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Mitt Romney: It's "wrong and appalling" Trump asked foreign countries to investigate Biden

President Trump and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). Photo: Drew Angerer, Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

GOP Sen. Mitt Romney condemned President Trump's "brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine" on Friday in a tweet, saying it's "wrong and appalling" to ask foreign countries to investigate 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

Why it matters: Romney, who criticized the Trump-Ukraine allegations after reading the whistleblower complaint, is one of the first Republican senators to denounce Trump's call on China and Ukraine to investigate his political opponent.

"When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated."

On Thursday, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska denounced Trump's push for China to investigate the former vice president, the Omaha World-Herald reports.

“Hold up: Americans don’t look to Chinese commies for the truth. If the Biden kid broke laws by selling his name to Beijing, that’s a matter for American courts, not communist tyrants running torture camps."
— Sasse wrote to the Herald

Go deeper: Senate's new maverick Republican: Mitt Romney and the whistleblower complaint

Go deeper

Jonathan Swan, Zachary Basu
1 min ago - Politics & Policy
Off the Rails

Episode 3: Descent into madness

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Beginning on election night 2020 and continuing through his final days in office, Donald Trump unraveled and dragged America with him, to the point that his followers sacked the U.S. Capitol with two weeks left in his term. This Axios series takes you inside the collapse of a president.

Episode 3: The conspiracy goes too far. Trump's outside lawyers plot to seize voting machines and spin theories about communists, spies and computer software.

President Trump was sitting in the Oval Office one day in late November when a call came in from lawyer Sidney Powell. "Ugh, Sidney," he told the staff in the room before he picked up. "She's getting a little crazy, isn't she? She's really gotta tone it down. No one believes this stuff. It's just too much."

Go deeper (6 min. read)Arrow
Lachlan Markay
2 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Convicts turn to D.C. fixers for Trump pardons

Trump confidante Matt Schlapp interviews Jared Kushner last February. Schlapp is seeking a pardon for a biotech executive. Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

A flood of convicted criminals has retained lobbyists since November’s presidential election to press President Trump for pardons or commutations before he leaves office.

What we're hearing: Among them is Nickie Lum Davis, a Hawaii woman who pleaded guilty last year to abetting an illicit foreign lobbying campaign on behalf of fugitive Malaysian businessman Jho Low. Trump confidante Matt Schlapp also is seeking a pardon for a former biopharmaceutical executive convicted of fraud less than two months ago.

Go deeper (2 min. read)Arrow
Alayna Treene, Margaret Harding McGill, Ashley Gold
3 mins ago - Politics & Policy

GOP plots payback for deplatforming Trump

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Capitol Hill conservatives are gaming out a multi-front war on the tech industry as retribution for deplatforming President Trump and others on the right, congressional sources tell Axios.

Why it matters: When you're in the minority, you figure out who you are as a party. With Republicans now looking up at the Democrats, they're searching for a unifying issue. This is one, at least for now.

Go deeper (1 min. read)Arrow