Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), the only Republican to convict ex-President Donald Trump twice in the impeachment trials, doesn’t seem to have the luxury of being Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) in public — at least not when there’s a chance he could be spotted by Trump’s supporters.
According to an excerpt of New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin’s and Alexander Burns’ upcoming book obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune and Business Insider, the Utah senator wears a hat when he goes out to dinner in Palm Beach, Florida, where he has a vacation home.
And, unfortunately for Romney, that’s also the site of Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort, which became the former president’s main lair after leaving the White House.
Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns’ book, titled “This Will Not Pass,” also reports that Romney called Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) during the Jan. 6 insurrection to request that state troopers be sent to his home outside of Salt Lake City to ensure his wife’s safety.
But the GOP senator’s reported call to Cox wasn’t “overheated or panicked,” according to the book, given that the violence unfolding that day was right there in the U.S. Capitol.
In fact, one of the particularly harrowing moments during the Capitol attack came when Romney nearly crossed paths with the violent pro-Trump mob in the Capitol hallway before Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman directed him in the opposite direction, toward safety.
The night before Jan. 6 — the day Congress was scheduled to certify the 2020 election results — Romney was heckled on the way to D.C. by MAGA supporters, who called him a “traitor” and demanded that he object to certification on the basis of Trump’s lies about the election.
Romney became a massive target for Trump’s rage after he cast the sole vote to convict the then-president in his first impeachment trial for withholding Ukraine aid, then convicted Trump again for inciting the Capitol attack.
