When Congress returns to work this week, its first order of business will be the impeachment trial of the President of the United States. Thus a divisive process which has already brought months of anguish to both the US and its leaders will resume.
As the venue changes from impeachment in the House to trial in the Senate, so, too, does the nature of the conflict. Before the Christmas intermission, the battle was joined on almost purely partisan grounds, as House Republicans, with minimal help from the Democratic minority, voted two articles of impeachment against President Clinton.
Now the fight is within the Republican Party itself, with Senate Majority Leader, Mr Trent Lott, trying to forge a bipartisan compromise on trial procedure in the face of opposition from the House prosecutors, some conservative senators and the conservative interest groups who form much of the party's political base.
It is still unclear how Mr Lott's dilemma, a crucial test of his own and possibly his party's political future, will be resolved. As well as consulting colleagues, Mr Lott has been talking to House Judiciary Committee chairman, Mr Henry J. Hyde, about ways to proceed. There are likely to be many twists and turns - and other alternatives vetted - in a process that has been tested only once before in US history, and in that case 130 years ago.
Mr Lott has indicated he will formally convene the trial as early as next Monday. Under the Constitution, Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will preside, and will swear in the senators as jurors.
The Constitution gives the Senate virtual carte blanche on how it wishes to conduct the trial. Also, any senator may move to end or suspend the trial at any time, and needs only a simple majority, or 51 votes to accomplish it. Mr Rehnquist would break ties.
Both this reality - and the knowledge that it takes a two-thirds majority to convict a president and remove him from office - are motivating Mr Lott to seek a compromise that both Democrats and his own conservative colleagues can stomach.
Mr Lott's plan envisages a procedure in which senators, after initial arguments from both sides, would vote almost immediately on whether the alleged offences committed by Mr Clinton during his involvement with former White House intern Ms Monica Lewinsky rose to the level of removal from office.
The trial would proceed only if two-thirds of senators agreed. Otherwise the Senate would move toward consideration of some kind of resolution censuring the President.
By contrast, the House prosecutors, known as "managers", argue that only with a full-scale trial, with witnesses, will the Senate be able to make an informed judgment in the case and comply with its obligations under the Constitution. Such a trial would make it likely that the US, for the first time, could see and hear direct testimony on the Senate floor from Ms Lewinsky, her former friend, Ms Linda Tripp and others in the perjury and obstruction of justice case against Mr Clinton.
Here is how the two leading options might be put into effect, as well as what might happen should the Senate, as is frequently the case, fail to reach quick consensus on a course of action:
Mr Lott's office has emphasised that there is nothing final about his proposal, first conceived by Senators Slade Gorton, a Republican, and Joseph I. Lieberman, a Democrat, as a bipartisan method of quickly disposing of impeachment while giving both sides a fair opportunity to present their cases.
Under the plan, the House managers would present their case for conviction and removal from office next Monday, and the White House would present its defence on the Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, the Senate would ask questions of the two sides, by passing them to Mr Rehnquist, as the Constitution requires, who will read them. On Thursday, the Senate will vote on whether the offences alleged rise to the level of conviction and removal from office.
With no Democrat now known to support removal, it appears unlikely that the measure will receive anything close to the two-thirds majority necessary to resume a full-scale trial. At that point, the likeliest outcome is that the Senate will close the trial and consider a censure resolution.
Censure, however, presents its own difficulties. A fine or other concrete punishment is problematical because of a constitutional ban on "bills of attainder", sanctions against a single individual. This restriction might be circumvented if Mr Clinton agreed to the punishment beforehand.
The Senate must also decide whether a censure proposal would require Mr Clinton to admit he lied under oath, a demand of many Republicans and one the President has so far resisted. Former senator and 1996 Republican presidential candidate Mr Robert J. Dole, among others, has suggested putting the two impeachment articles in a joint censure resolution, passing it in the Senate and House, and having Mr Clinton sign it "at a public ceremony", effectively acknowledging that he lied.