Washington D.C. – Former President Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial on the charge of inciting an insurrection for the January 6 Capitol riot. The vote, largely down political lines, found Former President Trump guilty by a 57-43 vote. A supermajority would have been needed to convict.
Fox News reported that had Trump been convicted, the Senate would have moved to bar the 45th president from holding federal office ever again, which Democrats clearly said was the intent of the trial. Law Officer reached out to several constitutional lawyers and like others have pointed out, impeachment is designed for current presidents as a guilty verdict removes them from office.
Impeachment Trials are also supposed to have a judge from the United States Supreme Court, which refused in this trial. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy (D) served as the judge in the impeachment trial and also a voting senator (juror). According to our sources, that indicated strongly that the court felt that Congress and the Senate were outside the constitutional arena.
The evidence in the trial was also in question by our sources. As an example posts from Twitter were used as testimony, something that could never be done in an actual trial. Earlier on Saturday, it appeared that the impeachment trial would be extended to the summer when Democrats voted to call witnesses, which would have entailed depositions prior to testimony.
In a surprising move, Republicans joined in and agreed, which would have opened a wide and long door to a lengthy defense using an unlimited amount of witnesses.
That decision was quickly reversed and within a few hours, the vote was in.
