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Donald Trump Acquitted by Senate in Second Impeachment Trial

posted by chromas on Saturday February 13 2021, @09:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-die-is-cast dept.

martyb writes:

Donald Trump acquitted by Senate in second impeachment trial:

The Senate has voted to acquit the former president of the United States after the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump concluded Saturday. The vote came after a five-day trial where arguments centered around whether Trump incited the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, and whether it is constitutional to hear the impeachment trial of a former president who is now a private citizen.

Despite a compelling prosecution, an acquittal isn't unexpected. While the Senate is split 50/50, with Vice President Kamala Harris to cast a tie-break vote as president of the Senate when necessary, the impeachment trial required a two-thirds supermajority for conviction.

This meant 17 Republican senators would have had to vote to convict Trump, an unlikely ask from the beginning. This was indicated in a Jan. 25 vote led by Sen. Rand Paul on whether the impeachment trial of a former president was "unconstitutional," during which just five Republicans voted against the motion. The first day of the impeachment trial this week then saw a similar vote, during which six Republicans voted with Democrats to continue the trial.

In the end, the vote was 57-43 to convict Trump, with all 48 Democrats, two independents and seven Republicans finding Trump guilty. The only members of the GOP who voted alongside the Democrat senators were Sens. Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, Pat Toomey, Bill Cassidy and Richard Burr.

Also at: CNN, Al Jazera, Time, BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 14 2021, @03:37AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 14 2021, @03:37AM (#1112623) Journal
    According to this link, we have both Trump (12:00 pm) and Rudy Giuliani (10:45 am) giving speeches to some part of the protesters earlier in the day. An hour after Trump's speech (1:00 pm), they were clashing with police outside the Capitol. The Senate was evacuated by 2:00 pm which is also when the breaching of the Capitol is alleged to have started. The shooting death of the protester happens around 2:40 pm - apparently some House representatives hadn't been evacuated yet. (The death of the police officer [wikipedia.org] happened some time later.)

    At least two requests had been made by 2 pm for National Guard assistance. The Action Secretary of Defense, Christopher C. Miller had two days earlier made it so that only he personally could authorize deployment of the local National Guard forces. That authorization came somewhere around 4 pm - the timeline didn't give an accurate time for that. Trump doesn't actually say anything to repudiate the violence and such till over a day later.

    Sure looks to me like Trump and Giuliani riled up the protesters, both before and during the protest, and then Miller deliberately delayed the official response to the protest. That's a pretty dick move.