or disagreed, because i realized that it was in my lap. as majority leader of the senate, i was going to have to try to figure out, how do we fulfill our constitutional responsibility for a trial? >> january 7, 1999 -- the first trial of a u.s. president for high crimes and misdemeanors in over a century begins. >> it was up to the senate to devise a fair procedure for trial, but nobody could agree on how. >> by late afternoon, hope for bipartisan agreement on trial guidelines began to erode. >> negotiators from both sides floated a plan for an abbreviated trial. >> i took it to the republican conference, and they almost beat me up and threw me out in the hall. they said, "this, you know -- that's not going to work." >> there was a plan, at one point this afternoon, for a vote on those two competing plans at 5:00. >> we gathered all 100 senators in the old senate chamber, and the argument went on for 5 hours. finally, it was proposed that each side nominates someone to go and negotiate privately.