U.S. Sen. Doug Jones recently compared the efforts of House Republicans to storm a House committee room to former Alabama Gov. George Wallace trying to block the admission of black students to the University of Alabama in 1963, saying they were obstructing a legal process.

"If you want to try to obstruct lawful things like that, absolutely," Jones said in a conference call with Alabama reporters on Thursday morning. "That’s exactly what they were doing, trying to obstruct. We should have moved beyond those political stunts, and that’s all this was."

Republican U.S. Reps. Mo Brooks of Huntsville; Bradley Byrne of Mobile and Gary Palmer of Hoover were among two dozen Republicans who disrupted a House Intelligence Committee meeting shortly before it took a deposition from Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, as part of the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump.

Byrne's campaign said in a statement that Byrne would "continue standing up against the sham impeachment mess."

"If Doug spent less time apologizing for Alabama's past to his liberal out-of-state donors and more time fighting for issues important to Alabamians, he would speak out against Adam Schiff and his Democrat cabal trying to impeach our President behind closed doors," Byrne said in a statement. "He and Schiff can continue to attack me, but I will not stop fighting against their scheme to undo the last election.”

Byrne's campaign sent a second statement Thursday afternoon.

“Before we entered the room it was announced that no classified information was being discussed, so why are they even having these behind closed doors?," the statement said. "The real stunt here is how Democrats are running this impeachment show behind closed doors and selectively leaking details to their friends in the media.”

Messages seeking comment were sent to Brooks and Palmer’s offices on Thursday.

The Republicans, who have called the inquiry a “sham,” walked into a secure room used by the committee known as the Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF). Some members brought cell phones inside, a violation of the rules. Republicans have claimed they want an open hearing.

“They’re trying to impeach a president of the United States behind closed doors, with no rules, no resolution to set it up,” Byrne said in a video released by his office on Wednesday.

Congress frequently uses closed-door meetings during investigations, such as the probe into the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi in Libya. Republicans sit in on the hearings and have equal time to ask questions of witnesses.

Democrats accused the Republicans of attempting to distract from the testimony damaging to Trump. Bill Taylor, a top diplomat in Ukraine, told the committee that Trump withheld military aid from the country to force officials there to find embarrassing information on Vice President Joe Biden, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.

The Republicans left after five hours when summoned to a vote on the House floor.

Byrne, who is seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, has been proclaiming his loyalty to Trump in recent weeks, calling for an investigation of the Bidens and voting against a House resolution critical of Trump’s decision to pull U.S. combat forces back in Syria.

Jones Thursday called the move into the SCIF “a petty little temper tantrum.”

"SCIFs are sacred in terms of what you do and don’t do," he said. "They put national security at risk by barging in there with their phones like that. I mean, good grief. I thought Alabama had moved beyond that after the Stand in the Schoolhouse door. Obstructing a lawful inquiry is just absurd."

In 1963, George Wallace stood in the doorway of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama after a federal court ordered the university to admit three African-American students: Vivian Jones, James Hood, and David McGlathery. As Jones and Hood waited to complete their registration, Wallace stood in the doorway of the auditorium, lambasting an “illegal usurpation of power by the central government.” But Wallace ultimately stood aside, and Jones and Hood entered the auditorium.

Jones, who faces a difficult re-election battle next year, has said he wants to see what the investigation of Trump turns up before he decides how to vote. The senator criticized Trump's comments on Tuesday comparing the investigation to a lynching, criticisms he stood behind on Thursday. Jones said that while he understood that there were "raw feelings" over the process, he saw "no place" for the comparison.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Brian Lyman at 334-240-0185 or blyman@gannett.com.

Updated at 1:37 p.m. with second statement from Byrne campaign.