The dozens of House Republicans who, in a demand for transparency and bipartisanship, filed into a secure hearing room where lawmakers were conducting impeachment proceedings, should be criminally investigated, "The View" co-host Sunny Hostin said Thursday, reported the Media Research Center's Newsbusters.

"This is nothing but political theater, and I really think it's much to do about nothing, but it was illegal," she said. "It felt a lot like witness intimidation to me because we know that this was a Defense Department official. ... Anyone else would be, I think, criminally investigated for that."

However, as NewsBusters pointed out, ABC, NBC and CBS praised Democrats for their day-long sit-in on the House floor in 2016 demanding gun control.

The ABC show Thursday began with co-host Whoopi Goldberg declaring Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., "led a stampede of House Republicans into the basement of the Capitol to storm the closed-door House impeachment inquiry demanding to know what's going on in there!"

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Newsbusters contrasted that description with video showing a group of mostly middle-aged and older men and women walking quietly into a room.

On Thursday's "Morning Joe," Donny Deutsch castigated the Republican Congress members as "white guys."

"Those white guys, those middle-aged, boring, nerdy-looking white guys walk down that [sic] steps was pathetic ... these pathetic weenies walking down that step. ... How pathetic. And Willie and I were talking, just as men, how do you go home and look at your wives and look at your children? Just pathetic, pathetic people."

Similarly, on Thursday's "New Day," CNN global affairs analyst Bianna Golodryga dismissed the House Republicans as a "bunch of white men."

Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said the GOP lawmakers looked like "such jerks."

Gaetz, in an MSNBC interview Thursday morning, defended the move and charged liberal media were using "selective leaks" from Democrats to declare President Trump guilty without ever having seen public testimony from witnesses.

Anchor Hallie Jackson demanded of Gaetz: "Yes or no, is it OK for any politician to trade military aid for political favors?"

The Florida lawmaker said it would not be appropriate, but insisted, "I also don’t think that’s what the President did."

Moments later, Jackson said: "It appears from the testimony that we have seen reported publicly from the witnesses here that, that is, in fact, what President Trump did."

Gaetz interjected: "From the selective leaks provided by Adam Schiff that aren’t subject to cross-examination.

"No, like, see you're playing the game, here, Hallie."