This will not change the outcome of the Senate's upcoming vote to acquit Trump of charges in his impeachment trial, but senator and former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-UT) has announced that he will vote to convict Trump for abuse of power.
Romney spoke on the Senate floor this afternoon where he said he could not in good conscience ignore the evidence presented against Trump.
“There’s no question that the president asked a foreign power to investigate his political foe,” Romney said ahead of the floor statement he delivered Wednesday. “That he did so for a political purpose, and that he pressured Ukraine to get them to do help or to lead in this effort. My own view is that there’s not much I can think of that would be a more egregious assault on our Constitution than trying to corrupt an election to maintain power. And that’s what the president did.” [...]
“He’s the leader of my party,” Romney said of Trump. “He’s the president of the United States. I voted with him 80 percent of the time. I agree with his economic policies and a lot of other policies. And yet he did something which was grievously wrong. And to say, well, you know, because I’m on his team and I agree with him most of the time, that I should then assent to a political motive, would be a real stain on our constitutional democracy.”
Romney himself saved me the trouble of pointing out that he still agrees with Trump on most matters, but I think Romney still deserves some credit for doing this.
Romney will actually make history by becoming the first senator ever to vote in favor of convicting a president from his own party. That's no small thing.