Eight years ago Michigan Rep. Justin Amash stepped into office with the full backing of the Tea Party. Four years later in 2015, the same year that current President Donald Trump announced his candidacy for office, Amash helped found the House Freedom Caucus.
And now, another four years later, the formerly stalwart conservative turned anti-Trump zealot has chosen to quit the caucus and seemingly embrace his newfound left-of-center politics.
“I have the highest regard for them, and they’re my close friends. I didn’t want to be a further distraction for the group,” he said Monday to CNN after formally stepping down.
Rep. Justin Amash tells me he stepped down from the House Freedom Caucus and the HFC board tonight.
“I have the highest regard for them, and they’re my close friends,” Amash said. “I didn’t want to be a further distraction for the group.”
— Haley Byrd (@byrdinator) June 11, 2019
Amash’s demise began last month when he became the first and only “Republican” to come out in support of impeaching the president. In a series of stunning tweets posted around mid-May, he first accused Attorney General Bill Barr of misrepresenting special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report and then asserted that, in his opinion, the report proves that Trump “has engaged in impeachable conduct.”
Look:
Here are my principal conclusions:
1. Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller’s report.
2. President Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct.
3. Partisanship has eroded our system of checks and balances.
4. Few members of Congress have read the report.— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019
In comparing Barr’s principal conclusions, congressional testimony, and other statements to Mueller’s report, it is clear that Barr intended to mislead the public about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s analysis and findings.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019
Under our Constitution, the president “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” While “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not defined, the context implies conduct that violates the public trust.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) May 18, 2019
This stunning turnaround was admittedly a long time coming.
His transformation into a John McCain-esque “Republican” began as early as 2016, when he chose to not support Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
A year later in 2017, he became the first Republican to suggest the president had committed obstruction of justice. That same year he also voted against Kate’s Law and then voted against an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have banned the Pentagon from wasting taxpayer money funding transgender therapy and surgery for transgender soldiers.
It was the beginning of the end for the once-celebrated “Republican,” a man who only two years earlier had joined 51 other members of his party in rejecting a short-term funding bill that would have funded then-President Barack Hussein Obama’s amnesty agenda.
But while his Republican peers in Congress had been willing to tolerate his annoying antics, his decision to smear Barr and adopt the Democrats’ push for impeachment last Month was the final straw.
“He is calling for our president to be impeached and he doubled down on it today. I saw that he doubled down on those comments saying the Mueller report indicated he should be impeached,” Michigan state Rep. Jim Lower, who recently announced that he intends to primary Amash in 2020, said last month during an appearance on FNC’s “The Ingraham Angle.”
“There is nobody besides Bob Mueller that would have loved to come out with that conclusion, and even he couldn’t come to that conclusion. It is completely ridiculous.”
“You know at this point, Justin Amash has more in common with Rashida Tlaib than he does the average Republican primary voter in the district,” he added. “So, we are going beat him on this issue, but we’re also beat him on the fact that in ten years in Congress, he’s gotten one bill passed and it was to rename a post office. Completely ineffective.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Our website: https://t.co/HftCmN1wWB is live! Please feel free to donate and learn more! @realDonaldTrump @GOPChairwoman @MIGOPChair
— Jim Lower (@RepJimLower) May 20, 2019
Momentum continues to build for our campaign against anti-@realDonaldTrump Rep. Justin Amash. Please donate at https://t.co/HftCmN1wWB. @GOPChairwoman @MIGOPChair https://t.co/pwxVcb5bwi
— Jim Lower (@RepJimLower) May 28, 2019
I am proud to endorse my friend, Jim Lower. In the state legislature I have worked alongside Jim on issues both big and small. Some people talk, Jim delivers results. No matter the situation, The 3rd CD can trust Jim Lower to be their voice in DC. -Rep. Thomas Albert pic.twitter.com/P32DJfuj8n
— Jim Lower (@RepJimLower) May 28, 2019
Lower also noted that Amash was “the only Republican in Congress to vote against funding for the border wall and [he’s] very weak on immigration issues.”
That however was incorrect. Amash was among eight House Republicans who voted against a stopgap government funding bill last December that would have provided $5.7 billion in funding for the wall the president seeks along the southern U.S. border.
Since coming out in favor of Trump’s impeachment last month, the Michigan congressman’s Twitter feed has begun to look no different than CNN’s highly partisan “Reliable Sources” newsletter.
Observe:
Mueller’s report describes acts of obstruction by President Trump, and it clearly says Mueller chose not to decide whether Trump had committed a crime because Mueller was prohibited from actually charging him.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 7, 2019
Mueller explains that prudential concerns and an official DoJ opinion prevented him from indicting the president, and then, because it would be unfair to accuse the president of a crime without actually charging him, Mueller declined to decide whether Trump had committed a crime.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 7, 2019
Mueller wrote that it would be improper for him to conclude that Trump should be charged, given that he could not actually charge him, because it would put a criminal accusation over the president’s head, with no opportunity for a formal defense.
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 7, 2019
Some believe he stepped down from the Freedom Caucus because he intends to run against Trump in 2020. What remains unclear is whether he’d run as a Republican or a Democrat.
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Vivek@bizpacreview.com
V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.
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