Name: US Senate acquits Trump of inciting Capitol riot in 2nd impeachment trial | DW News
Uploaded: 2021-02-14T19:50:09.000Z
Duration: 6 min 10 s
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Donald Trump has been acquitted of inciting last month's attack on the U.

S Senate fell short of the two thirds majority needed to convict the former U.

However, seven Republicans voted to side with the Democrats, making it the most bipartisan impeachment verdict in U.

Smiles all around Donald Trump's legal team revel in their client's acquittal.

Yeah, it was always going to be an uphill battle for Democrats.

They needed to convince at least 17 Republican senators to cross the aisle.

In the end, though, only seven Republicans voted to convict, giving former President Donald Trump his second acquittal.

The day's proceedings was time for both sides to make their closing arguments, hoping to suede any last minute votes to believe.

Based on the evidence you have seen that Mr Trump actually wanted and indeed willfully incited an armed insurrection toe overthrow, the U.

Democrats pushed back, saying the Senate could stop violence from happening again.

The cold, hard truth is that what happened on January 6th can happen again I fear, like many of you do that, the violence we saw on that terrible day may be just the beginning.

Donald Trump was unrepentant in welcoming his acquittal, saying the trial was yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of the United States journey leader.

After the vote, Democrats scorned Republicans for voting to acquit the vast majority of the Senate Republican caucus, including the Republican leader voted to acquit former President Trump, signing their names in the columns of history alongside his name forever.

And despite voting not guilty, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell conceded that the former president was responsible for the riot.

There's no question none that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.

The lawyers have rested their case on the matter of Donald Trump's involvement in the January 6 riots, but the divisions in US society remain.

Thea Quito opens the door for Trump to run for the White House again in 2024 and reporter William Glue Croft joins me from or William, with Trump acquitted, what impact did this impeachment actually have?

I struggled to imagine a reality where shocking attack on the heart of the nation's politics takes place.

And there's no real political reaction to that.

If Democrats just threw their hands up in the air and said, Well, we can't get a conviction, So no point in doing anything.

I just don't see that That line of reasoning impeaching itself, eyes not a good look and twice now for the president and that will go down in history.

There is very much a historical aspect to this that Democrats were pushing towards putting the evidence out there, building a story to show Donald Trump's culpability in the events of January 6 and also to force Republicans to go on the record on where they stood with Donald Trump.

But what does the vote say about the Republican Party?

Then It shows that Trump is still very strong.

His support is the Republican base that Republicans don't want to go up against.

I think Mitch McConnell summed up that division very well by by making the Democrats case that it took Democrats 10 hours to do.

It took him 10 minutes to do and still voting to acquit, not on the merits but on the process, saying he didn't think the Senate had the jurisdiction to try and convict a president who is no longer in office, even though it should be mentioned that Mitch McConnell, when he was majority leader back in January, helped set the timetable to ensure that the trial would only happen after Trump left office.

So Mitch McConnell is walking that fine line, trying to show his anger and displeasure with Trump but still not ultimately going up against him.

And that is something Republicans were really gonna have to struggle with going forward, both electorally and in terms of what kind of funding they might lose from big donors.

And is Trump therefore out of the woods now?

There's still investigations against him.

Let's not forget the Manhattan district attorney is looking into his finances.

Georgia has launched an investigation into his potential election meddling.

Um, there's a number of things that Donald Trump still faces as a private citizen, regardless, that he was president.

And is this a moment of bipartisanship that will continue?

We're going to see the parties working together now on Yeah, Well, President Biden put out that statement, looking more towards the importance of democracy and protecting truth defeating lies.

As he said, That's the responsibility of all Democrats and Republicans.

It's really hard to see how there's any sense of bipartisanship now that's already been extremely partisan.

Democrats and even some Republicans who sided with them have to goto work every day knowing that there are people, their colleagues, there are colleagues among them who wanted them dead or at least supported or turned a blind eye to this kind of behavior.

This attack that we saw in January 6, and that's a very, very caustic and difficult environment I can imagine for Democrats.

And some Republicans toe work in certainly well, William Blue cloth.