Donald Trump has been cleared off of any wrongdoing in his Senate trial on both of the articles of impeachment, he faced. This puts an end to the threat that he would be removed from office and concludes the impeachment process.
Voting largely along party lines, the senators found Trump not guilty of the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, by a 52-48 tally, and not guilty of the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress, by a 53-47 tally.
His makes Trump the third president in US history to be impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted in a Senate trial. A two-thirds majority of 67 senators would have been required to remove him.
As the historic vote landed, Democrats protested Trump had not won a true acquittal because, in the words of Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the trial was “a show trial”. The acquittal votes came after the chamber’s Republican majority defeated an effort to call witnesses at the trial who could have testified directly to Trump’s alleged misconduct.
Trump’s legal defence in the Senate trial had argued that House Democrats did not sufficiently prove that Trump engaged in the pressure campaign.
Even if Trump did what House Democrats accused him of, many Republicans said it was not a serious enough offence to remove him from office or ban him from running again with only nine months to go before the next US presidential election.
Several Republican senators said the House proved its case and they expressed disapproval of the president’s conduct.
Republican Mitt Romney of Utah was the only Republican to vote in favor of convicting Trump – and he became the only senator in history to vote to remove a president from his own party in an impeachment trial. Romney voted “guilty” on article 1, for abuse of power, and “not guilty” on article 2, for obstruction of Congress.
“I support a great deal of what the president has done,” Romney said on the Senate floor. “But my promise before God to apply impartial justice required that I put my personal feelings and political biases aside.
“The president is guilty of a flagrant abuse of public trust … Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.”
Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said in a statement, “it was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation.”
Taking to twitter after the historic vote, Trump said he would be addressing the nation tomorrow “to discuss our Country’s VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!”
Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani took to Twitter following the news, writing: “Acquitted for life!”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former press secretary, echoed Giuliani’s sentiments.”President @realDonaldTrump acquitted, vindicated, and more strongly positioned than ever to win re-election,” she wrote.
Kamala Harris, who pulled out of the race for the Democratic candidacy race in December, slammed the Senate for failing “to hold Trump accountable”.
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, also expressed her disapproval at the handling of the trial.
“The President will boast that he has been acquitted. There can be no acquittal without a trial, and there is no trial without witnesses, documents and evidence, By suppressing the evidence and rejecting the most basic elements of a fair judicial process, the Republican Senate made themselves will accomplices to the President’s cover-up”, she said.
Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg also weighed in, writing: “The Senate was the jury today, but we will be the jury tomorrow. The last word on Donald Trump and Trumpism will come through the American people – at ballot boxes across the country”.
