Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Former President of the United States (US) Donald Trump survives an impeachment hearing in the Senate on charges of inciting rebellion at the US Capitol Building. The majority of the Senate Republicans closed ranks and refused to convict the former president in the second impeachment trial in US history.
As reported by AFP on Sunday (14/2/2021), Trump’s impeachment trial was marked by debating of Democrat prosecutors, supported by a dramatic video of the January 6 riots, showing that Trump betrayed his oath by beating his supporters to storm Congress in a last-ditch attempt to hold on to power.
Voting results showed that 57 senate votes agreed to impeach Trump while 43 others refused. But the vote in agreement was not enough to punish Trump, it took 2/3 or 67 senates to punish Donald Trump for the riots at The Capitol Building.
In the voting, 7 Republican votes joined the 50 senate votes from the Democrats who agreed to the impeachment.
It ended as expected with the Republican majority pleading her innocence, a sign of the strong grip that 74-year-old Trump continues to put on his party.
Despite the stain of the second impeachment, Trump hinted at a possible political future, saying that “our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has just begun.”
“We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will come up with a vision for America’s bright, shining and boundless future,” Trump said in a statement.
Trump was ousted by the House of Representatives on January 13, a week after a state of shock that shocked the country and sparked widespread bipartisan outrage.
Democrats argue that Trump’s behavior is a case of “open and closed” behavior, retracing how he spent two months repeating the lie that the election was stolen, before inciting supporters to attack Congress and halt Joe Biden’s winning certification.
“He called his supporters to Washington, on the Ellipse, got them into a frenzy, and directed them to the Capitol,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote.
The defense team dismissed the evidence, arguing that Trump’s calls for his supporters to “fight with all his might, at the rally that preceded the attacks,” were merely rhetoric.
But their main argument is that the Senate lacks constitutional jurisdiction to try former presidents. Most Republican senators agree.
But Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate’s powerful minority, voted to release for the same reasons, having no doubt that he thought Trump had caused the rioting – which saw lawmakers flee for safety as a mob of muggers raged across the Capitol.
The former Trump ally has issued a scathing rebuke to the former president, citing his actions before the attack as “embarrassing negligence” from duty.
“There is no question – nothing – that president Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell told the assembly after the vote.
He stressed that although Congress has spent its way punishing Trump, the US justice system has not.
“President Trump is still in charge of everything he did during his time in office,” McConnell said. “He hasn’t gotten away with anything.”
Building on their case over two days, Democrats impeachment managers described how Trump first pushed, then refused to stop the January 6 uprising that put vice president Mike Pence and lawmakers in grave danger.
Saying Trump was innocent, defense attorney Michael van der Veen told the Senate that “acts of sedition never took place” and that rioters acted on their own.
(hps / hps)
– .
