Chief Justice John Roberts isn’t very good at this impeachment thing
Donald J. Trump, IMPOTUS the Third, is in Davos giving the “perfect” press conference before returning home to Washington, D.C., where the Feckless GOP Cluster aka the impeachment trial has begun. Tuesday witnessed a thirteen-hour debate that ended with Mitch “the Con” McConnell getting a watered down version of what he wanted, for now. Through the long day and into the night, Chief Justice John Roberts read things and mostly did what “presiding” was meant to be – a lot of doing nothing. But late in the proceedings, after White House Counsel Pat Cipollone profusely lied on the Senate floor and was called out for his bullshit by both House Managers Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, Roberts did a version of Trump’s “good people on both sides,” except he found bad actors on both sides.
Roberts admonished: “I think it is appropriate at this point for me to admonish both the House managers and president’s counsel in equal terms to remember that they are addressing the world’s greatest deliberative body. Those addressing the Senate should remember where they are.”
Roberts, ever the historian, must have missed the last few years of the Senate, where there has not been much deliberating in the Senate in the five years and counting that the Con has been Senate Majority Leader. The exchange that appears to have provoked Roberts to “admonish” both sides began with Nadler, calling out the bullshit: “So far, I’m sad to say I see a lot of senators voting for a cover-up, voting to deny witnesses, an absolutely indefensible vote, obviously a treacherous vote.”
Cipollone, no friend of the truth and obviously not acting on behalf of his employer the United States, but as a mouthpiece of his president, responded:
“The only one who should be embarrassed, Mr. Nadler, is you. For the way you addressed this body. This is the United States Senate. You’re not in charge here.”
It is hard to accept this admonishment in this body, the same one that on the very floor where impeachment is being conducted McConnell and other Republicans hijacked the Supreme Court through denying President Obama his nomination of Merrick Garland. Nadler and Schiff appeared to recognize where they were at, calling out the political machinations and power play taking place every day in that “august” place.
Daniel is a lawyer writing and teaching about SCOTUS, and is the author of the book “The Chief Justices” about the SCOTUS as seen through the center seat.