Live impeachment trial: US Senate votes to acquit Donald Trump

The United States Senate voted to absolve former President Donald Trump of inciting last month’s insurrection on Capitol Hill, concluding a historic impeachment that exposed the fragility of America’s democratic traditions and left a divided nation to accept the violence sparked by his defeated presidency.

The vote was 57 to 43, less than the 67 votes required for conviction. Seven Republicans parted ways with their party to find Trump guilty. It was the shortest impeachment trial in American history, lasting just five days.

Trump welcomed the acquittal in a lengthy statement praising the Senate verdict. “This has been another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country,” the statement read. “No president has been through something like this.”

The statement continues: “Our historic, patriotic, and beautiful movement to make America great again has just begun.”

After voting to acquit Trump for inciting the insurrection, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell condemned the former president, calling him “practically and morally responsible” for the riots.

Republicans have been eager to finish the trial and move on from discussing Trump and the insurrection on Capitol Hill. Democrats also have reason to move forward, as the Senate is unable to move forward with new President Joe Biden’s agenda, including relief from Covid-19, while the impeachment process is in session.

The vote on whether or not to convict the 45th president comes after a tumultuous morning in which prosecutors gave up on a last-minute plan for witness testimony that could have significantly prolonged the trial and delayed a vote.

An unexpected morning vote in favor of hearing witnesses confused the fair trial as it was about to conclude. But both sides eventually reached an agreement to instead record a statement by a Republican lawmaker about a heated phone call on the day of the riots between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that according to the Democrats it established Trump’s indifference towards violence.

The controversy centered on whether to subpoena Jaime Herrera Beutler from Washington state, one of 10 Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment in the House. She said in a statement Friday night that Trump rejected a plea from McCarthy to stop the rioters.

Democrats see it as key corroborative evidence confirming “willful abandonment of duty and abandonment of duty as the president’s commander-in-chief.” The situation was resolved when Herrera Beutler’s statement about the call was read aloud in the record for the senators to consider as evidence. As part of the deal, Democrats withdrew their planned deposition and Republicans dropped their threat to call their own witnesses.

The case then proceeded to closing arguments, where Democrats again alleged that Trump was responsible for the deadly siege on January 6 the day the Senate certified the election results. “He abused his office by siding with the insurgents on almost every point, instead of the United States Congress, instead of the Constitution,” said Jamie Raskin, the House’s chief impeachment director.

Raskin previously said witnesses were needed to determine Trump’s role in inciting the riot. Fifty-five senators voted in favor of his motion to consider witnesses, including Susan Collins from Maine, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, Ben Sasse from Nebraska and Mitt Romney from Utah. Once they did, Lindsey Graham from South Carolina changed her vote to join them in voting 55-45.

Trump’s lawyers objected to calling witnesses, and attorney Michael van der Veen said that would open the door for him to call about 100 of his own. He said depositions could be done at his law office in Philadelphia, prompting laughter from senators.

“If you vote for witnesses,” Van der Veen said, crossing his arms and then raising them in the air for emphasis, “don’t handcuff me by limiting the number of witnesses I can have.”

The result of the crude and emotional process reflected a country divided over the former president and the future of his politics. The verdict could influence not only Trump’s political future, but also that of senators who vowed to provide impartial justice as jurors.

“If we don’t fix this and call it what it was, the greatest of the constitutional crimes committed by the president of the United States, the past will not have passed,” another impeachment manager, Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, told senators. “The past will become our future.”

The nearly week-long trial has delivered a grim and graphic narrative of the riots and its aftermath in a way that senators, most of whom fled for their own safety that day, acknowledge they are still grappling with.

House prosecutors have argued that Trump’s rallying cry to go to Capitol Hill and “fight like hell” for his presidency was part of an orchestrated pattern of violent rhetoric and false claims that unleashed the mob. Five people were killed, including a rioter who was shot and a police officer.

Trump’s lawyers responded within a brief space of three hours Friday that Trump’s words were not intended to incite violence and that the impeachment is nothing more than a “witch hunt” designed to prevent a reoccupation. The charge.

Just by watching the graphic videos, the rioters shouting menacingly for the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the vote count, did senators say that they began to understand how dangerously close the country was. of chaos.

Hundreds of rioters stormed the building and took over the Senate. Some participated in bloody hand-to-hand combat with the police.

Many Republicans representing states where the former president remains popular doubt whether Trump was fully responsible or whether impeachment is the appropriate response. Democrats seem almost united by conviction.

Trump’s lawyers have strongly denied that the former president incited the riots, playing out-of-context video clips showing Democrats, some of them senators now serving as juries, and also telling supporters to “fight back,” with the goal of establishing a parallel with the overheated rhetoric.

“This is ordinary political rhetoric,” van der Veen said. “Countless politicians have spoken of fighting for our principles.” Democratic senators shook their heads at what many called a false equivalency to their own fierce words.

Trump is the only president to have been indicted twice and the first to face trial charges after leaving office.

Unlike Trump’s impeachment trial last year in the Ukraine case, a complicated charge of corruption and obstruction over his attempts to get the foreign ally to dig up dirt on then-campaign rival Biden, this one brought an emotional blow over unexpected vulnerability. US tradition of peaceful elections.