The US Senate voted 57-43 to acquit Donald Trump on Saturday, after the former president was charged with inciting the January 6 attack on the US Capitol building.
The 57-43 vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to secure a conviction against the former President. It also marks the second time, in 13 months, that Trump has been acquitted by the United States Senate on impeachment charges.
“This has been yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our Country,” former president Trump said in a statement. “No president has ever gone through anything like it.”
The 57-43 vote was short of the two-thirds necessary for conviction. Seven Republican Senators joined Democrats in voting the former president as guilty.
Senators settled on admitting a witness statement from GOP Rep. Herrera Beutler into Trump’s trial record instead of calling witnesses. Beutler, who voted to impeach, detailed a phone call between former president Trump and House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy on January 6.
The trial veered off its expected course earlier on Saturday as Senators voted to allow witnesses and then reached a settlement to allow a witness statement instead.
Just hours after the Senate voted to have witnesses in the impeachment trial, House impeachment managers and former President Trump’s lawyers agreed to enter GOP Rep. Herrera Beutler’s statement into evidence for the Senate trial record instead of calling her as a witness.
The trial was an historic first due to Trump being the only president impeached twice in recorded history and the first to be tried after leaving office. Trump was only the third president tried in the Senate — all were acquitted. But the Senate vote against Trump was the most bipartisan vote for conviction of a president in history — the others faced votes entirely from the opposition party.
