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WASHINGTON – Senate leaders reached a deal on Friday to delay the impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump by two weeks, giving President Biden time to install his cabinet and start proposing a legislative agenda before to start historical proceedings to try his predecessor.

The plan ensures that the trial, which promises to trace the horrific events of Mr. Trump’s last days in power and resurface deep divisions over his conduct, will feature prominently in Mr. Biden’s early days at the office. White House. But it will also allow the president to put in place crucial members of his team and push forward a coronavirus aid program that he has said is his top priority.

Democrats had started to fear that these measures would be encompassed by the rush to try Mr. Trump.

“We all want to leave behind this terrible chapter in our nation’s history,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and majority leader. “But healing and unity will only come if there is truth and accountability. And that’s what this trial will provide.

Mr. Trump, the first president to be indicted twice and the only one to stand trial after leaving office, is charged with “incitement to insurgency.” The House approved the charge with bipartisan support last week after Mr. Trump agitated a crowd of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in a violent rampage on January 6.

President Nancy Pelosi announced on Friday that House impeachment officials would cross Capitol Hill into the Senate at 7 p.m. Monday, and Mr. Schumer said senators would be sworn in as jurors the next day. But by virtue of its deal with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, the chamber will then take a recess until the week of February 8 to give the prosecution and defense time to draft and exchange. written legal briefs.

“During this period, the Senate will continue to do other business for the American people, such as cabinet appointments and the Covid relief bill, which would provide relief to millions of Americans suffering during this pandemic,” said Mr. Schumer.

The deal did not spell out how a trial would unfold once pleadings begin on February 9, but both sides have indicated they are looking to compress it into days, potentially allowing senators to deliver a verdict by here. the end of the week.

The delay represented a compromise between the two party leaders in the Senate, who have struggled since Mr Biden’s inauguration to agree on how the evenly divided chamber works. Still, the broader disagreement persisted on Friday, hampered by a dispute over filibuster, which allows a minority to block the legislation.

For Mr. McConnell, who has indicated he is prepared to condemn Mr. Trump and has said privately that he believes the former president has committed unpeasable crimes, the postponement agreement has political advantages. This allowed him to make the case that the process was fair, giving the former president enough time to make his case, and gave him and other Republicans more time to weigh how they would vote.

“Senate Republicans believe strongly that we need a full and fair process where the former president can mount a defense and the Senate can properly address the factual, legal and constitutional issues at stake,” McConnell said.

Democrats weighed in on competing interests, including Mr. Biden’s agenda, a desire to quickly get rid of his predecessor’s trial, and to force Republican senators to officially declare Mr. Trump’s actions as memories of the riot were still fresh.

They accepted the delay after Mr Biden said on Friday he was in favor of doing so, in order to keep the Senate focused on confirming members of his administration and to start work on the next round of federal aid to coronaviruses. He tried to avoid the merits of the trial.

“The more time we have to get going to deal with these crises, the better,” Biden said at the White House.

As part of the deal, Mr Schumer said the Senate would vote to confirm Mr Biden’s candidate for Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just before the impeachment article arrived on Monday night.

It is virtually unthinkable that the Senate could pass Mr Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan – a complex bill likely to face substantial Republican opposition – before the trial begins. But Democrats were hoping to remove several procedural hurdles needed to do so.

Mr McConnell had originally proposed to delay the impeachment trial for a week, until February 15. She cited the need for Mr. Trump’s legal team, which was just hired on Thursday, to prepare to give a full defense. Doug Andres, spokesman for Mr. McConnell, called the deal a “victory for due process and fairness.”

Mr Trump, now based at his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, had struggled to field a legal team willing to defend him, eventually settling on South Carolina’s Butch Bowers.

While Mr. Trump has been defended in his first trial by White House attorney, private attorneys, and leading constitutional experts, Mr. Bowers appears to be taking on the task more or less on his own for now and must quickly get acquainted with the matter. He has little high profile experience in Washington, but has defended several Republican governors in his home state, including Mark Sanford when faced with a possible impeachment in 2009.

Preparing for a potentially swift trial, House officials have said their case will be relatively straightforward, particularly compared to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial. This process resulted in a long and complex presidential pressure campaign on Ukraine which took place largely out of public view.

“Much of what led to this incitement to violence was done in public view – both in the president’s conduct, the words and the tweets – and it played out in real time for the American people on television, “said Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, one of the directors, said in an interview.

Mr. McConnell was reprising a role he played in Mr. Trump’s first trial, representing defense interests. But this time around, he made it clear that he did not want to be acquitted.

The Republican leader said this week that the former president had “provoked” the crowd that stormed the Capitol. And while Mr McConnell has yet to say how he would vote in the impeachment trial, he has privately indicated that he sees the process as a potential way to rid the Republican Party of its former standard bearer.

Yet with many members of his party already lining up against conviction and the right-wing party crying out for his resignation, Mr McConnell was proceeding cautiously.

It would take 17 Republicans joining the 50 Democrats to condemn Mr. Trump. If they did, they could then proceed to disqualify him from any future position on a simple majority vote.

Several Republicans have already pointed to the speed of the process to advocate for Mr. Trump’s release, saying the House impeachment decision – which came exactly one week after the Jan.6 rampage – was too rushed.

“This is a serious problem, but it is not a serious effort to comply with the due process requirements of the Constitution for impeachment,” said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

Senate Democrats were just as keen as Mr. McConnell was to ensure that the trial was seen as fair, especially among Republicans who they believed could eventually agree to convict Mr. Trump. They listened intently when Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the former president’s most vocal critics who hailed the impeachment of the House, said she found Mr McConnell’s suggestion of delay. “Eminently reasonable”.

Other Republicans have argued that it is unconstitutional for the Senate to try a former president because the Constitution explicitly only provided for the removal of current office holders. Many jurists disagree with this position, as does the Senate itself when, in the 1870s, it discovered that it had the power to try a former Secretary of War.

Mr Schumer, anticipating their objection, said the argument had been “outright repudiated, debunked by constitutionalists on the left, right and center, and defy basic common sense.”