While lawmakers voted 57-43 to find Trump guilty, the evenly divided Senate fell well short of the two-thirds majority required to convict an impeached president. But by joining all 50 Democrats who voted against Trump, the seven GOP senators created a clear majority against him and provided a bipartisan chorus of condemnation of the 45th president.
The quick trial, the nation's first of a former president, showed how perilously close the invaders had come to destroying the nation's deep tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power after Trump had refused to concede the election. Rallying outside the White House, he unleashed a mob of supporters to "fight like hell" for him at the Capitol just as Congress was certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory. As hundreds stormed the building, some in tactical gear engaging in bloody combat with police, lawmakers fled for their lives. Five people died.
The Senate's verdict after the uprising leaves unresolved the nation's wrenching divisions over Trump's brand of politics that led to the most violent domestic attack on one of America's three branches of government.
"Senators, we are in a dialogue with history, a conversation with our past, with a hope for our future," said Madeleine Dean, one of the prosecutors in closing arguments. "What we do here, what is being asked of each of us here in this moment will be remembered. History has found us."
Trump, unrepentant, welcomed the his second impeachment acquittal and said his movement "has only just begun". He slammed the trial as "yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country".
