Text by Luis Robledo
Trump 2024? This is now a possibility after the U.S. Senate voted to acquit former president Donald Trump on an impeachment charge for inciting an insurrection. The majority of the Senate voted to convict Trump, 57 to 43, but fell short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction. This Senate vote was the most bipartisan vote for conviction of a president in history. Seven Republicans joined the 50 Democrats who voted to convict Trump.
This trial was historic because Trump was the first president to be impeached twice, and the first to be tried after leaving office. The acquittal comes more than a month after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and the very room where this trial took place, with lethal consequences. House managers who prosecuted the case argued that Trump should be convicted and disqualified from holding future office to prevent the threat of more violence. But Trump’s lawyers and most Senate Republicans argued that he couldn’t be held responsible for the mob’s violence, that he was simply exercising his freedom of speech.
This verdict closes the chapter on the Trump presidency, although the Senate, by not convicting or barring him from holding public office in the future, has left the door open for the possibility that Trump could run for president in 2024.
Trump refused to testify under oath
Weeks before the trial, Trump’s lawyers had rejected an invitation for Trump by the House managers to answer questions under oath about his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol.
Bruce Castor, part of the team who represented Trump, told NBC News that the invitation to testify is “a publicity stunt in order to make up for the weakness of the House manager’s case. The lead impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin, who requested Trump to testify under oath, responded that any official accused of inciting violence against the government should welcome the chance to testify.
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on Jan. 13 on an article charging him with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in the violent riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol. The article also cited Trump’s Jan. 2 phone call urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn the state’s elections results as an effort “to subvert and obstruct the certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election.”
However, after today’s developments, President Trump has been cleared of these charges.
Cover photo: EFE/Oliver Contreras
