Donald Trump on Saturday was acquitted by the US Senate in his second impeachment trial in 12 months, as his fellow Republicans shielded him from accountability for the deadly assault by his supporters on the US Capitol, a shrine of American democracy.
The US Senate vote of 57-43 fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection after a five-day trial in the same building ransacked by his followers on Jan. 6 shortly after they heard him delivery an incendiary speech.
House Democrats began wrapping up their impeachment case against Trump on Saturday after a tumultuous morning in which they gave up a last-minute plan for witness testimony that could have significantly prolonged the trial and delayed a vote on whether the former president incited the deadly Capitol insurrection.
An unexpected morning vote in favor of hearing witnesses threw the trial into confusion just as it was on the verge of concluding. But both sides ultimately reached a deal to instead enter into the record a statement from a Republican House lawmaker about a heated phone call on the day of the riot between Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that Democrats say established Trump’s indifference to the violence.
The nearly weeklong trial has delivers a grim and graphic narrative of the riot and its consequences in ways that senators, most of whom fled for their own safety that day acknowledge they are still coming to grips with.
House prosecutors have argued that Trump’s rallying cry to go to the capital and fight like hell for his presidency just as congress was convening jan6, to certify Biden’ election victory was part of an orchestrated pattern of violence rhetoric and false claims that unleashed the mob. Five people died including a rioter who was shot and a police officer.
Trumps lawyers countered in a short three hours Friday that his words were not intended to incite violence and that impeachment is nothing but a witch hunt designed to prevent him from serving in office again.
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