The US Senate is expected to begin arrangements for the trial of President Clinton, soon after it reconvenes on January 6th, while he prepares his State of the Union address for later that month.
Following the impeachment of the President by the House of Representatives last Saturday, the political establishment is bracing itself for a period of great uncertainty as the first trial of a President in 130 years - and the first ever trial of an elected president - proceeds alongside the legislative work of a now bitterly divided Congress.
Already, behind the scenes efforts are being made to head off the Senate trial or at least bring it to an early conclusion so that the political life of the country is not paralysed at the spectacle of a highly publicised trial of Mr Clinton on perjury and obstruction of justice charges arising from his affair with Ms Monica Lewinsky.
As expected, the House voted to impeach the President, but it rejected two of the four articles forwarded by the Republican-dominated Judiciary Committee.
Numerous Republicans joined with Democrats to vote down the articles which accused Mr Clinton of perjury in his deposition in the Paula Jones civil case and of abuse of power in lying to the committee in his responses to 81 questions.
The two articles on which he will now be tried accuse him of committing perjury in his answers to the Grand Jury last August about details of his affair, and of obstructing justice.
This last charge covers allegations of witness tampering and concealing evidence.
The Senate has a 55-seat Republican majority but 67 votes would be required to secure a conviction of the President on one or more of the above charges.
The conventional wisdom in Washington is that the votes are not there for a conviction, but the events of the past year and especially the past week have been so tumultuous that even the most loyal supporters of the President are unwilling to predict what will happen once the trial starts.
At any stage, it could be halted by a simple majority vote. So, if six Republican senators joined with the Democrats this could happen. But this is seen as too simple.
Under the Constitution, the 100 senators are the jurors in the trial held under the presidency of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Many of them may see it as their duty to hear all the evidence before getting involved in a "deal" to let the President off with a censure motion.
The President, in his first reaction to the impeachment vote, signalled his willingness to accept a compromise.
He said that while the House Republicans have rejected his invitation "to find a reasonable bipartisan and proportionate response", he hoped that "it will be embraced by the Senate". He will also have to withstand increasing pressure on him to resign to spare the country a long-drawn-out Senate trial which would diminish his authority at home and abroad.
One poll showed that 40 per cent of the public believed he should resign if impeached.
Those close to Mr Clinton say he will never resign and he himself said before the impeachment vote that the thought had never crossed his mind.
He has let it be known that he is working on his State of the Union address for January 19th. He is planning a nation-wide tour with the Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, to promote his proposals to protect the social security system from future financial failure and to improve education.
Every effort will be made to show the country and the world that he can carry out his Presidential duties.
Meanwhile, the Republicans also have their problems. Impeachment has been a triumph of the dominant conservative wing but it has been losing the party support in the country at large where its ratings have fallen to 40 per cent.
There are rumours that new sexual scandal revelations may target other Republicans following the demise of the Speaker-designate, Mr Robert Livingston.
The party badly needs to work out a strategy for fighting the Presidential and Congressional elections in less than two years' time.
Part of this strategy will be to use its reduced majority in Congress to pass tax cuts and legislation limiting the role of the federal government which appeals to conservatives, but the Democrats are unlikely to co-operate. The impeachment process has left deep wounds which can only leave the two parties more deeply divided.
President Clinton said on Saturday after being impeached that "we must stop the politics of personal destruction". His own threatened destruction gives him a vested interest in this but his words will resonate across a country which now sees a pornography publisher, like Mr Larry Flynt of Hustler magazine, becoming a power broker.