Romney Says Impeachment Trial Against Trump Should Go Forward

House representatives who voted to impeach get significant GOP backlash

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) speaks to reporters near the Senate Subway on Capitol Hill on Jan. 24, 2019. Zach Gibson/Getty Images

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) asserted Sunday that the impeachment trial against former President Donald Trump should proceed, saying that it is not unconstitutional.

Romney told CNN on Sunday: “Well, I’ve read a number of law review articles, and I think if you put aside the partisan columns if you will written in various publications and look at those that are written by academics, you’ll find that the preponderance of the legal opinion is that an impeachment trial after someone has left office is constitutional.”

“I believe that’s the case. I’ll, of course, hear what the lawyers have to say for each side, but I think it’s pretty clear that the effort is constitutional,” he said.

Romney, one of Trump’s biggest critics in the GOP, told Fox News the House’s article of impeachment “suggests impeachable conduct,” adding that he will “do my best as a Senate juror to apply justice as well as I can understand it.” Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump during his first impeachment trial.

About 10 Republicans voted alongside Democrats to impeach Trump in the House earlier this month. Some experts have said that those GOP House members—including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.)—are now at risk of losing reelection because of their stance on impeaching Trump, considered by many to be the most popular figure in the Republican Party.

The impeachment centered around a speech Trump gave to supporters on Jan. 6 as a group breached the Capitol building. Trump, for his part, has condemned the violence while saying that his speech was fine and didn’t incite violence.

The Republicans who impeached Trump in the House and any GOP senator who votes to convict in the forthcoming trial will likely be on the chopping block come reelection time in 2022 or 2024.

“The stance taken by Liz [Cheney] was very contentious here in Wyoming,” said Republican Bryan Miller, a retired Air Force officer who is expected to run against her, reported Politico. “This isn’t going to be a passing thing that just goes away. It’s growing and growing and growing every day across the state. People are unhappy.”

Newly elected Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.), another impeachment backer, is getting challenged by war veteran Tom Norton in 2022. Gene Koprowski, a former official at the Heartland Institute think tank, is running against Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who frequently criticized Trump and his assertions of election fraud during the November 2020 election.

Meijer said last week in an ABC News interview that his political career may likely be over for voting to impeach Trump.

“I have never seen a greater amount of backlash for any one single vote taken by any one single member of our Republican congressional delegation in Ohio,” said former Ohio state lawmaker Christina Hagan, who may run against Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), who backed Trump’s impeachment.

“I have heard from Republicans in positions of power, within party leadership and all the way across the spectrum to faithful volunteers and business leaders throughout the region who are expressing serious frustration and distaste.”