The four-month push by House Democrats to investigate and impeach US President, Donald Trump for allegedly withholding U.S. military aid from Ukraine to pressure its leaders to investigate his Democratic rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden has been dismissed by the US Senate on Wednesday.
On the first impeachment article, abuse of power 52 senators voted in favour of Trump while 48 against. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was the lone Republican to vote in favour of the abuse of power charge.
The second article, obstruction of Congress 53 absolved Trump while 47 found him guilty – a party line vote.
By this voting result, the senate has acquitted President Donald Trump on the two articles of impeachment, rejecting the House’s charges that he should be removed from office for abusing his power and obstructing the congressional investigation into his conduct.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who presided over just the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, announced the result on each article of impeachment Wednesday afternoon, bringing the three-week trial to a close.
“The Senate, having tried Donald Trump, president of the United States, upon two articles of impeachment exhibited against him by the House of Representatives, and two-thirds of the senators present not having found him guilty of the charges contained therein: it is, therefore, ordered and adjudged that the said Donald John Trump be, and he is hereby, acquitted of the charges in said articles,” Roberts said.
The Senate’s verdict – indeed a triumphant moment for Trump and his allies – was the climax of a three-year existential threat to the Trump presidency that began with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation in May 2017 and continued with the House’s Ukraine probe, which began in September.
“President Trump has been totally vindicated and it’s now time to get back to the business of the American people,” Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said in a statement.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans engineered a stripped-down trial with no witnesses or new evidence. Democrats called the trial a sham and a cover-up. Trump called the impeachment an attempted coup and a Democratic attempt to annul his 2016 election victory.
Throughout the impeachment drama, Trump and his Republican allies kept up their attacks on Biden’s integrity. It remains to be seen how much political damage that inflicted. In the first of the state-by-state contests to determine the Democratic challenger to Trump, Biden placed a disappointing fourth in Iowa, according to incomplete results from Monday’s voting. Biden has accused Trump of “lies, smears, distortions and name-calling.”
However, the Democrats have vowed to still go ahead issuing subpoena to John Bolton to appear in the House of Representatives where they are in majority. The relevance of this step is yet to be known.
