NEW: The US Senate has voted to acquit Donald Trump, for the second time.

A clear majority voted that the former President was guilty, 57-43.

But the effort was 10 short. 7 Republican senators voted to convict.

“It is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said Donald John Trump be and is hereby acquitted of the charge in the said article.”

Though he has been acquitted- never have so many members of an impeached president’s party voted to convict him.

His two impeachments will stand too. It is an extraordinary stain on his historical reputation.

As I said last week, two things are now in grave doubt: 1) the real vs theoretical power of Congress to provide a check on the executive 2) the GOP's status as any kind of reliable guarantor of US democracy. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1359255087680524288

The Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan has reoriented itself to defend, at almost any cost, Donald Trump.

That cost has included an attempt to subvert a presidential election and repeatedly lying about its outcome.

The other uncomfortable truth is this: America is a country with a long history of political violence and paramilitary activity.

Whatever happens to Trump, the Senate (GOP) has chosen not punish a further injection of violence into its politics. It is some signal.

That’s a signal to future politicians, at future elections as it is to Trump.

Those elections seem now more likely to be flashpoints-moments of volatility, contestation and possible violence as a result of Trump’s handling of the post election period, Jan 6th and this acquittal