The Republican-controlled Senate has acquitted Donald Trump in his high-profile impeachment trial, giving the US President a major political victory in an election year but not before bitterly dividing the country and costing millions of dollars to the tax payers.
The Senate voted on Wednesday 52-48 to acquit Trump of abuse of power and 53-47 to absolve him of obstruction of Congress, the two charges he faced. The vote along party lines foiled the Democratic Party's determined bid to overthrow Trump from the White House ahead of the November 3 presidential election.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives approved the articles of impeachment on December 18 after charging Trump with pressuring Ukraine to smear former US vice president Joe Biden, a potential Democratic rival in the 2020 presidential election, using nearly USD 400 million in military aid as leverage.
Though Trump, 73, has been acquitted, he will become the first impeached president to seek re-election.
A two-thirds majority vote was needed to remove Trump, which was always going to be a long shot in a 100-member Senate controlled by his Republican Party with 53 seats.
"For now, the impeachment of Mr. Trump appears to have evenly divided the nation," The New York Times reported.
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"The outcome represented a political triumph for the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell...," The Washington Post noted.
Republican Senator Mitt Romney, a bitter critic of Trump and the party's presidential nominee in 2012, voted against the president on the first charge, but followed the party line on the second article of impeachment. Rest of the members voted on party lines.
"The President is pleased to put this latest chapter of shameful behaviour by the Democrats in the past, and looks forward to continuing his work on behalf of the American people in 2020 and beyond," a much-relieved White House said soon after Trump's acquittal.
Trump announced on Twitter that he will make a public statement on Thursday from the White House "to discuss our Country's VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!"
Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said, "The do-nothing Democrats know they can't beat him, so they had to impeach him. This terrible ordeal was always a campaign tactic to invalidate the 2016 votes of 63 million Americans and was a transparent effort to interfere with the 2020 election, only nine months away."
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