A two-thirds majority was needed for Donald Trump to be convicted, and possibly declared ineligible.
But after a vigorous trial in the precincts of Congress, even where supporters of the former US president sowed violence and chaos on January 6, senators voted in favor of the “Impeachment” weren't as numerous.
Donald Trump was thus acquitted on Saturday, after his indictment for "incitement to insurgency".
After a twist that could have delayed the verdict, the vote finally went as planned.
Earlier this Saturday, Republicans dangled the prospect of lengthening the trial with testimony in their favor, forcing Democrats to negotiate.
The latter therefore abandoned the idea of hearing Jaime Herrera Beutler, the Republican elected official who revealed on Friday the content of a telephone conversation between another elected official and Donald Trump on January 6.
His testimony was finally read in session and entered into the file.
The senators, both witnesses, judges and jurors, had already looked into the Trump case during a first impeachment trial a year ago.
He is the only American president to have twice undergone an “impeachment” procedure, the second taking place, another incongruity, while he is no longer in power.
Given his strong popularity on the right, it seemed unlikely that 17 Republican senators would vote with the 50 elected Democrats and form the qualified majority necessary to find him guilty, a verdict that would then have paved the way for an ineligibility sentence.
Trump "lit the fuse"
On Friday, his Democratic successor Joe Biden, who spent more than 35 years on the Senate benches, said he was “impatient” to see what his Republican “friends” were to do, hoping that they would take “their responsibilities”.
A first vote at the opening of the trial, last Tuesday, had outlined the balance of power: 56 elected officials, including six Republicans, had deemed the trial consistent with the Constitution, even if Donald Trump had already left the White House.
Since then, the elected representatives of the House of Representatives, responsible for bringing the accusation against the former real estate mogul, had held a relentless presentation of the facts over two days.
Combining shock videos of the violence and selected excerpts from presidential diatribes, they accused Donald Trump of having given up his role of "commander-in-chief", to slip into the clothes of "inciter-in-chief".
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According to them, the former head of state "stoked the anger" of his supporters for months with a "big lie": by presenting himself as the victim of a "stolen" election, by "fraud" including he never provided proof.
And, on January 6, when the elected representatives of Congress certified the victory of Joe Biden, he "lit the fuse", they estimated, by throwing at them: "Fight like devils".
Once the assault was underway, he waited long hours before calling on his supporters to "return home", abandoning, according to Democratic prosecutors, his oath to protect institutions.
In the end, five people died, and hundreds were injured or traumatized.
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VIDEO. Capitol invasion: the hours that shook the United States
On Friday, lawyers for the 45th President of the United States counterattacked in a concise and muscular argument.
According to them, the attack was "horrible" but the trial is "unfair": it is an act of "political revenge" intended "to prohibit speeches that the majority does not like", they had launched.
The coup "had been planned in advance" by "criminals" and cannot be blamed on the president, they still pleaded.
