donald trump has been acquitted of
inciting last month's attack on the u.s
capitol
as expected the u.s senate fell short of
the two-thirds majority needed to
convict the former u.s
president however seven republicans
voted to side with the democrats
making it the most bipartisan
impeachment verdict in us history
smiles all around donald trump's legal
team
revel in their clients acquittal we won
not guilty
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 eas are 57
the nays are 43.
the day's proceedings was time for both
sides to make their closing arguments
hoping to sway 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
to overthrow the u.s government would be
absurd
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
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 u.s society remain
the acquittal opens the door for trump
to run for the white house
again in 2024
and reporter william gluecroft joins me
for more
um william with trump acquitted what
impact did this
impeachment actually have
hi nick i struggle to imagine a reality
where a shocking attack on the heart of
a nation's politics
takes place and there's no 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
uh impeaching itself uh is 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
what does the vote say about the
republican party then
it shows that trump is still very strong
he has a lot of support
his support is the republican base that
republicans
don't want to go up against i think
mitch mcconnell summed up that
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's 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 are really
going to 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 politically
certainly not there's still
investigations against him let's not
forget the manhattan district attorney
is looking into his finances there's
other tax related issues
georgia has launched an investigation
into his potential election meddling
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 from now on
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 go to work every
day
knowing that there are people their
colleagues there are colleagues among
them
who wanted them dead or at least
deported or turned a blind eye to this
kind of
behavior this attack that we saw on
january 6th and that's a very very
caustic and difficult environment
i can imagine for democrats and some
republicans to work in
certainly well william blue cloth thanks
for that insight
you