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Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said Thursday that Republican complaints about the "secrecy" of closed-door impeachment hearings don't hold water because the process is "consistent with the rules" that a "Republican majority" signed into law.

Trump and his Republican supporters have repeatedly argued that the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry has been conducted improperly because the testimony of witnesses has been carried out in close-door hearings. On Wednesday morning, a group of GOP representatives, some of whom did not serve on the investigating committees, stormed one of those secure depositions, chanting "let us in." This delayed the hearing, but it eventually went forward in the afternoon with only the Democrats and Republicans serving on the relevant committees permitted to attend.

"As frustrating as it may be to have these hearings going on behind closed doors...they are consistent with the rules," Napolitano, who previously served as a New Jersey Superior Court judge, explained during a segment of the Fox News morning show Fox & Friends.

"When were the rules written last?" the legal expert asked. "In January of 2015. And who signed them? John Boehner [the Republican speaker of the House]. And who enacted them? A Republican majority," he asserted.

"The rules say that this level of inquiry, this initial level of inquiry, can be done in secret," Napolitano said. He pointed out that he personally wishes he could view the testimony and that it was public, but he added that the impeachment investigation was thus far consistent with the ones conducted against Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Nixon inevitably resigned to avoid impeachment, while Clinton was formally impeached by the House but not removed by the Senate.

"Eventually, there will be a public presentation of this, at which lawyers for the president can cross-examine these people and challenge them," Napolitano explained. "This is like presenting a case to a grand jury, which is never done in public."