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Maxwell, the late owner of Mirror Newspapers, invested $2 million in Mr Romney's first private equity fund, which launched the controversial career in finance that the Republican presidential challenger now cites as proof of his ability to lead the US to prosperity. He was recruited by Lyons, a late colleague of Mr Romney's at Bain & Company and one of the "Guinness Four" who were convicted in 1990 over the infamous share-trading fraud at the drinks firm. Lyons and his family invested almost $3 million in Mr Romney's fund.

SALT LAKE CITY — One man is an island: Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. The 72-year-old former Republican presidential nominee has isolated himself from Republicans in the Senate, in his home state and across the country by occasionally — but strongly — criticizing President Donald Trump, including the president's efforts to enlist the aid of foreign governments to probe a leading political opponent. "By all appearances, the President's brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling," Romney tweeted earlier this month. In recent weeks, the senator's acts of rebellion against the...

The first member of the House of Representatives of Palestinian origin, Rashida Tlaib managed to change the momentum on the Palestinian question. She is fighting tooth and nail, with three other Democratic women representatives, to get Donald Trump removed from office. Michigan, bordering Canada, is best known for its once flourishing automotive industry. But the 2008 election of a Muslim woman of Palestinian origin to the Michigan House of Representatives revealed another aspect: Michigan’s strong Arab-American community. “Miss First” elected with 84% of the vote The eldest daughter of a Palestinian couple of modest background, Rashida Tlaib is the only...

SALT LAKE CITY — Reports emerged last week that some Republican donors are encouraging Utah Sen. Mitt Romney to run against President Donald Trump in 2020, and Romney addressed those rumors Thursday by saying there is "no circumstance I can conceive of that would have me running for national office again.” But that isn't stopping some Republicans from trying to change his mind. Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's short-lived former communications director turned prominent critic, tweeted a link Friday to a website selling Romney 2020 T-shirts and attempting to "nudge" the senator into a run. Featuring slogans like "commit to Mitt" and...

The Club for Growth, which opposed Trump in the 2016 primary, is spending $40,000 to show the ad in Utah. The Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group, is going up with TV ads attacking Sen. Mitt Romney — a preemptive warning shot against fellow Republicans who are considering getting behind impeachment. The 30-second commercial, which will begin running Thursday digitally and on Fox News stations in Utah, portrays Romney as a sunglasses-wearing spy and accuses him of being a “Democrat secret asset” who is “plotting to take down President Trump with impeachment.” The move comes as the first-term Utah...

After tracking Republican responses to President Donald Trump’s racist tweets over the last couple of days, we can say this: Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, offered one of the strongest condemnations of anyone in his party. But that’s mostly a function of the tepidness of the party’s broader response. And it’s hardly the standard Romney has set for himself. Romney offered a couple responses Monday to Trump’s tweets urging nonwhite congresswomen to “go back” to their countries, both impromptu and in a prepared statement. He said Trump’s sentiment was “destructive, was demeaning, was disunifying and frankly was very wrong.” He added...

Sen. Mitt Romney says he's "sickened" by the dishonesty the Russia investigation found in the Trump White House, but the president fires back that Romney should have put the same energy into running for president in 2012 that the Utah Republican has tapped in criticizing him. Romney also tweeted Friday that in reading the special counsel's report he was "appalled" Americans working on the Trump campaign had welcomed help from Russia.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Sunday Dreamers, children of immigrants brought into the country illegally, should get legal status. "Well, it's been put in place by President Obama and I believe we have a responsibility to fulfill what is a presidential pledge and commitment. So that's in the past. I would provide legal status for those Dreamers in the country," Romney said on NBC's "Meet the Press," referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shields these individuals from deportation. "That's something the president's put on the table. I think we should get that job done, and hope,...

The White House and Republican senators sought compromise Tuesday on limiting presidents' powers to unilaterally declare national emergencies, as chances improved that President Donald Trump might avoid a long-expected rejection by Congress of his effort to divert billions more for building barriers along the Mexican border. As a Thursday showdown vote in the Senate neared, GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and others were talking with the White House about related legislation that would curb the ability of presidents to declare future emergencies. If Trump would commit to signing a bill handcuffing future emergency declarations,...

If there are legal grounds to support it, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jenny Wilson said Monday that she "will support moving toward impeachment" of President Donald Trump. "If the (special counsel Robert) Mueller report comes out with a grounds toward impeachment, I think we are in such chaos as a nation, we cannot heal until he's gone," Wilson told the editorial boards of the Deseret News and KSL. That said, Wilson said she awaits the release of the Mueller report on the yearlong investigation into the president's conduct. "I'm not favoring impeachment at this moment in time," she said. But...

