Acquittal is not exoneration

(CNN) - Despite the Trump White House's insistence that the President has been vindicated and exonerated by the Senate vote to not remove him from office, acquittal does not mean exoneration in an impeachment trial.

Trump's acquittal in the Senate was always a foregone conclusion. No American president has been removed from office as a result of a Senate trial. In their wisdom, the founders placed the bar at an appropriately high two-thirds.

Nonetheless, impeachment will be in the first paragraph of Trump's obituary. It puts him in a permanent presidential hall of shame.