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The Senate sent a strong signal Tuesday that there are not nearly enough votes to convict President Trump in an impeachment trial when only five GOP senators rejected an effort by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to declare the looming trial unconstitutional. The Senate voted 55-45 to set aside Paul's motion, with all but five GOP senators siding with Paul. GOP Sens. Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Pat Toomey (Pa.) voted with Democrats to table Paul's point of order. The vote is the clearest sign yet that Trump is heading toward a second...

Only two Republicans out of that group of 53 — Mitt Romney of Utah and Ben Sasse of Nebraska — have stated the truth this week: that there is no evidence of any significant cheating or fraud, and that the president is, as Romney put it, attempting to “subvert the will of the people and overturn the election.”

GOP Needs to Make Senate Romney-Proof Welcome to another chapter of the dystopian nightmare book: The Never-Ending Election. Today’s story comes from the great state of Georgia, where, as Tyler wrote yesterday, all eyes have turned: If Biden wins the presidency — giving Democrats a tie-breaker with Vice President Kamala Harris as the president of the Senate — Republicans just need to hold on to one seat in Georgia’s runoff elections in order to hold the majority. That, of course, is mathematically true. The thing with thin Republican Senate majorities, however, is that they’re always vulnerable to one turncoat Republican...

Sen. Mitt Romney called President Trump’s plan to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Germany a “grave error.” The Utah Republican unleashed a scathing complaint after Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced on Wednesday that the Pentagon would start the process of pulling some 11,900 troops out of the country “within weeks.”

Veterans of Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign are eyeing an alliance with Joseph R. Biden, looking to make a splash in announcing they have turned their backs on the GOP this year and will support the presumptive Democratic nominee instead. Micah Spangler, who was a staffer in southern Florida for the Republican Party during the race, told fellow campaign vets in emails Friday and over the weekend that he is working with the Biden team “to cultivate a network of Romney alums that want to help elect Joe in November.” In a separate email to The Washington Times, he said...

But, far sooner than they expected, growing numbers of prominent Republicans are debating how far to go in revealing that they won’t back his reelection — or might even vote for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee. They’re feeling a fresh urgency because of Trump’s incendiary response to the protests of police brutality, atop his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private discussions.

Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney continued offering his support for the George Floyd-inspired protests against racism and police brutality Saturday, highlighting his father's own backing of 1960s U.S. civil rights campaigns. ... "No Americans should fear enmity and harm from those sworn to protect us. The death of George Floyd must not be in vain: Our shock and outrage must grow into collective determination to extinguish forever such racist abuse."

The chairman of CPAC announced that Utah Sen. Mitt Romney is "formally not invited" to the conservative group's annual conference this year. Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Conservative Union, said Romney is not allowed at the event after the Utah Republican voted in favor of summoning witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. Romney was one of two Republicans who joined 47 Democrats in supporting the motion, which failed to pass on Friday. "BREAKING: The 'extreme conservative' and Junior Senator from the great state of Utah, @SenatorRomney is formally NOT invited to #CPAC2020," Schlapp wrote in...

Both in front of the cameras and behind closed doors, Republican Sen. Mitt Romney (UT) has embraced the role of leader of the Senate resistance to the party line on impeachment witnesses — and some of his colleagues are making brutally clear how they feel about it. In a private lunch with fellow Senate Republicans Monday, the frequent critic of President Trump reportedly “made a strong pitch” for calling additional witnesses for the Senate trial, according to Politico’s sources. In addition to trying to convince fellow Republicans to defect behind the scenes, Romney is going public with his plea. “The...

I guess I should say something. For five years my office at AEI was right next to John Bolton. Lately I’ve been having fun with this photo suggesting I can do “hearsay” with the best of Adam Schiff’s witnesses (that is, “making stuff up”). I can’t say I got to know Bolton very well, but as early risers we were often the first people in the office before well before 7 am on many days, so I’d sometimes stop to chat over coffee and we’d joke about things. And he was helpful to me several times when I needed some...

