{"id":2454170,"date":"2020-02-05T16:31:18","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T23:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=320384"},"modified":"2020-02-05T16:31:18","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T23:31:18","slug":"not-guilty-senate-acquits-trump-of-impeachment-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/not-guilty-senate-acquits-trump-of-impeachment-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Guilty: Senate acquits Trump of impeachment charges"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
In this image from video, the vote total, 52-48 for not guilty, on the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, is displayed on screen during the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020.<\/strong>
Senate Television via AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump won impeachment acquittal Wednesday in the U.S. Senate, bringing to a close only the third presidential trial <\/a>in American history with votes that split the country, tested civic norms and fed the tumultuous 2020 race for the White House.<\/p>\n

With Chief Justice John Roberts presiding, senators sworn to do \u201cimpartial justice\u201d stood at their desks to state their votes for the roll call \u2014 \u201cguilty\u201d or \u201cnot guilty\u201d \u2014 in a swift tally almost exclusively along party lines.<\/a> Visitors, including the president\u2019s allies, watched from the crowded gallery. Roberts read the declaration that Trump \u201cbe, and is hereby, acquitted of the charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The outcome Wednesday followed months of remarkable impeachment proceedings, from Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s House to Mitch McConnell\u2019s Senate, reflecting the nation\u2019s unrelenting partisan divide three years into the Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

What started as Trump\u2019s request for Ukraine to \u201cdo us a favor\u201d spun into a far-reaching, 28,000-page report compiled by House investigators accusing an American president of engaging in shadow diplomacy that threatened U.S. foreign relations for personal, political gain as he pressured the ally to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden ahead of the next election.<\/p>\n

No president has ever been removed by the Senate.<\/p>\n

A politically emboldened Trump has eagerly predicted vindication, deploying the verdict as a political anthem in his reelection bid. The president claims he did nothing wrong, decrying the \u201cwitch hunt\u201d and \u201choax\u201d as extensions of special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s probe into Russian 2016 campaign interference by those out to get him from the start of his presidency.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s political campaign tweeted videos, statements and a cartoon dance celebrating that he was \u201cvindicated.\u201d Trump himself tweeted that he would speak from the White House on Thursday about \u201cour Country\u2019s VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said there will always be \u201ca giant asterisk next to the president\u2019s acquittal\u201d because of the Senate\u2019s quick trial and the Republicans\u2019 rejection of witnesses.<\/p>\n

A majority of senators expressed unease with Trump\u2019s pressure campaign on Ukraine that resulted in the two articles of impeachment. But two-thirds \u201cguilty\u201d votes would have been needed to reach the Constitution\u2019s bar of high crimes and misdemeanors to convict and remove Trump from office. The final tallies fell far short.<\/p>\n

On the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, the vote was 52-48 favoring acquittal. The second, obstruction of Congress, also produced a not guilty verdict, 53-47.<\/p>\n

Only one Republican, Mitt Romney of Utah, the party\u2019s defeated 2012 presidential nominee, broke with the GOP.<\/p>\n

Romney choked up as said drew on his faith and \u201coath before God\u201d to announce he would vote guilty on the first charge, abuse of power. He voted to acquit on the second.<\/p>\n

Both Bill Clinton in 1999 and Andrew Johnson in 1868 drew cross-party support when they were left in office after an impeachment trial. President Richard Nixon resigned rather than face revolt from his own party.<\/p>\n

Ahead of voting, some of the most closely watched senators took to the Senate floor to tell their constituents, and the nation, what they had decided. The Senate chaplain opened the trial with daily prayers for the senators, including one Wednesday seeking \u201cintegrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Influential GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who is retiring, worried that a guilty verdict would \u201cpour gasoline on the fire\u201d of the nation\u2019s culture wars over Trump. He said the House proved its case but it just didn\u2019t rise to the level of impeachment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would rip the country apart,\u201d Alexander said before his vote.<\/p>\n

