Could Mitt Romney be Trump's nemesis in the Senate?

With most of his colleagues unable to choke out a syllable of opprobrium for Donald Trump, Republican senator Mitt Romney has stood out as a willing, if reserved, critic of the president.

Romney has called Trump’s international efforts to gin up bad news about Joe Biden “wrong and appalling”, and earlier this month he took the Senate floor to call the US abandonment of Kurds in northern Syria “a bloodstain in the annals of American history”.

Now, in double interviews published at the weekend, Romney signaled he might go one step further, possibly leading a breakaway group of Republican senators to turn on Trump in the event that the president is impeached.

For Trump to be removed from office following potential impeachment in the House of Representatives, which is controlled by Democrats, the US Senate, which is controlled by Republicans, would have to hold a trial and vote Trump out. About 20 Republican senators would need to turn on Trump to make it happen – long-shot math no matter what Romney says or does.

But the former financier who saw his national political dreams dashed in a 2012 presidential loss to Barack

Obama might now see another opportunity to make a mark.

In a profile for the Atlantic, reporter McKay Coppins, who has closely followed Romney’s career since before the 2012 election, writes: “Here, in the twilight of his career, he seems to sense – in a way that eludes many of his colleagues – that he’ll be remembered for what he does in this combustible moment.”

“I do think people will view this as an inflection point in American history,”

Romney told Coppins.

In a separate interview with Axios, Romney repeated his criticism of Trump for asking China and Ukraine to “investigate” Biden, a potential 2020 rival for Trump though the former vicepresident has been sinking in the polls.

“It was shocking, in my opinion, for the president to do so – and a mistake for him to do,” Romney told Axios. “I can’t imagine coming to a different