The Senate just voted to acquit President Donald Trump of charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — ending a more than four-month impeachment process that began when Trump withheld aid from Ukraine and pressured its leader to investigate Hunter Biden.
The acquittal is the third time in US history the Senate has acquitted a president who has previously been impeached, after Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Clinton in 1999.
While several Republican senators acknowledged the president’s wrongdoing, nearly all of them eventually voted to acquit Trump of both articles. Sen. Mitt Romney,ultimately, was the only senator to break with his party and vote to convict on the abuse of power charge.
As a result, the vote on the two articles was slightly different. Senators voted 52-48 to acquit the president on abuse of power, and 53-47 to acquit him of obstruction of Congress.
The outcome was not a surprise. It would have taken 67 votes to convict the president, meaning 20 Republicans would have had to cross over and join the Democrats’ 47-member caucus. Given Republicans’ unwillingness to break with the president, that was always an unlikely outcome. After 51 Republicans voted against calling witnesses, the vote was all but a foregone conclusion.
The vote caps off a tumultuous few months in the House and the Senate that has been filled with bitter fights over subpoenas, witness testimony and process. During the last few weeks, House impeachment managers presented an overwhelming slate of evidence to demonstrate Trump’s willingness to abuse his power in order to get reelected. By the conclusion of the trial, many Senate Republicans were no longer denying the president’s wrongdoing so much as arguing that it didn’t merit removal.
Manager Adam Schiff, in his closing arguments, warned Republicans that their votes would inextricably tie them to the president.
“If you find that the House has proved its case, and still vote to acquit, your name will be tied to his with a cord of steel and for all of history,” he said.
Credit: Vox News