Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said former President Donald Trump should be taken seriously when he promised to go after his political opponents if he was re-elected.
“I think what he's done so far has shown you can trust what he says,” Romney told The Atlantic's MacKay Coppins. The interview was published Tuesday.
“So I'm going to take him at his word,” he added.
Coppins said the remarks came after a conversation in which it emerged that Romney had been thinking for some time about Trump's threat to direct the Justice Department to go after his political opponents.
Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, has at times rebelled against his own party during his time as a senator and criticized former presidents when he saw fit. In 2020, he became the first senator from his party to vote to convict an impeached president. In 2021, six other Republican senators joined him in voting to convict Trump after he was impeached for a second time.
President Trump has repeatedly accused the Justice Department of corruption and Democrats of weaponizing the justice system against their opponents, and has vowed to do the same himself.
Coppins, who wrote a recent Romney biography, conducted a follow-up interview with the senator in May in which they discussed the possibility of Romney being placed on Trump's enemies list, and Coppins reported that Romney “knew” that it was a “possibility.”
Asked what Trump's reelection would mean for him and his family, Romney was cautious, reportedly telling Coppins, “I don't know the answer to that.”
Coppins quoted Romney as saying that if Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate, “the good news is I don't have any ties to anybody, I don't have any classified documents, I don't see anything I've done that would justify an investigation, much less an indictment.”
Asked if his sons could be targeted, Romney told Coppins: “All of my sons;t's and scatteredIof.”
“But President Trump took the time to go out and [he] “Maybe we can find something out about my family,” Romney continued.
When Coppins responded by telling Romney, “Maybe you need to stretch your imagination,” Romney became annoyed, Coppins said.
“Yeah, but I have 25 grandchildren!” Romney reportedly said, throwing up his hands. “How am I going to protect 25 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren? I have five sons and five daughters-in-law. We're a big group.”
In response to The Atlantic's report, Trump spokesman Stephen Chang said in a statement that “this person is irrelevant.”
— Updated 2:50 p.m.
