A former presidential candidate is criticizing Utah Senator Mike Lee for what he said at a rally for President Trump. (Photo: Hans Koepsell / KSL File Photo)
Utah Sen. Mike Lee had strong words about the House impeachment managers after the first day of the impeachment trial in the Senate.
“They are behaving a bit like a teenager might, when losing at the game of monopoly badly,” Lee said on Utah Morning News with KSL NewsRadio. “Rather than conceding defeat, they stand up and knock the board and all the game pieces off.”
Lee said he’s tired of all the insults and theatrics. Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler had to be admonished repeatedly by the chief justice to treat each other respectfully, according to Lee.
Lee also denounced the House representative’s idea on bringing in more witnesses, saying they don’t go through that process “just for show.”
“We don’t bring witnesses in circumstances in which it would pierce important privileges that are based on constitutional protections of separation of powers,” he said. “I see no reason to drag the country through that, when we know from the outset, that the facts as alleged are not enough to remove the President of the United States.”
Lee was asked on Fox News about all the writing he was doing in a notebook on the first day.
“I was taking count [of] number one: the number of times they mispronounced Pat Cipollone’s name. It’s not that hard, people,” he said.
Cipollone is the top defense attorney for President Trump.
He said he also kept track of the personal insults, and was grateful Chief Justice John Roberts spoke up about it. But, “I thought that was unfair for him to direct that at both counsels,” he said. “This was the fault of the House management prosecution team.”
He told KSL he hopes if something comes out of this, it’s figuring out how to give power back to the people. He says Washington became too powerful, and the executive branch became too powerful. People wanted to undo the results of the election.
Here’s the full interview with Sen. Mike Lee from Utah’s Morning News: