A Senate still bruised from the most violent attack on the Capitol in two centuries acquitted former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday in his second impeachment trial, as all but a few Republicans locked arms to reject a case that he incited the January 6 rampage in a last-ditch attempt to cling to power.

Under the watch of National Guard troops still patrolling the historic building, a bipartisan majority cast votes finding Trump guilty of the House’s single charge of “incitement of insurrection.”

They included seven Republicans, more members of a President’s party than have ever returned an adverse verdict in an impeachment trial.

But with most of Trump’s party coalescing around him, the 57-to-43 tally fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict, and allow the Senate to move to disqualify him from holding future office.

Among the Republicans breaking ranks to find guilty the man who led their party for four tumultuous years, demanding absolute loyalty, were Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania.

The verdict brought an abrupt end to the fourth presidential impeachment trial in American history, and the only one in which the accused had left office before being tried.

It took only five days to reach a verdict, partly because Democrats and Republicans were united in their desire to avoid a prolonged proceeding and partly because Trump’s allies made clear before it even began that they were not prepared to hold him responsible.

Most of the jury of senators had themselves witnessed the events that gave rise to the charge, having fled for their own lives, along with the Vice President, as the mob closed in last month while they met to formalise President Biden’s victory.

Party leaders and even the President’s most loyal supporters in the Senate did not defend his actions — a months long campaign, seeded with election lies, to overturn his decisive loss to Biden that culminated when Trump told thousands of his supporters to “fight like hell” and they did.

Instead, in the face of a meticulous case brought by nine House prosecutors, they found safe harbour in technical arguments that the trial itself was not valid because Trump was no longer in office.

But their overriding political calculation was clear. After party leaders briefly entertained using the process to purge from their ranks, Republicans doubled down on a bet made five years ago: that it was better not to stoke another open confrontation with a man millions of their voters still singularly embrace.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, embodied the tortured balancing act, denouncing Trump on Saturday, minutes after voting to acquit him, for a “disgraceful dereliction of duty.”

In blistering remarks from the Senate floor, McConnell, who had openly considered voting to convict Trump, effectively argued that he was guilty as charged, while arguing that there was nothing the Senate could do about it.

“There is no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said.

“The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.”

But McConnell, who refused to call the Senate back into session to hold the trial while Trump was still in office, argued that he could not be convicted once he no longer was.

McConnell said the only way to punish him now was through the criminal justice system. Trump, he said, “didn’t get away with anything yet.”

Minutes after the verdict, Trump, barred from Twitter, broke an uncharacteristic silence he had maintained during the trial with a defiant statement issued from his post-presidential home in Florida, calling the proceeding “yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country.”

He expressed no remorse for his actions, and strongly suggested that he planned to continue to be a force in politics for a long time to come.

“In the months ahead, I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people,” Trump said.

New York Times News Service