With an assist from Burgess SO AM I, STILL WAITING — Five days before the likely start of President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, the Senate is in an awkward holding pattern: Speaker Nancy Pelosi hasn't yet transmitted the impeachment article to the other side of the Capitol; control of the chamber will flip to the Democrats shortly after the trial's expected start date, creating a procedural morass; and senators have no idea when the upper echelon of President-elect Joe Biden's Cabinet will be staffed as the country deals with a worsening pandemic, poor distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine and heightened warnings about domestic terrorism. Under the expected timeline, the trial will start at 1 p.m. on Jan. 20, just an hour after Biden is inaugurated. Democrats, as they prepare to step into the Senate majority, are working feverishly to establish a process whereby the chamber can run along two parallel tracks to kick off Biden's presidency — one to work on Biden's Cabinet nominees and his coronavirus relief proposal, and another to put the (soon-to-be) former president on trial. That's shaping up to be a difficult task, as it would require the consent of all 100 senators. Biden has tacitly acknowledged these headwinds, urging Senate leaders to figure out a way to hit the ground running on pushing through his agenda and staffing his government. In effect, Biden and his party are stuck between two competing priorities, unsure how to move forward procedurally. "I'm all for accountability. But I want to make sure that we prioritize our business in a way that gets the Cabinet set and Covid relief legislation moving fast," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told me. Democrats' only hope is that Republicans, too, want to move quickly. Let's just be frank about it: nobody wants to elongate this trial. Republicans are sick of having to deal with anything related to Trump, and Democrats want to get to work on Biden's nominees and his coronavirus relief plan. Still, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said that as of Thursday mid-day, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer hadn't yet spoken about trial procedures. Here's how Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) put it: "To choose between holding accountable those who are responsible for attacking our democracy in the U.S. Capitol on the one hand and getting the work done for the people around Covid relief? That is a false choice. We need to do all of those things." Burgess and I (your fill-in Huddle host for today) have the latest on Senate dynamics heading into the trial: http://politi.co/3nGy03r HEADS UP — Pelosi has her weekly press conference at 11:30 this morning, so we should learn a lot more about timing in a few hours. SOMETHING TO PONDER … will Democrats call for witnesses in this trial like they did for the last one? The House didn't undertake any sort of investigation before impeaching Trump this week, so the Judiciary Committee's impeachment report is much less detailed than it would otherwise be. And according to CNN's Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb , the House impeachment managers are weighing whether to seek testimony from witnesses like Brad Raffensberger, the Georgia secretary of state whom Trump pressured to "find" votes for him. But will Senate Democrats — who are clearly very eager to hit the ground running on Cabinet nominees and Covid-19 relief — support this? WATCHING THE WHIP COUNT — It'll be an uphill climb for those who want to see Trump convicted. Of course, 17 Republicans would need to join all 50 Democrats in order to reach the two-thirds threshold. But there should be one guiding principle here: Trump's fate in this trial rests with McConnell. Without McConnell favoring a conviction, it's hard to see more than a handful of GOP senators voting with Democrats. One likely member of that group is starting to show her cards. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Thursday praised the House for impeaching Trump and lashed the president for his conduct — but in classic Murkowski fashion, she won't reveal how she'll vote on conviction until the very end. Still, she's dropping lots of hints. Last week, she said Trump should resign and she threatened to leave the GOP altogether. And yesterday, she noted that the House's impeachment vote was the most bipartisan presidential impeachment vote in history. She slammed Trump for "unlawful actions" and said the House acted "appropriately" in impeaching him. More from your fill-in Huddle host: http://politi.co/39woE56 FITTY-FITTY — We're hearing that the Senate is likely to follow the precedent from 2001's tied Senate on at least one thing: committee splits. Each panel is expected to have an even split of senators from each party, although the Democrats are likely to have more funding. And if past is prologue, tie votes in committee won't bottle up legislation or nominees, so they'll still go to the Senate floor. LIZ GETS BACKUP — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is standing by GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney amid calls from conservatives for Cheney to relinquish her leadership position over her vote to impeach Trump. Cheney has defended her choice on impeachment as "a vote of conscience," pushing back defiantly against the effort by House Freedom Caucus members to oust her. Cheney, you'll recall, said Trump committed the greatest betrayal of any president to his oath of office. Matthew Choi and Melanie have more: http://politi.co/3ie9ntG Related read: "Lawmakers who conspired with Capitol attackers in legal peril," by POLITICO's Josh Gerstein http://politi.co/3nLHfzk | 
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