Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who twice supported the conviction of former President Trump on impeachment charges, has decided against casting his vote in support of Trump in 2024.
Romney’s decision was based on, according to recent remarks he made to reporters, the court’s discovery that the former president engaged in sexual abuse with E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room during the 1990s.
Romney’s declared non-support for Trump does not come as a surprise.
However, it does demonstrate him refining his stance towards the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination by attributing his opposition to a Manhattan jury’s verdict from the previous year, which claimed Trump sexually assaulted and defamed Carroll.
The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages as compensation.
Additionally, last month, a New York jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83 million in defamation damages for asserting he never met Carroll.
In contrast, Romney emphasized the court’s decision as a boundary that he would refrain from crossing in November.
“I will not be voting for President Trump. I must admit that I find sexual assault to be a line I will not cross in the people I select to be my president,” Romney said to reporters at the Utah Capitol building.
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Romney wouldn’t have supported him regardless. We aren’t electing a boy scout. We are electing a leader and policies.