BY JOHN BRESNAHAN, ANNA PALMER AND JAKE SHERMAN

THE TOP

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The Senate acquitted former President Donald Trump 57-43 Saturday afternoon. That’s 10 votes short of convicting the 45th president.

Republican Sens. Richard Burr (N.C.), Susan Collins (Maine), Bill Cassidy (La.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Pat Toomey (Pa.) all voted that Trump was guilty of inciting an insurrection at the Capitol. 

Burr is the biggest surprise here. He is retiring next year, so he is a bit freed from the typical political considerations. Toomey is also a bit of a surprise, but not as big as Burr. 

Ten House Republicans and seven Senate Republicans have now voted to impeach and convict Trump. If you were looking for evidence of the GOP fleeing Trump, you have some here.

This is a special edition in which we’ll dig a bit deeper on what happened today, and how it will impact Washington and the congressional leadership going forward.

RECAP

What happened today?

Out of nowhere this morning, on what was supposed to be a predictable day, the Senate voted to begin debate on calling witnesses. Democrats requested the vote because they wanted to call Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) to testify about a conversation she had with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy regarding his phone call with Trump on Jan. 6.

There’s already some Democratic finger-pointing going on behind the scenes about who’s to blame for this episode, so we’ll lay out what we know.

The House managers were arguing internally until 3 a.m. today about what to do regarding Herrera Beutler, according to a Democrat familiar with the episode. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s team “communicated to the managers Friday night and reiterated again early” Saturday morning that Senate Democrats would support witnesses if the House prosecutors wanted them. Just moments before today’s session started the managers told Senate Democrats they wanted witnesses. But the source said the managers “didn’t know what their next step was.” 

The managers wanted to depose Herrera Beutler, but Senate Democrats didn’t want to delay the end of the trial.

Trump’s lawyers, for their part, said if witnesses were going to be allowed, they would seek to subpoena Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and a slew of other party leaders, including the House impeachment managers. 

At one point after the Senate voted to debate the witness questions, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) went to see the House managers in their private workspace.

Coons had spoken to a number of senators from both parties and the Senate parliamentarian. Coons told the managers that Republicans could drag the process out by forcing votes on potentially hundreds of witnesses. The proceedings could possibly last days or weeks, Coons said. Other Democratic senators also went into see the managers, including Mark Warner of Virginia, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

In the end, an agreement was reached to enter Herrera Beutler’s statement into the record. The statement, of course, was already public, so this had little real impact.

The trial is over. What are the impacts? The effort to ban Trump from running for president again is over. Congress could censure him, but that wouldn’t bar Trump from seeking public office. Washington can now move on to considering President Joe Biden’s request for $1.9 trillion in coronavirus relief money by March 14, and trying to help the moribund U.S. economy. 

Most importantly for many Republicans and Democrats: They can stop talking about Trump, at least for now. Although we all know he will still be a big part of the political landscape going forward — especially for Republicans.

LEADERSHIP LOOK

What this means for the leadership

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Chuck Schumer: Schumer got through the trial. It wasn’t always pretty, but he got through it. The New York Democrat is coming under criticism from the left for agreeing to forgo witnesses after first backing the request. Is that fair? Democrats had a cost-benefit analysis that they had to make: Republicans would’ve tried to make the witness process incredibly messy, and witnesses would’ve delayed the Senate’s agenda without changing the ultimate result of the trial. Schumer’s rank-and-file didn’t want to go through seemingly endless votes on witnesses. So the House managers cut a deal.

Schumer has a “big and bold agenda” he wants to push — he says it quite frequently. As horrific as the Jan. 6 attack was — and Schumer knows this as well as anyone — Democrats didn’t want to spend a ton of time adjudicating Trump’s role in the attack if there’s no chance of a conviction in the end. Schumer’s goal is to grow his majority in 2022 while getting himself re-elected. The country will judge Senate Democrats on addressing the Covid crisis and getting people back to work. So Schumer will focus on that. 

Mitch McConnell: If you thought McConnell would entertain voting to convict Trump, you don’t really understand what drives McConnell. Here’s how McConnell played it: McConnell said he had an open mind, which made Republicans sweat, but it also gave space to see where the conference was going. When he saw that his membership wanted to acquit, it was clear to longtime McConnell watchers like us that he’d never, ever vote to convict. 

Why? McConnell’s strength comes from his iron grip over the Senate Republican Conference. There’s no way — ever, like, ever, ever — that McConnell would vote to convict when just seven Republicans were taking that position. It makes no sense. It’s not sustainable for him internally.

Politically, if McConnell voted to convict, he would’ve spent the rest of the year answering about the divide in his conference. McConnell will now move back to more comfortable territory: He’ll be the Senate GOP leader with a large Republican minority, with significant leverage over legislating. He’ll focus on trying to win back the majority next year. And he will try to help create a Republican Party post-Trump, if that ever happens.

McConnell has made his anger with Trump known to everyone. On Saturday afternoon, he gave an interesting speech on the Senate floor, saying Trump was responsible for the insurrection, but the Senate was not the right venue to try him because he is already out of office. He essentially said that Trump could — and perhaps should — be prosecuted.

"We have a criminal justice system in this country," McConnell said from the floor. "We have civil litigation and former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one."

But, again, he said Trump was not “constitutionally eligible for conviction.”

Kevin McCarthy: McCarthy ended up playing a more central role in this impeachment than he probably would’ve liked. First, the House Repbublican conference held a vote on ousting Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) for voting for Trump’s impeachment. McCarthy ended up helping save Cheney. Then, in the 11th hour of the impeachment trial, McCarthy’s phone call with Trump on Jan. 6 became central to the case. Not ideal for the man Trump calls "My Kevin." McCarthy is trying to manage Trump. It’s clear he would prefer to not talk about the 45th president all the time. And this acquittal gives him a bit of an opportunity to distance himself from Trump.

Nancy Pelosi: Pelosi got what she wanted: A second impeachment of Trump. Her members are furious about the Jan. 6 attack, and they want Trump to pay for the deadly episode. Pelosi and her leadership pushed through an article of impeachment in one day without witnesses or a hearing. Democrats wanted to impeach Trump before he left office on Jan. 20. Yet this also opened them up to attacks from Trump’s lawyers and Republicans that Trump’s due process rights were violated by the abridged process.

But Pelosi also appointed a House impeachment team that earned high marks from everyone who watched. Pelosi can now focus on passing Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill in two weeks. Like Schumer, that’s her main goal. 

The House impeachment managers: It’s difficult to assess these impeachment proceedings without mentioning three people: Reps. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.). This trio were, by far, the standouts here. Raskin led an impeachment trial just months after the death of his son. Neguse was the youngest impeachment manager ever — and has boosted his internal and external standing significantly. And Plaskett became the first delegate to argue in an impeachment trial — and did so with ease and uncanny rhetorical skill.