The Senate has acquitted former President Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
House Democrats, who voted a month ago to charge Trump with “incitement of insurrection,” needed two-thirds of the Senate, or 67 votes, to convict him.
If Trump had been convicted, the Senate would have taken a second vote on whether to ban him from running for office again.
Only two other presidents, Bill Clinton in 1999 and Andrew Johnson in 1868, have been impeached. Both were also acquitted.
Seven Republicans voted to convict Trump, making it the most bipartisan vote in the history of presidential impeachments.
Voting to find Trump guilty 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.
Romney’s “guilty” vote at Trump’s first impeachment trial last February had made him the first senator to ever vote to convict a president of the same party.
Trump welcomed his second acquittal and said his movement “has only just begun.”
In a statement, he thanked his attorneys and his defenders in the House and Senate, who he said “stood proudly for the Constitution we all revere and for the sacred legal principles at the heart of our country.”
He slammed the trial as “yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country.”
And he told his supporters that “our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun” and that he will have more to share with them in the months ahead.
via westernjournal