Democrats fall short of 10 votes to convict Donald Trump

Michael van der Veen, former President Donald Trump’s defence lawyer, fields questions from the media in Washington, DC. PIC/AFP

The US Senate has acquitted a defiant Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial in just over a year, after the Democrats failed once again to muster enough votes to convict the former president on a charge of inciting the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on January 6.

The Senate voted 57-43 on Saturday to convict Trump on a single impeachment count - incitement of insurrection. But that majority of all 50 Democrats in the upper chamber of the US Congress, joined by seven Republicans, fell 10 votes short of the 67 needed for a conviction, two-thirds of the 100-member Senate.

The Senate acquitted the 74-year-old Republican leader of inciting insurrection at the US Capitol last month after he urged hundreds of his supporters to confront lawmakers as they were certifying that he had lost the November 3 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. He was accused of inciting riots in the Capitol which left five people, including a police officer, dead.

Trump is the first president in US history to be impeached by the House of Representatives twice, and the first to be tried for impeachment after leaving office. He was first acquitted by the Senate on February 5, 2020 on charges of abuse of power and on obstruction of Congress.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever