JOIN USSenate leaders agree on impeachment trial delay, giving Biden breathing room
Senate leaders struck a deal Friday to delay former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial for two weeks, giving President Joe Biden time to install his Cabinet and begin moving a legislative agenda before they begin a historic proceeding to try his predecessor.
The plan guarantees that the trial, which promises to dredge up the ugly events of Trump’s final days in office and resurface deep divisions over his conduct, will loom large over Biden’s first days at the White House. But it will also allow the president to put crucial members of his team in place and push forward on a coronavirus aid package he has said is his top priority.
Democrats had begun to fret those steps would be subsumed by the rush to try Trump.
“We all want to put this awful chapter in our nation’s history behind us,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader.
Trump, the first president to be impeached twice and the only one ever to face trial after leaving office, is accused of incitement of insurrection. The House approved the charge with bipartisan support last week after Trump stirred up a mob of his supporters that stormed the Capitol in a violent rampage on January 6.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday that the House impeachment managers would walk the charge across the Capitol to the Senate at 7 p.m. Monday, and Schumer said senators would be sworn in as jurors the next day. But under his agreement with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, the chamber will then pause until the week of Feb. 8 to give the prosecution and defense time to draft and exchange written legal briefs.
“During that period, the Senate will continue to do other business for the American people,” Schumer said.
The deal did not specify how a trial would proceed, but both sides indicated they were looking to compress it into a handful of days.
As part of the deal, Schumer announced that the Senate would vote to confirm Biden’s Treasury secretary nominee, Janet Yellen, just before the impeachment article was to arrive Monday evening.
It is all but unthinkable that the Senate could adopt Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan before the trial began. But Democrats hoped to clear several procedural hurdles necessary to do so.