Trump impeachment verdict: as it happened

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Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi has issued a statement, accusing the president and Senate Republicans of "normalising lawlessness".

"President Trump was impeached with the support of a majority of the American people - a first in our nation's history," Pelosi said, referring to the House of Representatives' December vote.

"Sadly, because of the Republican Senate's betrayal of the Constitution, the President remains an ongoing threat to American democracy."

She added: "The House will continue to protect and defend the checks and balances in the Constitution that defend our Republic."

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Question: If Trump is acquitted in the Senate, can he be charged in federal court after his term of office has ended?

Answer: Nothing about the impeachment and removal process prevents a president from being tried for criminal violations after he or she leaves office. There are different standards in a criminal versus a Senate trial, of course. Impeachable offences need not be statutory crimes, and vice versa. But just because a president is forced from office does not shield him or her from legal exposure.

In fact, one of the most controversial episodes of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal was when, after the 37th president had resigned rather than face impeachment, his successor, Gerald Ford, gave him a blanket pardon for all crimes he may have committed against the nation while in office. Otherwise, Nixon very probably would have faced indictment and trial.

The pardon, which Ford cited as necessary to heal the nation, was a highly unpopular move and contributed to his defeat two years later when he sought election to a full four-year presidential term.

The political strategy for the White House at this point is clear: to paint impeachment as just another example of a Washington establishment that has been out to get the president - and, by connection, those who support him - from the beginning.

"They're not after me, they're after you," Trump wrote in a December tweet. "I'm just in the way."

If Trump's campaign blueprint is to rally the base to support him in November - "the largest grass-roots campaign in US history", in the words of campaign manager Brad Parscale - the accusation by House Democrats and subsequent exoneration by Senate Republicans could be music to Republican ears.

At a rally in Des Moines ahead of the Iowa caucuses on Monday, Trump supporters saw impeachment as a motivating factor.

"I think he gets re-elected because of what Democrats are doing," said Tracy Root of Des Moines. "They couldn't beat him at the polls, so they've got to impeach him."

• Read more from Anthony here

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94%

Trump's support among Republican voters, according to a Gallup poll. If it wasn't clear before the trial that he had the support of the rank and file of his party, it certainly is now.

53

An unbeatable majority: Republicans in the Senate have a majority of 53 to 47, meaning they control the chamber and were able to direct the terms of the trial.

That small majority mattered. At certain points, four Republican senators did indeed waver but in the end, all Republicans but Mr Romney voted with their party to acquit Trump.

67

This is the number that ensured Mr Trump was always going to be cleared. To convict, two-thirds of senators - 67 - needed to vote against him.

This would have required 20 Republican senators to vote for their president's conviction. In the end, only one did.

$46m

The amount of money the Trump campaign said it raised in the last quarter of 2019 - a huge figure it said was down largely to Trump supporters reacting to the impeachment proceedings.

Read more about the numbers that explain Trump's acquittal here.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham has issued a statement claiming Trump's "full vindication and exoneration".

"As we have said all along, he is not guilty," Grisham says.

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Speaking after the verdict Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called Trump's acquittal "virtually valueless".

"History will view this as a Pyrrhic victory for President Trump," Schumer said, adding that voters would come to regard it as "one of the largest cover-ups in the history of our nation".

"The American people will know who stood in the way of truth," he said, referring Republican lawmakers, who voted to deny witnesses during the trial.

A Prryhic victory is one in which your side wins but incurs great losses to do so.

It is named after the King of Epirus, who led a Greek army to defeat the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BCE.

Re-watch the moment Chief Justice Roberts declared that Trump had been found not guilty by the Senate.

You have only got to look at the polling. Trump's approval rating rose to 49% - an all-time high - as his impeachment acquittal neared.

Even at the Democratic rallies - and I have been to pretty much all the recent Democratic rallies in New Hampshire - the candidates don't mention impeachment.

And if voters don't care about it now, what's the chance they are going to care about it in nine months' time?

The Senate trial is over and Trump has been acquitted - now protests begin in earnest.

Hundreds of 'Reject the Cover Up' rallies were planned across the US in anticipation of the Senate trial.

The BBC's Morgan Gisholt Minard is on Capitol Hill, where a small group of protesters are assembled chanting "Donald Trump is guilty" and listing what they see as additional crimes committed by the president including xenophobia and misogyny.

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Speaking to reporters shortly after the Senate vote, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he hoped the impeachment process would not become "routine".

"I hope the message to the House of Representatives is: don't do this again," McConnell said.

He was asked by a reporter how long Senator Mitt Romney - the sole Republican to vote to convict the president of abuse of power - would be "in the dog house".

"We don't have any dog houses here," McConnell said. "The most important vote is the next vote," he addid - presumably referring to November's presidential election.

"It's time to move on," he said. "This decision has been made."

The Trump campaign itself has described this as a total vindication, one of the biggest political miscalculations in history, and has lashed out at Democrats. You can see the kind of tone they are trying to strike.

It will be interesting, curiously interesting, to see how exactly the president handles this moment. We didn't get any mention of impeachment in his State of the Union address last night - so will he use this as a victory lap, or bank it, carry it around and use it as he has been doing in his campaign rallies?

Democratic lawmakers, including presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are tweeting their reactions to today's acquittal vote.

After the vote, Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy ripped up the impeachment articles and posted the video on Twitter.

It was a play on top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi decision to rip up her copy of Trump's state of the union speech last night - a move that angered many Republicans.

Pelosi told reporters on Wednesday that regardless of the actions taken today by the Senate, Trump will remain "impeached for life" by the House.

Trump has responded to his Senate acquittal, tweeting a video of a mocked-up Time magazine cover in which he is president through the year 7000 until '4EVA'.

I think the Republican Senate has set a very dangerous precedent - the idea that the president can wholesale obstruct congressional oversight, the key role that the Constitution gives to the House of Representatives.

I think there still are checks and balances, particularly through the court system and right now, the burden is placed very heavily on the judiciary.

The Constitution requires and expects Congress to conduct oversight of the executive - and here, Congress has done nothing, or rather the Senate Republicans have done nothing, to prevent a president like President Trump refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas.

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The Trump impeachment trial has now adjourned.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who presided over the Senate trial, thanked the lawmakers for their generosity "during my period of required residency".

"Thank you for your diligent work through this very trying time in our nations history," Roberts said, addressing the parliamentarians and describing his role in the trial as involving "ill-defined responsibilities in an uncomfortable setting".

"You have been generous hosts and i look forward to seeing you again under happier circumstances," he said.

"President Trump has been totally vindicated and it's now time to get back to the business of the American people," wrote Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale in a statement.

"The do-nothing Democrats know they can't beat him, so they had to impeach him.

"This terrible ordeal was always a campaign tactic to invalidate the 2016 votes of 63 million Americans and was a transparent effort to interfere with the 2020 election only nine months away.

"And since the President's campaign only got bigger and stronger as a result of this nonsense, this impeachment hoax will go down as the worst miscalculation in American political history."

Senate Leader Mitch McConnell thanked Chief Justice John Roberts and presented him with a Senate award called the "golden gavel".

Roberts, he said, had presided with "a clear head, steady hand, and the forbearance that this rare occasion demands."

The award, McConnell said, was typically awarded to senators after about 100 hours in the chamber.

A clerk presented Roberts with the award, and he said thank you.