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The organizer of the Conservative Political Action Conference defended his decision to uninvite Sen. Mitt Romney — saying the Utah Republican’s vote for more witnesses and documents in President Trump’s impeachment trial would make him unsafe at the event.

“This year, I’d actually be afraid for his physical safety, people are so mad at him,” American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp said in an interview Saturday on “Full Court Press” with Greta Van Susteren.

“The biggest problem we have with Mitt Romney is not that he’s just an individual following his political course. It’s the fact that he’s lied so continuously to conservatives,” Schlapp added.

Schlapp went on to decry the Romney as disloyal, saying, “When he needed a conservative like Donald Trump to endorse him in his Senate primary last time, he wanted him in. But then, when he gets the Senate job, he wants to distance himself from Trump. He’s a use-’em-and-lose-’em kind of guy.”

Romney used CPAC as a platform to woo the party’s base as he sought the Republican nomination in 2012, when he labeled himself a “severely conservative governor.”

Matt SchlappGetty ImagesMatt SchlappGetty Images

When pressed by Van Susteren on Romney’s banishment from the event, he discussed the possibility of the 2012 Republican presidential candidate attending in the future, but not as a conservative. “I suppose if he wants to come as a non-conservative and debate an issue with us, maybe in the future we would have him come.”

Earlier this month, Schlapp announced via Twitter that he was disinviting Romney from the annual conference, mocking the Utah senator’s political preferences.

“The ‘extreme conservative’ and Junior Senator from the great state of Utah, @SenatorRomney is formally NOT invited to CPAC 2020,” the CPAC chairman tweeted.

Romney and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) were the only Republicans to vote in favor of additional witnesses, and Romney was the only member of the party to break ranks and vote in favor of convicting the president.

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