Former US president Donald Trump is not off the hook, though he was acquitted by his Republican senators of inciting insurrection on the Capitol on 6 January.
According to reports, he faces a slew of criminal charges for inciting the attack and for trying to steal victory.
“He’s worried about it,” an adviser close to the former president told CNN on Saturday night.
Trump has voiced the fear over the past several weeks, sources told the network.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a former ally of Trump who has blamed him for the insurrection, also warned Saturday the ex-president could be prosecuted in the future.
He stressed that while Congress has exhausted its avenues for punishing Trump, the US justice system has not.
“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office,” McConnell said. “He didn’t get away with anything yet.”
Trump was acquitted Saturday on charges of inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol, after a majority of Senate Republicans closed ranks and refused to punish the former president in his historic second impeachment trial.
The five-day trial saw Democratic prosecutors argue — bolstered by dramatic video of the January 6 riot in which five people were killed — that Trump betrayed his oath by whipping up his supporters into storming Congress in a last-ditch attempt to cling to power.
It concluded as expected with a majority of Republicans declaring him not guilty, in a sign of the powerful grip the 74-year-old Trump continues to exert on his party.
But while the 57-43 majority that voted to convict fell short of the two-thirds needed in the Senate, seven Republicans joined with Democrats to seek Trump’s conviction, making it the most bipartisan impeachment trial in US history.
Trump, who has been secluded in his Florida club since leaving office on January 20, welcomed the verdict — denouncing the proceedings as “yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country.”
But McConnell’s blistering attack may have denied him a victory to totally savour.
The former Trump ally called Trump’s actions preceding the assault a “disgraceful dereliction” of duty.
“There’s no question — none — that president Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell told the chamber after the vote.
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13, a week after the chaotic assault that stunned the nation and provoked widespread bipartisan outrage.
Democrats argued that Trump’s behaviour was an “open and shut” case of impeachable conduct, retracing how he spent two months repeating the falsehood that the election was stolen, before inciting his supporters to attack Congress and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.
“He summoned his supporters to Washington… whipped them into a frenzy, and directed them at the Capitol,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote.
The defense team swatted the evidence away, arguing that Trump’s appeal to supporters to “fight like hell, at the rally that preceded the attack,” was merely rhetorical.
*With reports by Times of Israel
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