Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) on Friday issued his strongest statement yet calling out President Trump’s efforts to pressure foreign governments to dig up dirt that could benefit Trump politically.
Referring to Trump’s public calls for Ukraine and China to investigate a political rival, Joe Biden, Romney said it strained credulity to see them as anything but politically motivated.
And that, he said, was “appalling.”
By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) October 4, 2019
While some senators have advocated for the whistleblower rights of the official who filed a complaint about the events surrounding Trump’s July call with Ukrainan President Volodymyr Zelensky — in which Trump repeatedly pressured Zelensky to look for dirt on the Bidens — the Senate’s Republican majority has not publicly taken issue with the President’s conduct itself.
Last month, before the White House released a memorandum of the call in question, Romney’s comments were a bit more hedged. He tweeted that it would be “troubling in the extreme” if the President had pressured Zelensky to investigate a political rival.
If the President asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme. Critical for the facts to come out.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) September 22, 2019
