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Schumer agrees to two-week delay of Trump’s impeachment trial

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed Friday night to a two-week delay of former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, allowing the chamber to focus on confirming President Joe Biden's Cabinet and coronavirus relief.

Under the timeline outlined by Schumer, the House will deliver the article of impeachment Monday evening, senators will be sworn-in Tuesday and the trial will officially begin the week of February 8. The framework for the trial comes after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) also called for a two-week delay in order to give Trump time to plan his legal defense.

"The January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, incited by Donald J. Trump was a day none of us will ever forget," Schumer said Friday. "We all want to put this awful chapter in our nation’s history behind us. But healing and unity will only come if there is truth and accountability. And that is what this trial will provide."

Doug Andres, a spokesperson for McConnell, said the GOP leader is "glad that Leader Schumer agreed to Republicans’ request for additional time during the pre-trial phase," calling it "a win for due process and fairness.”

The House managers and Trump’s legal team will spend the next two weeks drafting their legal briefs. Under the trial schedule, the president's team will have until February 2 to answer the article and House managers will submit their pre-trial brief the same day. Trump's pre-trial brief will then be due February 8 and the House will have until February 9 for their rebuttal, which will allow for the trial to officially begin.

Earlier Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed concerns by Republicans that Trump’s legal team wouldn’t have adequate time if the trial started next week after the impeachment article is delivered to the Senate.

“The former president will have had the same amount of time to prepare for trial as our Managers,” Pelosi said, referring to her hand-picked team of House Democrats who will essentially serve as prosecutors in the Senate trial.

"The House has been respectful of the Senate’s constitutional power over the trial and always attentive to the fairness of the process," Pelosi later added in a letter sent to her members, noting that Monday would be a "momentous and solemn day."

President Joe Biden, who has largely left the process up to Congress, did not object to a slightly delayed impeachment trial, when asked by reporters if he supported a February timeline.

"The more time we have to get up and running to meet these crises, the better," Biden told reporters Friday afternoon.

The exact length of the Senate’s unprecedented second impeachment trial is still unclear, though lawmakers of both parties say they expect it to take up less time than the three weeks spent on Trump’s first trial in early 2020. Whether the Senate also brings in witnesses is another open question.

Prior to the agreement, many GOP senators warned the trial would disrupt the Senate’s jam-packed schedule confirming Biden’s nominees and potentially moving to an additional Covid-19 relief package.

“Absent some agreement, we won't be doing any confirmations, we won't be doing any Covid-19 relief, we won't be doing anything else other than impeaching the person who's not even president,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters Friday.

“I think what McConnell laid down was eminently reasonable, in terms of making sure that we got [due] process,” added Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a moderate who could be a critical vote in Trump’s trial. “The process has to be fair. So yeah, so we gotta get started, I guess."

During the trial, a team of Democratic House impeachment managers are expected to spend several days arguing that the former president played a major role in inciting violence at the Capitol, focusing on a speech he delivered to a pro-Trump rally just hours before rioters breached the complex.

Trump this week began to prepare his defense, hiring attorney Butch Bowers — who has represented several high-profile Republicans in ethics cases — to lead his team.

While Democrats are expected to vote to convict Trump, it’s unclear how many Senate Republicans will join them. Seventeen Republicans will need to join all Democrats in order to convict Trump.

Several GOP senators argue Democrats are stoking further division and are coalescing around the argument that it’s legally dubious to convict a private citizen.

“I think you're opening up Pandora's box, anything they can do, we can do,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a close Trump ally. “You engage in post-presidential impeachment — you're going to destroy the presidency over time.”

But not everyone is on board with that argument, including scholars from the conservative Federalist Society. And Democrats have argued that Trump — or any president — should be held accountable for his behavior while in office, even if it’s in the final days or weeks of a term.

“It makes no sense whatsoever that a president or any official could commit a heinous crime against our country and then be permitted to resign so as to avoid accountability and a vote to disbar them from future office,” Schumer said Friday.

Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.

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