Eli Lake, Columnist

Mitt Romney Fails His First Test on Russia

John McCain was willing to vote against Trump, but Utah’s junior senator doesn’t seem quite ready.

January 17, 2019 at 3:30 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Not necessarily the face of the resistance.
Photographer: Zach Gibson/Getty Images North America

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When Senator Mitt Romney opened 2019 with a scathing op-ed lamenting President Donald Trump’s lack of moral leadership, it seemed like he was claiming the mantle of the late Senator John McCain.

Like McCain, Romney — for the most part — did not partake in the ritual fealty that so many of Trump’s vanquished foes demonstrated. Sure, he met with Trump in November 2016 to audition for secretary of state. But Romney never fully bent the knee.