John Roberts gave a starch warning against both sides during the trial for the impeachment of President Donald Trump at the Senate, calling on those presenting to “remember where they are”, Newsweek reported.
The chief justice intervened after a testy back-and-forth between Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY), a House manager and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and the president’s counsels Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow.
Nadler criticized the GOP-majority Senate after it voted against hearing new key witnesses at the outset of the trial, more precisely the testimony from Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, calling it “treacherous”.
Cipollone told Nadler he owed an apology and hit out at the congressman’s “false allegations”, while Sekulow accused the Democrat of shredding the constitution.
“I think it is appropriate at this point for me to admonish both the House managers and the president’s counsel in equal terms to remember that they are addressing the world’s greatest deliberative body,” Roberts said after the exchange ended on Tuesday night. “One reason it has earned that title is because its members avoid speaking in a manner and using language that is not conducive to civil discourse. In the 1905 Swain trial, a Senator objected when one of the managers used the word pettifoggery and the presiding officer said the word ought not to have been used. I don’t think we need to aspire to that high a standard, but I do think those addressing the Senate should remember where they are.”
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