The United States Senate voted 57-43 to acquit Donald J. Trump in his second impeachment trial, as Republicans in a Senate still bruised from the most violent attack on the Capitol in two centuries banded together to reject the charge that he incited the Jan. 6 attack.

But seven Republicans voted with all 50 Democrats to convict, the most bipartisan support for conviction in any of the four impeachments in U.S. history.

That outcome reflects two factors. First, many of the senators experienced the violence of the attack, fleeing for safety as marauders overwhelmed the Capitol Police and swarmed the Capitol during the attack, and that Democrats built a case that the former president undertook a months long effort to overturn the election, and then provoked the assault on the Capitol in a last-ditch attempt to cling to power.

“If that is not ground for conviction, if that is not a high crime and misdemeanor against the Republic and the United States of America, than nothing is,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead manager, pleaded with senators before the vote. “President Trump must be convicted, for the safety and democracy of our people.”

With most of Mr. Trump’s party coalescing around him, the final tally fell far short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict him. Only with conviction could the Senate move to disqualify Mr. Trump from holding future office.

Minutes after the verdict was announced Mr. Trump sent out a statement thanking his legal team and decrying, as he did for most of his presidency the “witch hunt” he says is being waged upon him by his enemies.

“It is a sad commentary on our times that one political party in America is given a free pass to denigrate the rule of law, defame law enforcement, cheer mobs, excuse rioters, and transform justice into a tool of political vengeance, and persecute, blacklist, cancel and suppress all people and viewpoints with whom or which they disagree,” he wrote, echoing the final arguments of his lawyers in the Senate on Saturday.

“I always have, and always will, be a champion for the unwavering rule of law, the heroes of law enforcement, and the right of Americans to peacefully and honorably debate the issues of the day without malice and without hate.”

He also suggested that the Democrats’ attempt to end his political career had also failed, telling his supporters, “our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun.”

The verdict brought an abrupt end to the fourth presidential impeachment trial in American history, and the only one in which the accused had left office before being tried. The senators were voting on a question with no precedent in American history: whether to convict a former president accused of seeking to violently thwart the peaceful transfer of power — and putting at risk the lives of hundreds of lawmakers and his own vice president.

The trial ended after just five days, partly because Republicans and Democrats alike had little appetite for a prolonged proceeding, and partly because Mr. Trump’s allies had made clear before it even began they were not prepared to hold him responsible.

So ends a 39-day stretch unlike any in the nation’s history. Dispensing with the customary investigations and hearings, the House moved directly to impeach Mr. Trump seven days after the attack, citing an urgent need to remove him from office. Ten Republicans joined Democrats to adopt the charge, more than had ever supported the impeachment of a president of their party.

In a surprise twist on Saturday, the House managers made an abrupt demand to hear from witnesses who could testify to what Mr. Trump was doing and saying during the rampage. The Senate voted to allow it, but the prospect threatened to prolong the trial by days or weeks without changing the outcome, and in a head-spinning move, the prosecutors quickly dropped it.

After a flurry of closed-door haggling with Republicans, they agreed with Mr. Trump’s lawyers to admit as evidence a written statement by a Republican congresswoman, Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, who has said she was told that the former president sided with the mob as rioters were attacking the Capitol.

New York Times