Radio Recap – President Trump Acquitted

By 

Jordan Sekulow

|
February 6, 2020

3 min read

Public Policy

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The President of the United States has been acquitted by the United States Senate.

On today’s Jay Sekulow Live we discussed the impeachment trial and President Trump’s acquittal by the U.S. Senate.

As Justice Roberts read after the votes were tallied:

Two-thirds of the Senators present not having pronounced him guilty, the Senate adjudges that the respondent, Donald John Trump, President of the United States, is not guilty as charged in the first Article of Impeachment.

On the second article:

Two-thirds of the Senators present not having pronounced him guilty, the Senate adjudges that the respondent, Donald John Trump, President of the United States, is not guilty as charged in the second Article of impeachment.

The President has been acquitted of these two articles of impeachment. There was one crossover Republican vote on the first article; that was Mitt Romney. That vote was only forty-eight saying the President was guilty to fifty-two saying the President was not guilty. On the second article of impeachment there was no crossover vote. The guilty votes totaled forty-seven on that one, with fifty-three against.

Not only was it a not guilty vote on both accounts, it was a majority that said not guilty. That’s important. It wasn’t even close to the sixty-seven or two-thirds needed to remove the President.

ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett made the following point:

It was a clear and convincing majority. They fell far short. You’re talking about nineteen votes on one of the counts and twenty votes short on the second of the necessary measure for conviction. I think the other message that it sends is that it truly was a partisan affair. In both chambers, there was clear recognition in the United States Senate that the United States House had not done its job. . . .

I would say the takeaway for me is nineteen and twenty votes short of the necessary threshold. That is a very good thing because that threshold for removing a duly elected president must stay very high. The importance of that almost can’t be overstated.

President Trump addressed his acquittal during a special event at the White House and we played the audio feed on the show today. My father, Jay Sekulow, who acted in his private capacity as a member of the President’s legal team during the impeachment trial, was at the White House and was recognized by the President during the event.

You can hear portions of the President’s speech and our analysis of the President’s acquittal by listening to the entire episode here.