After former US president Donald Trump was acquitted by the US Senate on charges of inciting the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, there was a distinct feeling that he had dodged a bullet—if he was impeached, he would not have been able to run again for the post of the president of the United States. Although seven Republican Senators indeed voted in favour of impeaching Trump, there was widespread anger among Democratic leaders that some others, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, voted against the impeachment motion.
However, soon after the vote, McConnell—the highest ranking Republican leader—came out strongly against Trump. "President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office, as an ordinary citizen, unless the Statute of Limitation has run," he said. He insisted that the courts were a more appropriate venue to hold Trump accountable than a Senate trial. "He didn't get away with anything yet," McConnell said.
Further legal troubles await Trump?
The next step for the former president could be the courts. Now a private citizen, Trump is stripped of his protection from legal liability that the presidency gave him. The Capitol Hill riots aside, he also faces legal exposure in Georgia over an alleged pressure campaign on state election officials, and in Manhattan over hush-money payments and business deals.
The attorney general for the District of Columbia, Karl Racine, had earlier said that district prosecutors are considering whether to charge Trump under local law that criminalises statements that motivate people to violence. "Let it be known that the office of attorney general has a potential charge that it may utilise," Racine told MSNBC last month. "The charge would be a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of six months in jail."
The legal issue is whether Trump or any of the speakers at the rally near the White House that preceded the assault on the Capitol incited violence and whether they knew their words would have that effect. A phone call between Trump and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy emerged during the impeachment trial in which McCarthy, as rioters stormed the Capitol, begged Trump to call off the mob. Trump replied: "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are." The McCarthy call is significant because it could point to Trump's intent, state of mind and knowledge of the rioters' actions.
The United States Senate had acquitted Trump on the charges of inciting the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Following four days of impeachment trial, the 100-member Senate voted to impeach Trump by 57-43 votes, 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for conviction.
The nearly weeklong impeachment trial—the first in the case of a president who has already demitted office—delivered a grim and graphic narrative of the Capitol Riot and its consequences in ways that senators, most of whom fled for their own safety that day, acknowledge they are still coming to grips with.
Seven Republican senators—Bill Cassidy, Richard Burr, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey—voted in favour of impeaching him.
-Inputs from agencies
