The verdict, in a 57-43 vote, is almost certain to influence not only the political future of the former president, but also the senators who have sworn to do impartial justice as jurors. Seven Republicans joined all Democrats to condemn it, but it was nowhere near the required two-thirds limit.
The verdict after the uprising leaves the nation’s painful divisions over the type of Trump policy that led to the most violent domestic attack on one of America’s three branches of government unsolved.
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“Senators, we are in a dialogue with history, a conversation with our past, with a hope for our future,” said Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, D-Pa .., one of the Chamber’s promoters in the closing arguments.
“What we do here, what is being asked of each of us here at this moment will be remembered. History found us. “
Trump, unrepentant, welcomed his second acquittal for impeachment and said his move “has just begun.” He called the trial “another phase of the largest witch hunt in the history of our country”.
Although he was acquitted, it was easily the largest number of senators to vote to declare a president of his own party guilty of an impeachment charge.
The votes to plead Trump’s guilt were GOP Sens. 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 Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania.
The trial had been momentarily confused when the senators suddenly wanted to consider possible witnesses, an impasse on Saturday hours that delayed the momentum towards voting. Long-running lawsuits would be politically risky, especially for Biden’s new presidency and his emerging legislative agenda. The trial came amid the COVID-19 crisis and the Biden White House trying to hasten relief from the pandemic in Congress.
Biden barely gave his opinion on the proceedings and was spending the weekend with his family at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.
Many senators kept their votes held until the final moments, Republicans in particular now placed in minority status. Democrats took control of the Senate with the second round of the Georgia election on January 5, the day before the siege.
The nearly week-long trial delivered a grim and graphic narrative of the riot and its aftermath in ways that senators, many of whom fled for their own safety that day, acknowledge that they are still facing.
House prosecutors argued that Trump was the “chief instigator”, fueling a months-long campaign and an orchestrated pattern of violent rhetoric and false claims that sparked the crowd. Five people died, including a rowdy shot and a policeman.
Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump’s words were not intended to incite violence and that impeachment is nothing more than a “witch hunt” designed to prevent him from serving in office again.
Just watching the graphic videos – protesters shouting menacingly by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence, who chaired the vote count – the senators said they began to understand how dangerously close the country has come to chaos.
Many Republicans representing states where the former president remains doubt whether Trump was fully responsible or whether impeachment is the appropriate response.
In the closing arguments, Chief Prosecutor Michael van der Veen backed down on the procedural argument that Republican senators adopted in their own reasoning for the case what he said was a “false impeachment trial show”.
“Sir. Trump is innocent of the charges against him,” said Michael van der Veen. “The act of incitement never happened.”
The House rejected Trump on the sole charge of inciting insurrection a week after the riot, the most bipartisan vote for a presidential impeachment.
The delay on Saturday occurred while senators wanted to hear evidence about Trump’s actions during the riot.
New overnight stories focusing on Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington State said in a statement on Friday that Trump rejected the call of Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy to cancel the protesters.
Fifty-five senators voted to consider the witnesses, including Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Mitt Romney of Utah. As soon as they did, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina changed her vote to join them in the 55-45 vote.
But in the face of a protracted trial with the defense prepared to summon many more witnesses, the situation was resolved when Herrera Beutler’s statement on the summons was read aloud for senators to consider as evidence. As part of the deal, Democrats abandoned the planned deposition and Republicans abandoned the threat to call their own witnesses.
Impeachment trials are rare, senators meeting as impeachment court over a president just four times in the country’s history, for Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and now twice for Trump, the only one to be charged twice.
Unlike Trump’s impeachment trial in Ukraine’s case last year, a complicated charge of corruption and obstruction in his attempts to get the foreign ally to dig up rival Biden’s dirt in the campaign, it brought an emotional blow displayed in graphic videos of the siege that revealed the unexpected vulnerability of the democratic system.
At the same time, this year’s trial brought similar warnings from prosecutors alleging to senators that Trump should be held responsible because he has repeatedly shown that he has no limits. If nothing is done, he will further test the norms of civic behavior, even now that he is out of office and still commands loyal supporters.
“This trial is ultimately not about Donald Trump,” said senior prosecutor, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. “This judgment is about who we are.”