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- The Senate acquitted Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection in his second impeachment trial.
- Some senators who voted in Trump’s impeachment trial also voted in Clinton’s more than two decades ago.
- Five current GOP senators who voted to remove Clinton just voted to acquit Trump.
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The Senate acquitted Donald Trump Saturday in the impeachment trial over his role in inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6. The vote was largely split along party lines, with all 50 Democrats and seven Republicans voting to convict, and 43 Republicans voting to acquit.
Six of the Republicans who voted for acquittal were also sitting senators in 1999, during the impeachment trial of then-president Bill Clinton. Five of them voted to remove Clinton from office:
- Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
- Chuck Grassley of Iowa
- Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma
- Richard Shelby of Alabama
- Mike Crapo of Idaho
All five voted to convict Clinton of obstruction of justice, while all but Shelby voted to convict him of perjury, or lying under oath. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was also a sitting senator during Clinton’s trial but voted not guilty on both counts. She was among the Republicans who voted to convict Trump.
The Senate acquittal on Saturday came a month after Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for incitement of insurrection over the Capitol siege, which resulted in multiple deaths and delayed the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
Clinton's impeachment stemmed from his testimony in a sexual harassment case brought on by a woman named Paula Jones, during which he infamously denied having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. An investigation by an independent council ultimately concluded Clinton had committed impeachable offenses in four categories: perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and abuse of power.
The Republican-led House of Representatives brought four articles of impeachment against Clinton in 1998, with two - perjury and obstruction of justice - getting the votes needed to advance to a Senate trial.
Some of the Republicans who were serving in the House then are also senators now.
These are the sitting GOP senators who voted to acquit Trump Saturday, and to impeach Clinton on at least one article when they were members of the House:
- Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
- Roy Blunt of Missouri
- Jerry Moran of Kansas
- Rob Portman of Ohio
- John Thune of South Dakota
- Roger Wicker of Mississippi
Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina was also a representative at the time and voted to impeach Clinton. However, in a surprising vote, he was one of the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump on Saturday.
The latest impeachment trial was Trump's second. He was first impeached in January 2020 over concerns that he abused his power to interfere in the 2020 election. The House and Senate votes were also along party lines then, with only one Republican senator, Mitt Romney of Utah, voting to convict.