It’s happened. After nearly five years of playing chicken with threats and insinuations that presidential candidate and later President Donald Trump was not following Twitter’s rules, the tech giant has finally lowered the hammer and banned his personal account permanently, after imposing a 12-hour ban Thursday, according to a statement from Twitter Friday evening.

With the subject line,

Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump,

It read:

After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.

In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.

However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.

You can read the full letter at the link, which continues with “a comprehensive analysis of our policy enforcement approach in this case,” with examples of Trump’s tweets on January 9 that allegedly could “incite violence,” including the fact that he won’t attend Joe Biden’s inauguration (as RedState reported earlier) and that the fight for the million of Americans who cast their ballots for Trump in 2020 won’t end here.

Freelance journalist Oz Katerji showed a screenshot of the “suspended” account on his own Twitter account:

BREAKING: Preisdent Donald Trump has had his account suspended by @Twitter pic.twitter.com/lyNJgIQzaB

— Oz Katerji (@OzKaterji) January 8, 2021

Likely, the following from NBC News’ D.C. correspondent won’t be the last sign of relief from legacy media outlets:

After four years of our days being upended by this account, I’ll no longer have to follow it so I can show members who claim not to have seen what he’s said here pic.twitter.com/e7qskT9NiN

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) January 8, 2021

As this is breaking news, RedState will provide more updates as they become available.