‘Take Him At His Word’: Mitt Romney Worries Trump Might Use the DOJ to Go After Him And His Family

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Journalist and author McKay Coppins published a new afterword to his best-selling biography, “Romney: A Reckoning,” on Monday and recounted a conversation he had with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) about whether or not he feared retribution from former President Donald Trump should he be reelected.

Trump has long vowed “long-term prison sentences” for those he sees as his political opponents, everyone from Mark Zuckerberg to Liz Cheney . Trump’s explicit campaign promise to use the power of government to exact revenge on his critics and those he baselessly claims are behind his prosecutions and the 2020 election “fraud” are unprecedented in modern American politics, which is clearly not lost on Romney.

Coppins wrote in an excerpt published in The Atlantic , “Romney knew that he was likely to appear on any enemies list kept by the former president, and he’d privately mused to friends that it might be time for him and his wife, Ann, to consider moving abroad. (A spokesperson for the senator told me he was not serious about this.)”

Coppins goes on to recount the full conversation he had with Romney about Trump’s potential “retribution” and if he believed he would be a target. Coppins wrote:

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Romney said. If Trump tried to sic the Justice Department on him, Romney told me, “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.”

What about his sons? Might they be targeted?

“I mean, hopefully they’ve all crossed their t’s and dotted their i’s,” Romney replied, straining to sound casual. “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.”

“You might need to expand your imagination,” I suggested.

Romney grew irritated. “Yeah, but I’ve got 25 grandkids!” he said, throwing up his hands. “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.” This was clearly a problem to which he’d given serious thought, and realized there was no solution. In the weeks after January 6, he’d spent thousands of dollars a day to protect his family from red-capped vigilantes. But how do you hide a family of 40 from a president hell-bent on revenge?

Realizing I’d hit a nerve, I tried to steer the conversation toward safer ground. It was possible, of course, that Trump’s “retribution” rhetoric was all bluster. But Romney didn’t seem comforted.

“I think he has shown by his prior actions that you can take him at his word,” he told me, his voice suddenly subdued. “So, I would take him at his word.”

Romney, the last GOP presidential nominee before Trump, has been a vocal critic of Trump’s character, but has made clear he does not endorse the policies of President Joe Biden and is unlikely to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 race. Coppins also wrote about Romney’s upcoming retirement from the U.S. Senate.

“Maybe he was miserable, but he felt obligated to stay in Washington and do his part. Now, at 77, he couldn’t wait to leave. He seemed lighter in a way, but also more restless,” Coppins wrote of Romney, who spoke to Coppins extensively for the book.

Read the full excerpt here .