American political leaders of both parties are paying tribute and offering prayers for ailing Arizona Sen. John McCain, but President Donald Trump has so far been silent. Neither the White House nor the president has yet spoken out after McCain's family announced Friday that the former prisoner of war and longtime public servant would no longer seek medical treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are praising McCain and offering prayers for his family, as is Mitt Romney, the GOP's 2012 presidential nominee....

Mitt Romney is calling on Americans to “categorically and consistently reject racism and discrimination” on the anniversary of racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 and on the eve of a repeat of the Unite the Right rally this year in Washington, DC. The former Massachusetts governor and current US Senate candidate in Utah issued a lengthy statement on Friday defending equality, steeped in his religious upbringing and belief that “we are all children of God.” Romney, who ran against President Barack Obama as the 2012 Republican nominee for president, touched on a number of issues in his post. He...

Mitt Romney addressed a closed-door tech summit in Utah on Thursday, telling the room he thinks President Donald Trump -- the man he once called a “phony” and a “fraud” -- will “solidly” win re-election in 2020, reports said. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, now running for a U.S. Senate seat in Utah, told a group of GOP donors that Trump will “easily” be the party’s nominee and go on to beat his Democratic rival, Politico reported. "I think that not just because of the strong economy and the fact that people are going to see increasingly rising wages, but...

Mitt Romney, a candidate for U.S. Senate in Utah, said in an interview Monday that President Donald Trump is not a role model for his grandchildren. "I don't think that I would point to the president as a role model for my grandkids on the basis of his personal style," Romney said in an exclusive interview with NBC News' Garrett Haake. "He has departed in some cases from the truth, and has attacked in a way that I think is not entirely appropriate." Romney acknowledged that Trump's policies had "been by and large a good deal better than I might...

He’s not saying Moore should go “if” the sexual assault allegations are true. He’s telling him to get out now. Mitt Romney called on Roy Moore to step aside from the Alabama Senate race Friday, becoming one of the only Republican politicians to say, unequivocally, that Moore should go in light of accusations that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl. (TWEET-AT-LINK) On Thursday, The Washington Post reported that four women said Moore pursued them when he was in his 30s and they were between the ages of 14 and 18. The most serious case involves Leigh Corfman, who was 14...

The White House formally announced its plans to nominate former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as the ambassador to Russia, signaling its intent to put the one-time Trump campaign critic in a leading diplomatic role. Huntsman, who sharply criticized President Donald Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries for his statements and rhetoric about women, previously served as ambassador to Singapore under former President George W. Bush and the ambassador to China under former President Barack Obama. He was reportedly offered the position back in March, a move the Trump administration publicly solidified Tuesday....

Don Peay says the 54 percent of Utah voters — especially Mormon Republicans — who didn't cast their presidential ballots for Donald Trump need to do at least one thing: repent. The former head of the Trump campaign in the Beehive State told the Utah County Republican Women group Monday night, according to Provo's Daily Herald, that "the people who did not get behind Trump probably need to look at themselves in the mirror and say, 'Maybe I need to show a little bit of humility and ask for forgiveness, because I was wrong.' " Peay, a Latter-day Saint and...

SALT LAKE CITY — Independent presidential candidate and Utah native Evan McMullin sent out a fundraising email Monday to a list of supporters purchased from the GOP's 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney. The email from McMullin does not mention Romney or a possible endorsement, although "Romney for President Inc." and a Massachusetts address appears in small print at the bottom. "We're just very thankful for his assistance in this way, and we'll let other folks discuss what that may mean and certainly never speak for the governor," said Joel Searby, McMullin's chief strategist. In response to questions about the list, Romney...

The only fitting way for the 2016 campaign to end, after all of the tumult and bizarreness that we've seen over the past 20 months, is for there to be some dramatic result on Election Day. An electoral college tie, maybe. Or a total blowout. Something interesting, anyway. It's got to happen, right? This, I suspect, is part of the reason that people have seized on a report from a Salt Lake City CBS affiliate about a new poll in the deep-red state of Utah. The surprising/exciting finding? Hillary Clinton has a 1-point lead in the state. Imagine that! Utah...

The Weekly Standard published “An Open Letter to Mitt Romney” on Tuesday night, begging the former Republican presidential nominee to launch a third-party bid. “[T]hese are extraordinary times, and your nation still has need of your service. I respectfully implore you to run for president as an independent candidate in 2016,” Jay Cost wrote. Cost slams presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s “Nixonian paranoia” of “enemies” and calls her Republican counterpart, Donald Trump, “a sympathizer with the nativist ‘alt-right.’ ” “They do not see Americans as Americans,” the letter continues. “They see each of us as potential allies or foes,...