US Senate acquits Donald Trump of charge of inciting Capitol Hill riot

At the end of a five-day impeachment trial in the US Senate, the vote was largely split along party lines with 57 lawmakers voting to convict and 43 votings to acquit.

This happened despite the fact that seven Republican Senators broke ranks with their party and voted to convict the former president, the largest number of conviction votes from senators in the president's own party for impeachment in American history, CNN reported.

That fell short of the two-thirds majority that was needed by the Democrats to convict Trump, who is the only US president to ever be impeached twice while in office.

This was Trump’s second impeachment trial, the only time a president has been through this process twice.

Trump’s first impeachment trial, which took place in February 2020, ended in an acquittal of charges that he tried to put pressure upon Ukraine's president to investigate now-President Joe Biden and his son.

The second trial’s outcome did not come as a surprise as the bar to convict would have required a significant bipartisan vote at a time when the US has become an extremely partisan country, more deeply polarised politically than it has been in decades.