“Mr. Nadler, you owe an apology to the President of the United States and his family. You owe an apology to the Senate. But most of all, you owe an apology to the American people,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone responded to the accusations thrown by House impeachment manager, Jerry Nadler. The Counsel responded to Nadler’s lengthy speech, in which the impeachment manager asked the Senate to subpoena former National Security Advisor, John Bolton. The problem is rather than providing compelling arguments to allow Bolton to testify, Nadler kept bashing the president. “They lie, And lie, and lie, and lie,” he repeated. “If you blocked this, you are blocking the American people from hearing this,” Nadler added. Since the House was unable to bring Bolton to testify during his own impeachment inquiry, it would take an amendment to a procedural resolution for Bolton to appear in the Senate.
The Democrats were hoping that Bolton would testify against the president by confirming that Trump had sought help from Ukraine to interfere with the 2020 election. These allegations prompted Bolton to resign in September of 2019. After leaving his post, Bolton claimed that his resignation was coerced and that he did not want to step down.

In his speech, Nadler continued that if the Senate would vote against the Democrat’s proposition to their resolution, they would be “voting against the United States.” However, the White House Counsel was quick to shut it down. When it was Pat Cipollone’s turn to speak, he responded by apologizing for Nadler’s contemptuous behavior. “Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, members of the Senate. We came here today to address the false case brought to you by the House managers. … We’ve been respectful of the Senate. We’ve made our arguments to you. And you don’t deserve, and we don’t deserve, what just happened. Mr. Nadler came up here and made false allegations against our team. He made false allegations against all of you: he accused you of a ‘cover-up.” He’s been making false allegations against the president.” Cipollone closed in saying that, “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.” He also claimed that the Democrats are still hiding evidence in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), which the president’s team cannot access. Finally, Cipollone reminded Nadler that it was the House’s failure on why Bolton could not testify. He further clarified Nadler’s accusation, as Trump’s intent to challenge subpoenas cannot be considered as an obstruction of justice. Rather, he was just exercising his right as a president. Twitter had also supported Cipollone’s fiery response.