, that Trump continued to pose a threat to the nation and democracy itself. Still shaken by the deadly riot that threatened America’s commitment to a peaceful transfer of power, senators of both parties were eager to turn the page. The swift conclusion of the Senate trial, only the fourth presidential impeachment in American history – and Trump’s second in just over a year – capped one of the most tumultuous chapters in the nation’s political history. The outcome, which was never in doubt, reflected both the still raw anger of senators over Trump’s conduct as his supporters stormed the Capitol last month – and the vice-like grip the defeated president still holds over his party.Īmong the Republicans willing to defy him were Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. The 57-43 vote was most bipartisan support for conviction ever in a presidential impeachment trial. Seven Republicans joined every Democrat to declare Trump guilty on the charge of “incitement of insurrection” after his months-long quest to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden and its deadly conclusion on 6 January, when Congress met to formalize the election results. A conviction would have allowed the Senate to vote to disqualify him from holding future office. After just five days of debate in the chamber that was the scene of last month’s invasion, a divided Senate fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to convict high crimes and misdemeanors.
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