Sen. Mitt Romney
Willard (Mitt) Mitt RomneyOn The Trail: Trump threatens a Tea Party redux to Romney’s plan to help families and promote work The NYT podcast host says it’s ‘ironic’ Rubio is against childcare MORE (R-Utah) issued a statement on Thursday explaining its vote to convict former President Trump
Donald Trump’s federal prosecutors investigated the Proud Boys’ connections to Roger Stone in 2019 case: CNN Overnight Defense: One-third of the military refuses coronary virus vaccine Biden to take executive action in response to the Solar Winds hack | US and Japan reach cost-sharing agreement Trump ‘won’t say yet’ if he’s competing in 2024 MORE for inciting the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill and appealing to his fellow senators to claim that President biden
Joe BidenFeds investigating how Cuomo is dealing with outbreaks in nursing homes Night defense: a third of the military refuse the coronavirus vaccine Biden will take executive action in response to the Solar Winds hack | US and Japan reach cost-sharing agreement On The Money: Biden faces leftist reaction on student loans | Situation of the relief measure COVID-19 | Retail sales recover MORE won the election that the pro-Trump crowd sought to prevent Congress from certifying.
“The conclusion I reached about the final verdict will not surprise anyone who read my reasoning in the first impeachment trial: I consider the attempt to corrupt an election to remain in power one of the most reprehensible acts that can be committed by an incumbent president,” Wrote Romney, the only Republican senator to vote to condemn Trump in both impeachment trials.
“The second impeachment resulted from the president’s continued effort to do just that. The president’s conduct represented an unprecedented violation of his oath and public trust, ”he added.
Romney said the former president “tried to break” a line that “separates our democratic republic from an autocracy: it is a free and fair election and the peaceful transfer of power that follows it”.
“What he tried was what the Founders feared most. It is the reason why they invested the power of impeachment in Congress ”, wrote Romney. “Consequently, I voted to condemn President Trump.”
Romney was one of seven Republican senators who joined all 50 Democratic senators in the vote to condemn Trump on Saturday. However, the House did not achieve the two-thirds majority needed to plead guilty to the former president.
Romney’s vote was not surprising, given his critical comments to Trump and who voted on two occasions that the trial was constitutional. However, he has since faced reaction of conservatives in your state, as well as other House and Senate Republicans who voted against Trump.
Romney said “people of conscience came to different conclusions” about Trump, but that the charge that the 2020 election was riddled with widespread electoral fraud is “an untruth that divides the nation today like no other.”
“Like you, I hear many calls for unity. It is evident that asking for unity and, at the same time, appeasing the big lie of a stolen election is a fraud, ”he wrote. “It is the lie that caused the division. It is in the service of that lie that a crowd invaded the Capitol on January 6. “
The former Republican presidential candidate then summoned his fellow senators to claim that Biden won the 2020 presidential election, saying it would start the healing path for the nation.
“Now that the impeachment trial has passed, it is up to each of us to state what we all know: President Biden won the election with the legitimate vote of the American people, ”he wrote. “The division in America will only begin to be cured in the light of this truth, a truth that must now be affirmed by each one of us in this Chamber.”