Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said former President Trump should be taken seriously when he pledges to go after his political enemies if elected to another term in office.
“I think he has shown by his prior actions that you can take him at his word,” Romney told The Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins in an interview published Tuesday.
“So, I would take him at his word,” he added.
The remarks followed a conversation in which, according to Coppins, it became clear Romney had spent some time thinking about Trump’s threats to direct the Department of Justice (DOJ) to go after his political opponents.
Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president, has during his time in the Senate bucked his own party on occasion and criticized the former president when he deemed it appropriate. In 2020, he became the first senator to vote to convict an impeached president of his own party. In 2021, after Trump was impeached for the second time, six other Republican senators joined him in voting to convict Trump.
Trump has repeatedly called the Justice Department corrupt and accused Democrats of weaponizing the justice system to target their opponents. He has vowed to do the same.
Coppins, who penned Romney’s recent biography, conducted a subsequent interview with the senator in May, in which they discussed the prospect of Romney appearing on Trump’s enemy list. Coppins reported that Romney “knew” that was “likely.”
Asked what a Trump reelection would mean for him and his family, Romney was reportedly careful in his response, telling Coppins, “I don’t know the answer to that.”
Romney said if Trump directed the DOJ to investigate him, “The good news is I haven’t had an affair with anybody; I don’t have any classified documents; I can’t imagine something I’ve done that would justify an investigation, let alone an indictment,” Coppins reported.
On whether his sons might be targeted, Romney told Coppins, “I mean, hopefully they’ve all crossed their t’s and dotted their i’s.”
“But it’s hard for me to imagine that President Trump would take the time to go out and see if [he] can find something on members of my family,” Romney continued.
When Coppins responded by telling Romney that “you might need to expand your imagination,” Coppins said Romney grew irritated.
“Yeah, but I’ve got 25 grandkids!” Romney said, reportedly throwing his hands up. ”How am I going to protect 25 grandkids, two great-grandkids? I’ve got five sons, five daughters-in-law — it’s like, we’re a big group.”
In response to The Atlantic’s reporting, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that “this person is too insignificant to matter.”
— Updated at 2:50 p.m.