Former US President Donald Trump has been acquitted on a charge of “incitement of insurrection” in relation to the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol.
After a five-day impeachment trial in the US Senate, the vote was largely split along party lines with 57 lawmakers voting to convict and 43 voting to acquit.
That fell short of the two-thirds Democrats needed to convict Trump, who is the only US president to ever be impeached twice while in office.
Notably, however, seven Republican senators voted to convict the former president, the largest number of conviction votes from senators in president’s own party for impeachment in US history.
This was Trump’s second impeachment trial, the only time a president has been through this process twice. Trump’s first impeachment trial, which took place in February 2020, ended in an acquittal of charges that he tried to pressure Ukraine to investigate now-President Joe Biden.
Aljazeera
