MITT Romney has revealed he will vote to convict Donald Trump when the president’s Senate impeachment trial closes today, accusing him of “high crimes and misdemeanours”.
The 2012 Republican presidential nominee, a frequent target of Trump’s jibes, said he would vote for the charge of abuse of power and against that of obstruction of Congress.
The vote is expected to take place at around 4pm on Wednesday.
Announcing the decision, the Utah senator said: “In the last several weeks I have received many calls and texts.
“Many demanded in their words that I stand with the team.
“I can assure you that that thought has been very much in my mind.
“I support a great deal of what the president has done.
“But my promise before God – to apply impartial justice – required that I put my personal feelings and political biases aside.
“Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented, and disregard what I believe my oath and the constitution demands of me, for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke and the censure of my own conscience.”
Trump and Romney have clashed on numerous since Trump first emerged as the Republican front-runner ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
In a speech in March 2016, Romney urged Republicans to vote tactically to stop Trump’s nomination, citing Trump’s failure to disavow the endorsement of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
He also criticised Trump’s public admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin and said he lacked “the temperament to be president”.
“Imagine your children and your grandchildren acting the way he does. Would you welcome that?” he said.
Trump responded by mocking Romney for losing out to John McCain in the 2008 Republican primary and then to Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race.
After Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, the two were pictured dining together amid speculation that Romney could be willing to serve in Trump’s administration.
The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., responded to Romney’s announcement by tweeting: “Mitt should be expelled from the @SenateGOP conference. #expelMitt”
Trump ally Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said Romney was “still upset he choked against Obama & begged for Sec of State but was passed over by @realDonaldTrump (thank goodness!).”
The attempt to impeach the president was launched by House Democrats in September following the emergence of a transcript of a phone call between him and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
In the call, Trump appeared to tell Zelensky that $400 million worth of military aid would be withheld unless Zelensky launched an investigation into the dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden and a former board member at Ukrainian gas giant Burisma.
The Democrat-controlled House approved two article of impeachment last month, but the Senate is not expected to follow suit.
Trump’s removal from office would require a two-thirds majority vote, while the Republicans currently hold 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats.
Of those 53, Romney is so far the only one who has signalled an intention to vote to impeach the president.
In arguments made at the close of the trial today, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. appealed for at least one Republican to be among the “the Davids who took on Goliath.”
Romney continued: “I acknowledge that my verdict will not remove the president from office.
“My vote will likely be in the minority in the Senate, but irrespective of these things, with my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me.
“I will only be one name among many, no more, no less, to future generations of Americans who look at the record of this trial.
“They will note merely that I was among the senators who determined that what the president did was wrong, grievously wrong.”
GOT a story? EMAIL exclusive@the-sun.com.
