... Barr, the shouting

It's over. Donald J. Trump was acquitted. The vote was bipartisan (!) but not in the way Republicans had hoped; Mitt Romney voted guilty on Article 1 (abuse of office) though with his party on Article 2 (obstruction of Congress). He was the only US senator not to vote with his party.

How will history remember Trump's impeachment? Given the way the GOP has fallen into line behind Trump since his inauguration, the final outcome - acquittal -  was never in doubt. But there were two things that were not preordained. One was the possibility of using the Senate trial to gather additional evidence. While to most Democrats the case was already quite clear, some hoped that were witnesses to testify under oath to the events described in the complaint, removal from office might be possible, and if not, then at least GOP Senators up for reelection would be vulnerable and a better case for replacing Trump and the ballot box would emerge. That didn't happen. 

The second question was whether some Democratic senators would be sufficiently fearful of an electorate that wasn't completely decided on the president's guilt that they would vote with the GOP not to impeach. Interestingly and slightly surprisingly, that didn't happen either; all the Democratic senators voted guilty on both counts. 

Somewhat unexpectedly, Mitt Romney emerged as the only senator to break ranks, although just on one vote, that on Article 1, the abuse of office. Thus the vote was ultimately bipartisan but not bipartisan in the direction the president had been hoping for and predicting.

Parenthetically, it's hard to see how Romney could have acknowledged the crime but refuted the coverup; but that's a question interviewers will have to pressure him on in the coming days. What is sad about his split vote is that the second alleged offence is arguably more consequential for American democracy than the first. Using the power of the office to dig up dirt on a political rival is certainly serious but Trump's acquittal sets a relatively narrow precedent. By contrast, the decision to acquit the president from a blanket assertion of his right not to cooperate with Congressional oversight investigations is unlimited in its scope. If the decision is to stand, Congressional oversight will be rendered powerless; administrations can simply use the decision to evade any Congressional requests for information pursuant to its role and authority granted to it in Article 1 of the Constitution.  This will certainly now have to be litigated in the Supreme Court.

So the impeachment of Donald J. Trump is over, bar the shouting. But no doubt there will be plenty of that in the weeks ahead.