Seven Republicans had joined Democrats in voting to convict Donald Trump. (Archive)
Washington:
Former United States President Donald Trump survived a second impeachment trial Saturday when the Senate cleared him of the charge of incitement to insurrection, ending Democratic efforts to hold the former president accountable for the deadly unrest on Capitol Hill.
The five-day trial, in which Democratic impeachment managers argued that Trump betrayed his oath by urging his supporters to storm Congress in an attempt to block the certification of the November election, ended with an insufficient majority of 57 -43 senators who voted to convict.
It was the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history, with seven Republicans breaking ranks to join the 50 Democrats seeking conviction, a permanent dark stain for a former president who may still seek to run for office again.
But two-thirds of the house, or 67 senators, are needed to convict, and the Senate was ultimately unwilling to punish the former president.
In Trump’s historic second impeachment trial, senators for the first time were not just jurors, but witnesses to the assault at the center of the impeachment against Trump.
Democrats argued that Trump’s behavior was an “open and closed” example of a chargeable crime, saying that as president he repeated the falsehood that the election was stolen, then urged his supporters to attack Congress and stop the certification of the vote.
“He summoned his supporters to Washington, on the Ellipse, enraged them and led them to the Capitol,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote.
The defense team removed that evidence, insisting that the Senate did not have constitutional jurisdiction to try a former president. Most of the Republican senators agreed.
Trump, who has been held at his Florida club since leaving office on January 20, issued a statement thanking the verdict and calling the process “one more phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country. country”.
The 74-year-old Republican also hinted at a possible political future and “continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people.”
“We have a lot of work ahead of us and we will soon emerge with the vision of a bright, radiant and limitless American future,” Trump said.
“It never happened”
Democrats described how Trump refused to end the January 6 uprising on Capitol Hill that left then-Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers in mortal danger.
But the defense team repeatedly proclaimed Trump’s innocence, insisting that “the act of incitement never happened” and the rioters acted alone.
With the influential Republican minority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, revealing that he would vote against convicting Trump, the case leaned even further toward acquittal.
Before moving on to closing arguments, proceedings were interrupted for a few hours when the House impeachment managers, in a surprise move, said they wanted to call witnesses at trial.
Senior manager Jamie Raskin, a Democratic congressman, said he wanted to call a Republican lawmaker as a witness, but ultimately agreed with Trump’s defense attorneys only for a statement from her to become evidence.
Trump’s attorneys had in response threatened to call their own witnesses, including Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others in a process that could have dragged on the trial for days, if not weeks.
Raskin wanted Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler, a Republican who voted to impeach Trump last month, to testify after she released a statement about a notable exchange on January 6.
In his statement that went on the record, he said House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had made a frantic call to Trump as the attack continued and implored him to call off the rioters.
Instead, Trump falsely blamed other groups, not his own supporters, for violating the Capitol, Herrera Beutler said.
“McCarthy refuted that and told the president that they were Trump supporters,” the congresswoman said.
“That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said, ‘Well, Kevin, I think these people are more upset about the election than you,'” he said.
“Willfully betrayed”
Democrats pounced on his statement.
“There can be no doubt that at the time when we most needed a president to preserve, protect and defend us, President Trump deliberately betrayed us,” impeachment manager David Cicilline told the Senate, adding that Trump “violated his oath.” in office.
Trump was indicted by the Democrat-controlled House on January 13 for inciting attack by his supporters, who sought to block Congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory on November 3.
Trump’s defense attorneys argued Friday that the former president is not responsible for the attack on Congress and concluded his presentation in just three hours.
This followed two days of testing by Democrats focused on heartbreaking video footage of the mob storming the Capitol.
Trump’s defense attorneys called the indictment unconstitutional and an “act of political revenge.”
They argued that Trump’s Jan.6 speech near the White House that preceded the attack, when he told his supporters to “fight like hell,” was merely rhetorical.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
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