How the articles will proceed
• After two articles of impeachment were approved Saturday — the other two were defeated — House officials delivered them to the Secretary of the Senate Gary Sisco.
• The best guess is that on Jan. 6, when the 106th Congress convenes, the Senate will pass a resolution stating that it is prepared to receive the articles of impeachment from the House managers appointed Saturday as official prosecutors of the case.
• On Jan. 7, if the schedule holds, the managers will walk across the Capitol to the Senate and read the articles on the Senate floor. That day or the next, Chief Justice William Rehnquist will be sworn in to preside over the trial, as the Constitution requires. (The Founding Fathers realized that it would be a conflict of interest to have the vice president, who also is president of the Senate, manage the impeachment trial of a president.)
• Justice Rehnquist's oath probably will be administered by Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., the president pro tem.
• The chief justice will then swear in the 100 senators as jurors.
• Next, the Senate will vote to notify President Clinton formally that the proceedings have begun, and a schedule will be set. The president will probably get a month or more to file a written response to the impeachment charges, and the House will get time to prepare its reply.
• During this hiatus the negotiations over a deal will begin. One possibility is that the Senate might agree to stop the trial in return for the president's acceptance of a stiff censure. A trial could also end quickly if Mr. Clinton decides not to present a defense — like a defendant in a trial so confident of victory that he rests his case without calling witnesses.
—The New York Times
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