5th February, 2020
United States President, Donald Trump has escaped impeachment as the Senate on Wednesday acquitted him on both articles of impeachment, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The vote on the first article, abuse of power, was 52-48, with GOP Sen. Mitt Romney joining Democrats in their “guilty” votes. The vote on the second article, obstruction of justice, was along party lines, 53-47.
The Senate is now in recess until next week.
The Democrats charged Trump in December with pressuring Ukraine to smear a potential White House rival.
In November, Mr Trump will be the first impeached president to go for election.
In its historic vote on Wednesday, the Senate decided not to remove Trump from office on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, arising from his dealings with Ukraine.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives approved the charges on 18 December.
The Trump campaign said in a statement: “President Trump has been totally vindicated and it’s now time to get back to the business of the American people.
“The do-nothing Democrats know they can’t beat him, so they had to impeach him.”
Mitt Romney of Utah was the only Republican senator to vote to convict Mr Trump, on the first charge of abuse of power.
BBC reports that Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, said earlier on the Senate floor that the president was “guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust”.
Despite Democratic hopes, two other moderate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, did not join Mr Romney in voting to convict the president.
Three centrist Democratic senators who Republicans had hoped would side with them instead voted to convict Mr Trump.
They were Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Doug Jones of Alabama.
A two-thirds majority vote was needed to remove Mr Trump, which was always going to be a long shot in a chamber controlled by his fellow Republicans.
America’s 45th president would have had to turn over his office to Vice-President Mike Pence if convicted on either charge.