Other Republicans siding with Trump said it was time to end what McConnell called the \u201ccircus\u201d and move on. Trump ally GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said it was a \u201csham\u201d designed to destroy a presidency.<\/p>\n

Most Democrats, though, echoed the House managers\u2019 warnings that Trump, if left unchecked, would continue to abuse the power of his office for personal political gain and try to \u201ccheat\u201d again ahead of the the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

During the nearly three-week trial, House Democrats prosecuting the case argued that Trump abused power like no other president in history when he pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, ahead of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

They detailed an extraordinary shadow diplomacy run by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani that set off alarms at the highest levels of government. After Trump\u2019s July 25 phone call with Ukraine, Trump temporarily halted U.S. aid to the struggling ally battling hostile Russia at its border. The money was eventually released in September as Congress intervened.<\/p>\n

When the House probed Trump\u2019s actions, the president instructed White House aides to defy congressional subpoenas, leading to the obstruction charge.<\/p>\n

One key Democrat, Alabama Sen. Doug Jones \u2014 perhaps the most endangered politically for reelection in a state where Trump is popular \u2014 announced he would vote to convict. \u201cSenators are elected to make tough choices,\u201d Jones said<\/p>\n

Questions from the Ukraine matter continue to swirl. House Democrats may yet summon former national security adviser John Bolton to testify <\/a>about revelations from his forthcoming book that offer a fresh account of Trump\u2019s actions. Other eyewitnesses and documents are almost sure to surface.<\/p>\n

In closing arguments for the trial the lead prosecutor, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., appealed to senators\u2019 sense of decency, that \u201cright matters\u201d and \u201ctruth matters\u201d and that Trump \u201cis not who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president\u2019s basic lack of character, his willingness to cheat in the election \u2013 he\u2019s not going to stop,\u201d Schiff told The Associated Press on Wednesday, predicting more revelations would become public. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to change, which means that we are going to have to remain eternally vigilant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pelosi was initially reluctant to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump when she took control of the House after the 2018 election, dismissively telling more liberal voices that \u201che\u2019s not worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and his GOP allies in Congress argue that Democrats have been trying to undercut him from the start.<\/p>\n

But a whistleblower complaint of his conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy set off alarms. The call had been placed the day after Mueller announced the findings of his Russia probe.<\/p>\n

When Trump told Pelosi in September that the call was perfect, she was stunned. \u201cPerfectly wrong,\u201d she said. Days later, the speaker announced the formal impeachment inquiry.<\/p>\n

The result was the quickest, most partisan impeachment in U.S. history, with no Republicans joining the House Democrats to vote for the charges, though one GOP congressman left the party and voted for impeachment and two Democrats joined Republicans to oppose. The Republican Senate kept up the pace with the fastest trial ever, and the first with no witnesses or deliberations.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s legal team with star attorney Alan Dershowitz made the sweeping, if stunning, assertion that even if the president engaged in the quid pro quo as described, it is not impeachable, because politicians often view their own political interest with the national interest.<\/p>\n

McConnell, who commands a 53-47 Republican majority, braced for dissent, refusing efforts to prolong the trial with more witnesses, arguing the House should have done a better job.<\/p>\n

Some GOP senators distanced themselves from Trump\u2019s defense, and other Republicans brushed back calls from conservatives to disclose the name of the anonymous whistleblower. The Associated Press typically does not reveal the identity of whistleblowers.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s approval rating, which has generally languished in the mid- to low-40s, hit a new high of 49% in the latest Gallup polling, which was conducted as the Senate trial was drawing to a close. The poll found that 51% of the public views the Republican Party favorably, the first time the GOP\u2019s number has exceeded 50% since 2005.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Laurie Kellman, Matthew Daly, Alan Fram, Andrew Taylor and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this image from video, the vote total, 52-48 for not guilty, on the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, is displayed on screen during the impeachment trial against President Donald Trump in the Senate at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020.Senate Television via AP WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2454170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 17:13:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2454170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}