Three Republican senators spent an hour talking strategy with lawyers for the accused. The entire Senate served as jurors even though they were also targets of the crime. No witnesses were called. And the outcome was never in doubt.

Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial centered on a phone call Americans never heard with the leader of a country very far away. The trial went on for two weeks of he-said-she-said. There was a mountain of evidence to pore over but not one drop of blood to see.

Only five days after it began, Donald Trump's Senate impeachment trial has concluded. As was widely predicted, the final verdict was that the former president was not guilty of inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol last month.