Mitt Romney's Safety Would Be At Risk At CPAC, Chairman Says

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has been facing a good deal of backlash from his own party since he voted alongside Democrats to convict President Donald Trump during the Senate impeachment trial last week. Since then, Trump and congressional Republicans have been gunning for Romney.

The latest example of attacks on Romney come in what could be interpreted as a veiled threat. A major conservative event organizer said on Sunday that Romney could be in physical danger, were he to attend a key annual political event this year.

Last week, Romney was unceremoniously uninvited to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, by chairman Mat Schlapp via Twitter. Schlapp went on Greta Van Susteren’s “Full Court Press” show on Sunday to talk about the decision and explained that if Romney were to attempt to attend the CPAC, “I would actually be afraid for his physical safety, people are so mad at him.”

Schlapp explained that the anger toward the senator is so great because he “lied so continuously to conservatives” and claimed that he only aligned himself with Trump and Republicans when it was politically convenient.

Romney previously gave the keynote speech at CPAC in 2012 after becoming the Republican choice for presidential candidate.

Schlapp told Susteren that his organization felt it had to revoke Romney’s conservative credentials, though the CPAC may be open to allowing the Utah senator to attend a future event, but only as a “nonconservative.”

Even before winning his seat in the Senate in 2018, Romney has cultivated an increasingly hostile relationship with President Trump. During Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Romney was among those conservatives who were less than enthusiastic about the future Republican nominee. After Trump entered the White House, the pair famously had dinner together, presumably to discuss a possible spot for Romney in the administration. Ultimately, Romney was not offered a position.

As a senator, Romney has regularly cropped up to voice his protest against one Trump policy or another. The unequivocal final straw, however, came when Romney became the only Senate Republican to vote in favor of convicting Trump during the impeachment trial.

Since Romney’s vote last week, Trump has not held back in his attacks on the senator. In one instance, the president tweeted a video which accused Romney of being a “Democrat secret asset” who had once attempted to infiltrate his administration as a spy.

Last week it came out that Trump has been compiling a Nixonian enemies list, containing the names of those he views as behind the impeachment process – unsurprisingly, Romney is near the top of the list.