Trump acquitted on impeachment charges

US president Donald Trump has been found not guilty in his impeachment trial.
He was accused of obstruction of Congress, as well as for abusing the power of the US president’s office by temporarily freezing nearly $400 million in military aid in an effort to pressure Ukraine to open an investigation into his political rival, Joe Biden.
In a 52-48 vote, the Senate, run by Republicans, found Trump not guilty of abusing his power of office. The Senate voted 53-47 to acquit him on the charge of obstruction of Congress. A two-thirds majority vote was needed to remove Trump, who denied wrongdoing.
Impeachment allows the Congress to put presidents on trial. If convicted on either charge, Trump would have had to turn over his office to vice-president Mike Pence.
Trump will now become the first impeached president to seek re-election. “President Trump has been totally vindicated and it’s now time to get back to the business of the American people. The do-nothing Democrats know they can’t beat him, so they had to impeach him”, his re-election campaign said in a statement.
House Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi said Trump remains “an ongoing threat to American democracy” and that Senate Republicans had “normalised lawlessness”.
Trump has become the third US president in history to be impeached, after Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.