{"id":8210,"date":"2019-09-27T05:28:17","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T12:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=8210"},"modified":"2019-09-27T05:28:17","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T12:28:17","slug":"as-republicans-face-impeachment-dilemma-romney-is-a-lonely-voice-of-concern-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=8210","title":{"rendered":"“As Republicans Face Impeachment Dilemma, Romney Is a Lonely Voice of Concern”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Jonathan Martin,\u00a0<\/span>Sept. 27, 2019<\/p>\n

With most Republicans rushing to defend President Trump against an impeachment push, a \u201cdeeply troubled\u201d Mitt Romney stands apart.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 As House Democrats push forward with an impeachment inquiry into President Trump, Republicans have largely rushed to Mr. Trump\u2019s defense, or at least tempered their criticism to avoid his furious reprisals.<\/p>\n

Among the handful of exceptions, though, there has been none louder or more prominent than Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a figure who once embodied the essence of the Republican Party before Mr. Trump commandeered it, and is now in a lonely category of his own.<\/p>\n

Since the first reports a week ago that Mr. Trump urged President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. set off a still-unfolding furor in the capital, Mr. Romney has repeatedly been the first Republican lawmaker to raise concerns about the president\u2019s conduct.<\/p>\n

He has pronounced himself \u201cdeeply troubled\u201d by Mr. Trump\u2019s effort to enlist a foreign leader for political assistance, and has refused to rule out impeaching the president.<\/p>\n

Mr. Romney\u2019s public statements reflect what many in his party believe privately but are almost uniformly unwilling to say: that they are faced with damning revelations about the president that are difficult to explain away, and are unsure of whether there is more damaging material to come. What\u2019s more, they are contending with a leader whose appetite for political payback for real or imagined slights is insatiable, and who is responding to the crisis with angry new threats and accusations that will only increase the pressure on them to choose a side.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

It amounts to an unenviable dilemma for Republicans at a consequential moment for the party. Any internal fractures over the next year could undermine both Mr. Trump\u2019s re-election and Republican hopes for retaining their Senate majority and retaking the House.<\/p>\n

To Mr. Romney, who represents a state where he is beloved and is unlikely to seek another office, it is a moment where he believes country should trump party.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach person should search their own heart and do what they think is right, which is just what I do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Romney\u2019s willingness to level measured criticism at Mr. Trump has annoyed liberal activists, who see his comments as woefully insufficient to the moment. It has also enraged the president\u2019s most loyal allies, who view the Utah senator as a resentful foe. Yet it could prove most pivotal with a third constituency: his fellow lawmakers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

As Senate Republicans begin to grapple with the unappealing prospect of serving as jurors in the impeachment trial of a president of their own party, Mr. Romney has emerged as a crucial figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s in a different place from many politicians still feeling out their place in the party and hoping to be president someday,\u201d said Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, a Democrat who has become friendly with Mr. Romney from their service together on the Foreign Relations Committee. \u201cHe\u2019s a loyal Republican, but that\u2019s not his first priority \u2014 he\u2019s a bit of a throwback.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Mr. Romney and Mr. Trump, it is the latest, and perhaps last, installment of an off-and-never-really-on relationship between two men who shared little more than the same political ambition. It began when Mr. Romney, as the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, solicited Mr. Trump\u2019s endorsement, and carried through 2016, when the former Massachusetts governor began the year as a ferocious critic of Mr. Trump but ended it as a supplicant, sharing dinner with a president-elect in hopes of becoming his secretary of state.<\/p>\n

Now, though, Mr. Romney holds a crucial position of power. He could be part of an effort to eventually remove Mr. Trump from office, and is already in the ear \u2014 and perhaps conscience \u2014 of other Republicans.<\/p>\n

He plays down his role, noting that he is not trying to lead any sort of insurrection against the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke out because I believe this is a matter of importance and personal principle,\u201d he said. \u201cNothing more, nothing less.\u201d<\/p>\n

But by reproaching Mr. Trump, he offers Democrats the ability to counter claims that the inquiry is a wholly partisan and politically fueled witch hunt, as the president has repeatedly called it. And Mr. Romney both provides cover for and exerts pressure on his fellow Republicans, who are anxiously calibrating what to say about a scandal that only deepened on Thursday when audio emerged of Mr. Trump privately suggesting that government officials who expressed concerns about his dealings with Ukraine deserve to be punished severely.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s leading advisers recognize the threat posed by as high-profile a figure as Mr. Romney, perhaps the second most well-known elected Republican in Washington, and are trying to isolate him. After his critical remarks about the Ukraine affair, Mr. Trump hit back at the senator by posting a video on Twitter<\/a> showing a glum Mr. Romney at the moment on election night in 2012 that he learned he had lost the presidential race.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

