Confirmation votes for Biden administration nominees and wrangling over COVID-19 aid legislation will occupy senators’ time over the next two weeks rather than the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.
That’s due to a Friday night deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell; the trial will begin on Feb. 9. The Democratic-majority House on Jan. 13 voted for a single impeachment article against Trump, charging him with inciting an insurrection that led to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“The fact is, the House will deliver the article of impeachment to the Senate. The Senate will conduct a trial of the impeachment of Donald Trump,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, announced Friday on the Senate floor.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to send the article over Monday.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, had all along wanted to postpone a trial until mid-February in order to provide time for Trump to prepare an adequate defense. The extra days, McConnell said, would also give Democrats more time to confirm President Biden’s Cabinet, which got off to a slow start this week.
Without a bipartisan agreement, Republicans warned, Democrats would have had to postpone nominations as well as other critical agenda items they hoped to advance under a new Democratic control of the White House and Congress.
Democrats had insisted the Senate could continue moving the Biden nominees while also conducting the impeachment trial. But splitting the Senate schedule to permit a trial as well as votes on nominees and legislation requires consent from the full Senate, and many Republicans had no interest in helping Democrats make it easier to convict Trump.
But Senate Republicans said they would only agree to trial terms that match past impeachment proceedings for Trump last year (about political pressure put on the leader of Ukraine to dig up political dirt on Biden’s son, Hunter) and former President Bill Clinton (on perjury and obstruction of justice charges related to the Monica Lewinsky affair).
“If you want to impeach the president, we’re going to do it like we’ve always done it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said. “They’re choosing to do this. We’re going to do it the way we’ve always done it. We’ve never split the day.”
