House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned Republicans who voted to acquit Donald Trump for his role inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January, following a months-long campaign to undermine election results that fuelled his supporters to riot.
“What we saw in the Senate today was a cowardly group of Republicans who are afraid to do their job and respect the institution in which they serve,” she told reporters on Saturday.
Following the vote on the floor of the US Senate, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the former president demonstrated a “textbook example” of an impeachable offense “worthy of the Constitution’s most severe remedy” but rejected by a legal team that was “unable to dispute the case on the merits” while relying on “partisan vitriol, false equivalence and outright falsehoods.”
Democratic impeachment manager Jamie Raskin told reporters that the arguments from the were “totally at odds” with historical precedent and the text and intent of the Constitution.