Trump impeachment news - live: Senate votes against calling witnesses, setting up president's acquittal

Republicans to dictate next steps in trial after failure to subpoena evidence

Donald Trump launches blistering attack on 'radical Democrats just down the street' in Iowa

Donald Trump looks all but certain to be acquitted by the Senate as Republicans rejected a Democratic effort to force new evidence and witnesses ahead of the president's impeachment vote.

Just two Republicans broke rank to vote with Democrats in favour of further witnesses, which will likely allow Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to make good on his previous promise not to act as an impartial juror. In response, Chuck Schumer cast the results as making it impossible for Mr Trump to be truly vindicated.

"If the president is acquitted with no witnesses, no documents, the acquittal will have no value because Americans will know that this trial was not a real trial," Mr Schumer said.

Two potential swing vote Republicans, who Democrats had hoped to break from their party line and ask to hear from witnesses, ultimately decided against the proposition. Senators Lamar Alexander and Lisa Murkowski ultimately rejected the motion.

Following the vote, and his desired outcome, Mr McConnell said that the senators will "confer among ourselves, with the House managers, and with the president's counsel to determine next steps as we prepare to conclude the trial in the coming days".

Before his departure to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend as the Senate debated the next steps in his impeachment trial, the president announced an expansion of his travel ban, adding six additional countries to a list of seven others with travel restrictions under guidance from his Department of Homeland Security. Many of the impacted countries have majority Muslim populations.

The White House also announced the US will deny entry to foreign nationals attempting to enter the US within two weeks of visiting China in the wake of a rapidly developing coronavirus outbreak that has sickened thousands of people in a dozen countries.

The US has declared a national emergency as it responds to 200 quarantined people, including six infected patients, in the US.

Follow our live coverage as it happened:

Key Points

• Senate votes not to call witnesses 51-49
• Joe Biden: 'George Washington is rolling over in his grave'
• Senate ready to acquit Trump after Lamar Alexander drops witness support
• Senators issue tough questions on Giuliani, Roberts and president's lies at trial
• Trump mocks rivals, warns farmers their land will 'go to hell' without him
• Alan Dershowitz distances himself from own argument on presidential power

[31 January 2020 16:20 · Joe Sommerlad]

Sir Kim Darroch: Trump will put US first in trade negotiations with Boris Johnson

On Brexit Day, the ousted US ambassador to Britain Sir Kim Darroch warns that Trump will put the interests of American farmers and pharmaceutical companies ahead of any future trade deal with the UK.

Here's Andrew Woodcock on a timely warning for the prime minister.

[31 January 2020 16:35 · Joe Sommerlad]

Chuck Schumer: 'This country is headed towards the greatest coverup since Watergate'

The Senate minority leader is being even more forthright than Joe Biden as Democratic frustration with their opposition threatens to boil over.

[31 January 2020 16:50 · Joe Sommerlad]

Mitt Romney says he will vote for witnesses

The Utah senator and 2012 presidential candidate has confirmed his intentions to vote to hear from new witnesses at the trial later today via a spokesperson. That's two - along with Susan Collins - so here's looking at you, Lisa Murkowski.

Will anyone join them?

[31 January 2020 17:00 · Joe Sommerlad]

'Rand Paul named the whistleblower and revealed the hypocrisy at the heart of the Republican Party'

For Indy Voices, Noah Berlatsky offers this scathing assessment of the Kentucky senator whose question to the upper chamber was cast aside unread by chief justice John Roberts yesterday, apparently after he named the CIA whistleblower who exposed the Ukraine scandal, risking compromising their safety for the sake of partisan showboating.

[31 January 2020 17:24 · Alex Woodward]

Trump appears at White House event on human trafficking

Donald Trump is delivering remarks during a White House summit on human trafficking, after which he'll be signing an executive order to "to combat human trafficking and online child exploitation," according to the White House.

He's joined by Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump.

He joked about his impeachment trial, saying a lot of Senators wanted to be at the event but he told them to "stay where you are and do your job."

[31 January 2020 18:07 · Alex Woodward]

Donald Trump, on online child exploitation: "The internet has caused a lot of good things to happen and a lot of bad things to happen, and this is the worst of the bad things."

The executive order would "target human trafficking and online child exploitation all across our country," he says.

He introduced trafficking survivor Bella Hounakey, who is joining the US Advisory Council on Human Trafficking. She told survivors: “You’re not alone, you’re not alone, you’re not alone.”

Also worth noting:

[31 January 2020 18:20 · Alex Woodward]

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani has his own exclusive, an interview with the ousted former Ukraine prosecutor who recently called for a criminal investigation into Joe Biden:

[31 January 2020 18:27 · Alex Woodward]

Lisa Murkowski to vote 'no' on witness vote: 'Congress has failed' 

Lisa Murkowski says she will NOT support a vote to bring witnesses into Donald Trump's impeachment trial.

Without Republican support from Murkowski and Lamar Alexander, it appears Democrats do not have enough votes for a motion.

She says: “Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate."

[31 January 2020 18:32 · Alex Woodward]

Lamar Alexander's announcement set off a series of decisions from Republicans whose key votes will determine whether Donald Trump's trial will include any witnesses.

Here's why he won't support bringing witnesses into the trial.

[31 January 2020 18:52 · Alex Woodward]

More from The Independent's Clark Mindock on Lisa Murkowski's decision to vote against admitting witnesses:

Ms Murkowski was among a handful of Republicans viewed as potentially willing to side with Democrats to force subpoenas for further witnesses with a simple majority of senators.

Democrats needed to attract four such votes, but that possibility became increasingly unlikely, however, on Thursday night when Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander signalled he would not vote for more witnesses, bringing a potential vote on the matter closer to a tie — which would have then required input from Chief Justice John Roberts, who is overseeing the Senate trial.