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) on Monday lashed out at fellow GOP Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) over his apparent openness to call witnesses as part of President Trump's impeachment trial. Loeffler — who was just sworn into the Senate earlier this month after being appointed to succeed Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who was popular among members on both sides of the aisle — tweeted that it was "time to move on" from the impeachment effort. "Sadly, my colleague [Romney] wants to appease the left by calling witnesses who will slander the @realDonaldTrump during their 15 minutes of fame. The circus is...

Romney loses GOP support in Utah after challenging Trump on impeachment "Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney lost support from Republicans and independents in his home state during the weeks after he called for witnesses in President Trump's Senate impeachment trial, a new poll shows. The Morning Consult survey found support for Romney, 72, going down after he called for former national security adviser John Bolton to testify at Trump’s impeachment trial, which began on Thursday. ... In the prior quarter, 65% of Utah Republicans supported Romney, and while a majority still do presently, that number sank to 57%. ... Democrats...

While speaking to reporters on Monday, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) said that he is keeping an open mind on which witnesses he wants to hear from in the Senate impeachment trial, and wants to hear from former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Romney said, “I support the Clinton impeachment model, which is a vote on witnesses later. But as to which witnesses I’d want to hear from, and so forth, that’s something which I’m open to until after the opening arguments.” He added that Bolton is “someone who I would like to hear from, and presumably, I’d get the chance...

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) on Monday became the first Republican senator to state that he would like John Bolton, former White House national security advisor, to testify at the Senate impeachment trial if subpoenaed. “I would like to be able to hear from John Bolton. What the process is to make that happen, I don’t have an answer for you,” Romney told reporters on Capitol Hill when asked whether he would be open to hearing from Bolton.

The newly rebellious senator has become an outspoken dissident in Trump’s Republican Party, just in time for the president’s impeachment trial..... Mitt Romney is leaning forward in his chair, his eyes flashing, his voice sharp. It’s a strange look for the 72-year-old senator, who typically affects a measured, somber tone when discussing Donald Trump’s various moral deficiencies. But after weeks of escalating combat with the president—over Ukraine, and China, and Syria, and impeachment—the gentleman from Utah suddenly appears ready to unload.

President Trump said in a tweet early Sunday that Democrats are “lucky” not to have any “Mitt Romney types” after the Republican senator said Trump’s call for China and Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was “wrong and appalling.” "The Democrats are lucky that they don’t have any Mitt Romney types," Trump tweeted. "They may be lousy politicians, with really bad policies (Open Borders, Sanctuary Cities etc.), but they stick together!"

Well, this is certainly an odd coincidence! In fact, when you dig in, you find an amazing series of coincidences. If you believe in coincidences when the CIA is involved, that is. Mitt Romney’s national security advisor in his 2012 campaign -- a career CIA spook who rose to its top levels -- sits on the board of directors of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company that formerly paid Hunter Biden $50k a month despite his complete lack of credentials or qualifications. And it also an odd coincidence that Mitt has as CNN puts it “been a lone Republican voice expressing...

Ask a Republican elected official in Utah if they're endorsing a second term for the sitting president of their own party and the answer should be obvious, shouldn't it? Apparently not if the president running for re-election is Donald Trump. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, answered that question from CNN's Jake Tapper recently by joking he wasn't ready to say yet if he's going to write in the name of his wife, Ann, in the 2020 presidential election, as he did in 2016.

Sen. Mitt Romney wants special counsel Robert Mueller to testify before Congress, breaking with fellow Republicans who want to move on after Mueller delivered his report that found attempts by President Donald Trump to derail the investigation but didn’t seek charges against him for obstruction of justice. “I’d like to hear from Mr. Mueller; I think a lot of people would like to hear his perspective on the report he put out and the conclusions he reached,” Romney told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday. The Utah Republican, who had said he was “sickened” by Mueller’s findings about the president...

Utah Sen.-elect Mitt Romney signaled he may focus on climate change when he's sworn in in January. In a brief interview with E&E News yesterday, the former Republican presidential nominee said he sees climate change as a "critical area." ....snip Last year, Romney told college students in St. Louis that he was "concerned about the anti-scientific attitude" expressed by some of his Republican colleagues and that he was convinced humanity has played a part in global warming (Climatewire, Oct. 3). "I happen to believe that there is climate change, and I think humans contribute to it in a substantial way,...