Senate Acquits Donald Trump

Despite Democrats’ efforts to prove former President Donald J. Trump was responsible for the 1/6 attach on the U.S. Capitol, 43 Senate Republicans voted to acquit him during his second impeachment trial. All Senate Democrats, and 7 Republicans, voted to impeach, but still fell short of the 67 vote threshold to hold Trump accountable for the violent insurrection.

On Saturday, February 13, the vote was announced that 57 senators voted guilty while 43 voted not guilty. A vote of 67 or two-thirds of the majority was needed in order for Trump to have been found guilty of inciting the riot and violent mob that attacked the Capitol Building on Jan. 6 where several Senators’ lives were in danger and several people were killed. 

After both sides made their closing arguments, only seven Republican senators joined the 50 Democrats who voted in favor of convicting Trump. 

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who voted to acquit Trump, then scolded him on the Senate floor and said the former president “fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth. Because he was angry he’d lost an election.”

“Former President Trump’s actions that preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty,” he added. “Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted McConnell shortly after the acquittal vote, issuing a statement calling it “pathetic that Senator McConnell kept the Senate shut down so that the Senate could not receive the Article of Impeachment and has used that as his excuse for not voting to convict Donald Trump.”