Sen. Mitt Romney Says He’ll Vote To Remove Trump From Office

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) announced early Wednesday afternoon that he will vote in favor of removing President Donald Trump from office for abuse of power. 

He shared his decision with the New York Times hours before senators are set to vote on the impeachment articles at 4 p.m. “I believe that attempting to corrupt an election to maintain power is about as egregious an assault on the Constitution as can be made,” he said. “And for that reason, it is a high crime and misdemeanor, and I have no choice under the oath that I took but to express that conclusion.”

Romney said Trump is “guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust.” He added that he believes what  the president did “was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security, and our fundamental values. Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.”

Romney did acknowledge, however, that his vote is in the minority and that he still expects Trump to be acquitted.

“My vote will likely be in the minority in the Senate, but irrespective of these things, with my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability believing that my country expected it of me,” Romney said.

This comes after he told The Atlantic on Tuesday afternoon, “This has been the most difficult decision I have ever had to make in my life.”

In the interview, he continued: “The president did in fact pressure a foreign government to corrupt our election process. And really, corrupting an election process in a democratic republic is about as abusive and egregious an act against the Constitution—and one’s oath—that I can imagine. It’s what autocrats do.”