Senate

Utah county GOP censures Romney over Trump impeachment vote

by Joseph Choi - 05/10/21 3:18 PM ET

The Weber County GOP in Utah voted to censure Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Saturday for voting to convict former President Trump.

County Party Secretary Jill Koford told the Salt Lake Tribune that the party’s vote to censure Romney passed 116-97.

“The Weber County Republican Convention censures Mitt Romney for his votes to convict President Trump in two U.S. Senate impeachment trials which denied the President due process, allowed falsified evidence, did not provide adequate time for an investigation, and did not follow the U.S. Constitution which states a President may only be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors,” the resolution reads.

The resolution states that voting to convict a former president “without sufficient evidence” is “both unjust and unethical.”

Weber County is Utah’s fourth most-populous county, according to the 2020 census.

Romney was the sole GOP senator who voted to convict Trump in 2020. However, at Trump’s second impeachment trial, Romney was joined in voting for conviction by six other Republican senators: Richard Burr (N.C.), Bill Cassidy (La.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Ben Sasse (Neb.), and Pat Toomey (Pa.).

Burr, Cassidy, Murkowski and Toomey have also been censured by Republican groups in their states for voting to convict Trump.

In a statement released on Monday, Trump celebrated the censure against Romney.

“After being loudly booed at the Utah Republican Party Convention, Utah’s Weber County censured RINO Mitt Romney in the strongest of terms. Washington County Republicans also censured Romney in April. He is BAD NEWS for our Country!” Trump said in the statement, referring to a speech Romney gave early in May at which he was booed for saying he was not a fan of Trump’s “character issues.”

“You know me as a person who says what he thinks, and I don’t hide the fact that I wasn’t a fan of our last president’s character issues,” Romney said at the event.

After the crowd began to boo, Romney asked, “Aren’t you embarrassed?”