The U.S. Senate voted Saturday to get former President Donald Trump to incite a revolt, as his impeachment trial ended with the widely expected resolution. The vote was more or less divided according to the lines of the party.
The 57-43 vote split for condemnation, but a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, failed to convict Trump.
However, seven Republicans voted with the Democrats to condemn them, the largest number ever from a presidential party. Voting for Trump’s conviction was 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.
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Democrats had always seen condemnation as a long-running affair, with a two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump of a steep climb among party divisions in the Senate, where each party currently has 50 seats. Seventeen Republicans had to break standards and join all Democrats to get a conviction.
Closing arguments were made after Democrats called for the return of witnesses, avoiding potentially long delays.
Democrats explained how Trump “betrayed members of Congress and the American people willingly by refusing to stop the January 6 uprising at the U.S. Capitol that then left Vice President Mike Pence and lawyers in mortal danger.
But the defense team again declared Trump innocent, demanding “the act of incitement did not happen” and protesters were alone.
Michael van der Veen, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, will listen when the clerk reads a question from General Bill Cassidy, during the former President’s second impeachment lawsuit Donald Trump in the Senate, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, February 12, 2021. (Senate Television via AP)
With influential Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell revealing this morning that he would vote against Trump’s conviction on the impeachment charge of inciting revolution for his role in inciting deadly violence , the issue was tightened even more firmly in terms of freedom.
“While calling closely, I maintain that impeachments are a removal device so we do not have jurisdiction,” McConnell emailed his colleagues. Republican jobs.
Before moving on to final arguments, the proceedings were suspended for a few hours when House impeachment managers, in an unannounced motion, said they wanted to call witnesses at the trial.
Senior manager Jamie Raskin, a Democratic correspondent, said he wanted to call a Republican lawyer as a witness but eventually agreed with Trump’s defense lawyers just to submit a statement in evidence.
Trump’s lawyers had threatened in response to calling witnesses for himself, including Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and others in a process that could be on the case- extend the law for days if not weeks.
With the lawsuit settled, the Senate began to hear closing arguments, divided fairly into time.
Raskin had been urging Republican Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler to impose his impeachment vote on Trump last month, confirmation after she released a statement about a notorious exchange on Jan. 6.
In her statement that went into the record, she said Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had made a frantic message to Trump while the attack was going on and urged the supporters put off a riot.
Violent activists, loyal to U.S. President Donald Trump, will storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP / John Minchillo)
Instead Trump blamed other groups, not his own supporters, for breaking the Capitol, Herrera Beutler said.
“McCarthy denied that and told the president that these were Trump supporters,” the conference said.
“That’s when the president said, according to McCarthy: ‘Well, Kevin, I think these people are more confused about the election than you are,'” she said.
Democrats commented on her statement.
“There is no doubt that right now we need a president to protect, defend and defend us, President Trump instead of betraying us,” impeachment manager David Cicilline told the -Senation, appointing Trump “breaking his oath”.
Trump was handed over to the Democratic-controlled House on Jan. 13 for inciting the attack by his supporters, who were trying to block a conference testimony on the impact of Democrat’s November 3 election. Joe Biden.
Trump’s defense attorney argued Friday that the former president is not responsible for the attack on Congress and wrapped up his presentation in just three hours.
This was followed by two days of testimony from Democrats based on a harrowing footage of the mob attack on the Capitol.
Sen. Ritt Utah’s Mitt Romney arrives as the Senate calls in a rare weekend session for final arguments in the second impeachment test of former U.S. President Donald Trump, at the Capitol in Washington , Saturday, February. 13, 2021. (Photo AP / J. Scott Applewhite)
Trump’s defense lawyers called the non-legislative impeachment and “an act of political retaliation.”
They argued that Trump’s rally speech on Jan. 6 near the White House that preceded the attack, when he told supporters to “fight like hell,” was not merely astronomical.
Attempting to turn the record on Democrats’ powerful use of video evidence, defense lawyers played their own rallies depicting Democratic lawyers using the word “fight” hundreds of times.
House impeachment managers complain that, after his loss to Biden, Trump deliberately put pressure on a false campaign that involved massive voter fraud.
In his closing arguments, Trump’s lawyer Michael van der Veen stressed to the former president that he had never advocated for violence.
“No matter how horrific we see of the protesters’ behavior, and the amount of emotion that has been brought into this trial, that does not change that Mr. Trump is innocent of the charges against him, ”said van der Veen.