Mitt Romney reveals he personally urged Biden administration to preemptively pardon Donald Trump

By Sarah Boxer, CNN

(CNN) — Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney revealed Monday night that he called the White House during the Biden administration when Special Counsel Jack Smith was investigating Donald Trump to urge President Joe Biden to preemptively pardon him.

“I called a member of the White House, one of the senior advisers to President Biden. And I said, if the Justice Department decides to indict President Trump, I hope President Biden will immediately eliminate that, and that he will provide a pardon immediately. Why? Number one, I don’t want the anger and the hate and the vitriol. But number two: We just can’t begin to be prosecuting political opponents,” Romney said during a conversation with CNN’s Dana Bash at an event hosted by Drew University in Monmouth, New Jersey.

“Pardoning at that point would have been a way to make that very clear,” added Romney.

“What did they say back to you?” asked Bash.

“They didn’t do that,” Romney said, smiling.

That revelation came while discussing the Trump administration’s recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, which Romney said he disagrees with: “The idea that the system of justice is used to punish political opponents is a very dangerous path to go down.”

“I just don’t think that’s the right path to go down. I’d go down a different path,” he added.

Romney said last year that if he were Biden he would have “immediately pardoned” Trump once the Justice Department brought indictments.

Romney also offered up his opinion of why Trump is pursuing Comey: Humiliation.

“The most powerful negative emotion is humiliation. If you’ve been humiliated, the response is the most significant,” Romney said. “And I think President Trump, when he was not in office, was humiliated by these actions where he sat in a New York courtroom at the defendant table being chastised by a judge and being attacked by a prosecutor who in his campaign and said he was gonna bring Donald Trump an indictment and put him on trial.”

Now, Romney says Trump is doing exactly what he had promised during his reelection campaign.

“He said he was gonna have revenge and retribution, and he is. And he’s trying to have a stronger executive branch because he and the people around him believe that the executive branch is too weak and that it needs to have more power,” he said.

Bash asked if Romney feels that Trump’s aggressive use of the executive branch is constitutional.

“In some cases, yes, probably in some cases, no. We’ll see what the Supreme Court says,” he responded.

Romney also said he doesn’t want the court to allow Trump to remove Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook. “I think that’s a huge mistake. The challenge is the Constitution doesn’t actually describe independent agencies.”

During his own run for president in 2012, Romney was famously mocked by President Barack Obama for saying that Russia posed America’s greatest geopolitical threat.

Today, Romney’s warnings are proving prescient.

Romney said he had a hard time watching Trump’s summit in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We talk about humiliation, but Vladimir Putin, come to Alaska and have a red carpet. Oh boy … This is unimaginable. And we just have to stand up for our friends in Ukraine,” he said.

‘I’m not a tariff guy’

Romney said “I’m not a tariff guy” and that he thinks the aggressive way President Trump is imposing tariffs is wrong.

“In the past, we’ve tried to build power by making friends around the world and, and bringing people here, legal immigrants and H1-B visa and so forth. We’ve been building power. He’s saying we’ve been building power too long. We want to exercise it,” said Romney, adding in disbelief, “Going after Canada, for Pete’s sake. Canada!”

Though he said China deserves high tariffs, it should be coordinated with allies to really put the squeeze on that regime.

The former senator called Trump’s tariffs inflationary and said he is now going to the grocery store and cooking meals a few days a week at home. Romney said he sees the high prices gripping US consumers first hand, which he considered a major problem for Republicans.

“I am shocked at the prices in the grocery store. I mean, everything is $5 or more,” Romney said. He admitted that he has a taste for a high-protein cereal that now costs $10. “It’s unbelievable to me the price of these things.

“And it only pours, like, four bowls!”

JD Vance 2028?

Romney told Jake Tapper in December that he thought JD Vance would be the next GOP presidential nominee and stands by that still.

He said Vance, whom Romney called “brilliant,” will not only be the Republican nominee in 2028, but also has a strong chance of becoming president.

“I’m not saying that’s my preference, but I’m saying we’ll see that the Democrats are able to put up,” Romney told the crowd and added, “I don’t have a home in either political party,”

It’s a unique position for the former bearer of the Republican party to be in. Romney traced his compass back to a lesson from his father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, who taught him, “There is no pain like being indicted by your own conscience.”

Attack on a church is unimaginable

Romney harkened back to his Michigan roots when asked by Bash about the devastating shooting at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan, on Sunday.

”Whether it’s that church or any church, an attack on a religious institution where people are worshiping is unimaginable, unthinkable and inexcusable,” Romney stated.

Romney, who is Mormon, told Bash he has cousins who were worshipers at the congregation.

“My church has a heritage of having faced persecution in the past. And you wonder, well, are we in for another bout of this,” he said while also lamenting the recent shooting at a Catholic church and rise in antisemitism as well.

Violence has also taken a personal turn for Romney with the assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University.

He told Bash that two of his grandchildren attend the school. “It becomes associated with this terrible act of what presumably was a very troubled young man,” Romney said.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has steadfastly spoken out against the toxicity of social media and its role in the shooting. Romney says Cox has distinguished himself by drawing that line during this tragedy.

“There are dark impulses in the human psyche and it gets us angry, gets us to tune in again and again and again. And so our social media has taken over how people get information now, and it finds people to blame,” Romney said.

Romney shared that he wasn’t familiar with Kirk before his murder: “I’ve never listened to Charlie Kirk. So I don’t know him, but I certainly defend his right to express his point of view. And I expressed the right of people that vehemently disagree. That’s what democracy is.”

“What is freedom if we can’t speak freely?”

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