Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine praised Chief Justice John Roberts’s late-night smackdown of a House lawmaker and a Trump administration lawyer over a lack of decorum.
Roberts, presiding over President Trump’s impeachment trial after midnight, scolded both House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and White House counsel Pat Cipollone after a fiery debate over the ground rules for the proceedings.
“I think that that’s good. It’s good for him to do that to both sides,” Kaine told the Washington Examiner. “At the end of the day, you know, after 11 hours, I think both sides of that particular interchange were a little bit testier than they needed to be. And I think that was good.”
Other members, however, defended their side’s positions.
“When you have the House managers insulting and accusing Republican senators, in effect, the jurors, I know we’re not jurors were senators, of conspiring in a cover-up. That’s completely inappropriate, completely out of bounds,” Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson told reporters. “It was really a stupid thing for him to do, quite honestly. Again, if the Democrats are smart, they’d keep Chairman Nadler off the field.”
When asked by reporters if House impeachment managers were too partisan on the Senate floor, Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters replied, “Well, I don’t think the White House strongly has a set of legal arguments.”