\u201cMitt Romney is still disappointed he was never elected President of the United States and Donald Trump was,\u201d said Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump\u2019s former campaign manager and a prospect to lead the president\u2019s public relations defense against impeachment.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., went even further, saying that Mr. Romney \u201cknows that as long as Donald Trump is leading the GOP he is irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Mr. Romney was \u201cdesperate to be loved by the left and the media,\u201d and was \u201cforever bitter that my father succeeded where he so embarrassingly failed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet since Mr. Romney first went public with his alarm on Sunday \u2014 saying Mr. Trump\u2019s alleged conduct was \u201ctroubling in the extreme\u201d \u2014 other Republicans have gradually started to sound notes of concern.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, after viewing the secret complaint of an intelligence whistle-blower who expressed concerns about Mr. Trump\u2019s conduct, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, adopted Mr. Romney\u2019s formulation, calling the report \u201ctroubling,\u201d and saying that Republicans \u201cought not just circle the wagons.\u201d Mr. Sasse was once a vocal critic of Mr. Trump, but had dialed back his comments considerably ahead of his 2020 re-election race, and had received the president\u2019s endorsement earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said on Thursday that he was concerned about the claim in the report that White House officials sought to restrict access to the transcript of Mr. Trump\u2019s call to Mr. Zelensky. Representative Michael Turner, Republican of Ohio and a member of the Intelligence Committee, said at a hearing on the matter that Mr. Trump\u2019s conversation \u201cis not okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Romney said he was not attempting to steer a party he believes is overwhelmingly in Mr. Trump\u2019s grip. But as Mr. Romney contemplates what he acknowledges will likely be his last period of public service, his friends say he is appalled by what he sees as the president\u2019s win-at-all-costs immorality and his party\u2019s willingness to remain quiet in the face of such misconduct.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Further, he is deeply uneasy with the behavior of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president\u2019s personal lawyer and a rival to Mr. Romney in the 2008 Republican presidential primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not quite sure who he was acting on behalf of with Ukraine,\u201d Mr. Romney said of Mr. Giuliani. (In response, the former New York mayor said: \u201cWhere is he on, Mars? I was acting on behalf of Donald Trump.\u201d)<\/p>\n

And even as he insisted he was not attempting to nudge other Republicans, it was impossible to miss his indignation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t imagine being in the Senate or in any other position of responsibility and looking around to see who\u2019s with you,\u201d Mr. Romney said. \u201cYou stand for what you believe in.\u201d<\/p>\n

His challenge as the impeachment debate unfolds will be how to balance his outrage, and leverage his platform, without sounding more sanctimonious than righteous.<\/p>\n

Appearing at a forum sponsored by The Atlantic magazine this week, he pointedly separated himself from other politicians, who he suggested were more susceptible to political considerations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just in human nature to see things in a way that is consistent with your own worldview and your sense of what\u2019s necessary for the preservation of your position of power,\u201d Mr. Romney said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why I\u2019m not afflicted to the same degree as perhaps others are in that regard; perhaps it\u2019s because I\u2019m old and have done other things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of his more pro-Trump colleagues are already voicing irritation at Mr. Romney, who they believe is overreacting to the revelations about the president\u2019s dealings with Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very troubled by anybody that\u2019s looking for an excuse to see the downside in this\u201d said Senator David Perdue of Georgia, repurposing Mr. Romney\u2019s word. The Utah senator, he said, has \u201can ax to grind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Mr. Romney\u2019s associates believe his sense of outrage can shame at least those senators who, as Republican strategist Mike Murphy put it, \u201chave some moral compass.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mr. Murphy, a longtime Romney friend and anti-Trump Republican, said, \u201cIt\u2019s going to take a while, even though the news cycle wants this in an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Mr. Romney\u2019s Democratic colleagues are counting on it \u2014 and are hoping that those Republican voters not fully in Mr. Trump\u2019s thrall will look to their last standard-bearer\u2019s example.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump die-hards are going to be skeptical,\u201d Senator Murphy said. \u201cBut a lot of traditional Republicans are going to shake their heads and think, \u2018When somebody like Mitt Romney says this is not right it\u2019s not right.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Jonathan Martin is a national political correspondent. He has reported on a range of topics, including the 2016 presidential election and several state and congressional races, while also writing for Sports, Food and the Book Review. He is also a CNN political analyst.<\/em><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Jonathan Martin,\u00a0Sept. 27, 2019 With most Republicans rushing to defend President Trump against an impeachment push, a \u201cdeeply troubled\u201d Mitt Romney stands apart. WASHINGTON \u2014 As House Democrats push forward with an impeachment inquiry into President Trump, Republicans have largely rushed to Mr. Trump\u2019s defense, or at least tempered their criticism to avoid his furious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8211,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8210\/revisions\/8211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}