Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned former President Trump for inciting the insurrection on Jan. 6, just hours after he’d voted to acquit Trump of the charge in the impeachment trial.

McConnell, like many of his Republican colleagues, argued that regardless of Trump’s role, the impeachment trial was unconstitutional because it occurred after he had left office.

Suffolk University Law Professor Renée Landers told Boston Public Radio that even though the acquittal was “preordained,” the trial itself was “necessary for the proceedings to happen, because … it established a record for the country about what happened on Jan. 6 and what the president’s actions were that day that led to an assault on the Capitol building.”

Landers is a Professor of Law, Faculty Director of the Health and Biomedical Law Concentration, and Faculty Director of the Masters of Science in Law Life Sciences program at Suffolk University Law School in Boston.