Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg committed "political malpractice" in his choice to pursue charges against former President Trump.
The Utah Republican on Saturday morning issued a statement, days after the guilty verdict against former President Trump, criticizing both Bragg and Democrats over the case's result.
"Bragg should have settled the case against Trump, as would have been the normal procedure. But he made a political decision," Romney told his biographer McKay Coppins, a writer at the Atlantic. His office confirmed the comments to Fox News Digital.
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"Bragg may have won the battle, for now, but he may have lost the political war," he warned. "Democrats think they can put out the Trump fire with oxygen. It's political malpractice."
Trump was found guilty by a New York jury on Thursday on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up payments that were made to pornographic performer Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had an affair with Trump. Trump denied the affair and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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In the latter part of Romney's Senate tenure, he has often aligned with more moderate conference members such as Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine. Due to this association, his response to the verdict was less predictable than other Republican senators, many of whom are close Trump allies.
Collins also denounced "the political underpinnings of this case" in her post-verdict statement.
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But Murkowski avoided opining on the legitimacy of the case or verdict in her own reaction. Instead, the Alaska Republican lamented the drama and legal "baggage" that she said distracts voters from President Biden's failures.
Members of the right-wing flank of the Republican conference reacted more strongly to the guilty verdict.
Several senators signed on to a letter to the White House on Friday, led by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, in which they vowed to make the legislative process as difficult as possible for Democrats going forward.
"As a Senate Republican conference, we are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart," the letter read.
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Trump has pledged to appeal the verdict.
Romney previously suggested President Biden had made a mistake in not opting to pardon Trump, his political opponent. "You may disagree with this, but had I been President Biden, when the Justice Department brought on indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him," Romney said in a mid-May interview on MSNBC.
"I'd have pardoned President Trump. Why? Well, because it makes me, President Biden, the big guy and the person I pardoned a little guy," the senator added.
