The Senate on Saturday acquitted former President Donald Trump on the charge of inciting insurrection for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which left five people dead. Trump welcomed the acquittal, saying that his movement "has only just begun."
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The decision came after House impeachment managers reversed course and dropped a call for witnesses that would have delayed the verdict. The acquittal marks the end of a five-day impeachment trial.
The vote split 57-43 in favor of convicting, but fell short of the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, needed to find Trump guilty. Seven Republicans voted to convict the former president – the most impeachment defections ever from a president's party.
According to NBC, nine House Democrats served as impeachment managers in the trial and argued that Trump had direct responsibility for the riots. But Trump's defense team denied he had incited the attack, arguing that Trump's rhetoric was protected under the First Amendment.
His lawyers also argued that the trial was unconstitutional since Trump was a private citizen and no longer president. No president prior to Trump has ever been impeached and tried twice. Moreover, no Senate trial has ever been held for a former president.
The drama on the Senate floor unfolded against a backdrop of gaping divisions in the pandemic-weary United States along political, racial, socioeconomic and regional lines. The trial provided more partisan warfare even as Democratic President Joe Biden, who took office on Jan. 20 after defeating Trump at the ballot box on Nov. 3, called for healing and unity after his predecessor's four turbulent years in power and a caustic election campaign.
Trump, 74, has considered running for president again in 2024.
In his previous impeachment trial, the Senate voted to acquit Trump on two charges: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. That impeachment arose from Trump's 2019 pressure on Ukraine to investigate Biden as he sought foreign aid to sully a domestic political rival.
A common theme in the charges at the heart of the two impeachments was Trump's abandonment of accepted democratic norms to advance his own political interests.
The US Constitution sets out impeachment as the instrument with which the Congress can remove and bar from future office presidents who commit "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Impeachment, once a rare occurrence, has become more commonplace during America's era of poisonous political polarization in recent decades. In the 209 years after the first US president, George Washington, took office in 1789, there was only one impeachment.
Since 1998, there have been three, including Trump's two. Andrew Johnson was impeached and acquitted in 1868 in the aftermath of the American Civil War and Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 and acquitted in 1999 of charges stemming from a sex scandal.
Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 rather than face impeachment over the Watergate scandal.
Trump's acquittal does not end the possibility of other congressional action against him such as a censure motion. Republicans seemed dead set against an idea floated by Democrats of invoking the Constitution's 14th Amendment provision barring from public office anyone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the government.
The impeachment proceedings also can be viewed in the context of a battle for the future of the Republican Party. Some Republicans - mostly moderates and establishment figures - have voiced alarm at the direction Trump has taken their party. Detractors have accused Trump - who had never before held public office - of undermining the institutions of democracy, encouraging a cult of personality and pursuing policies built around "white grievance" in a nation with a growing non-white population.
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