Justin Amash Becomes First GOP Lawmaker to Say Trump Should Be Impeached

He gives Democrats some "bi-partisan" cover. Thanks, Justin; you and Romney can be a caucus together.

NY Intelligencer  "Michigan representative Justin Amash has become the first Republican lawmaker in Congress to acknowledge that President Trump should be impeached. The staunch libertarian, finally responding to the Mueller report in a series of tweets on Saturday, said he believed Trump’s conduct merited impeachment, argued that Attorney General William Barr “deliberately misrepresented” Mueller’s findings, and warned that partisanship has made Congress abandon the rule of law.

CNN's new BFF

"The ultraconservative congressman is one of the few Republican lawmakers who have been willing the criticize the president, though few have done so as consistently or vocally, and he’s one of the only Republicans who seems to have considered running against Trump in 2020. Now he’s endorsing an additional way of removing Trump from office." . . .

GOP Lawmaker Claims Trump Committed Impeachable Acts (But Doesn’t List Any)

That puts Amash to the left of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), both of who have come out against impeachment proceedings.

 Justin Amash Should Put His Money Where His Mouth Is On Impeachment

. . . "I think Amash’s call for impeachment is stupid at best. His tweets make very serious claims while providing essentially no evidence of those claims. Citing the Mueller report in a completely generalized manner is not an argument for impeachment. If it were, Mueller would have recommended Trump be charged (and we know the OLC opinion on indicting Presidents was not a factor). Saying that any other person would have been indicted, again providing no evidence, is not clever. It’s obfuscation.

"Amash should cite some previous examples of obstruction of justice convictions involving someone who publicly criticized an investigation and thought about doing something but never did it. I mean, since it’s such an open and shut case, there’s got to be just dozens and dozens of examples he can cite, right?" . . .

. . . "The shots at Bill Barr are even worse. At least with impeachment you can fall back on the fact that it’s an open-ended, political standard, which is what Amash attempts to do further down in his statement. What he’s accusing Barr of is simply a lie though. He did not misrepresent the Mueller report and Robert Mueller himself has confirmed that. To drag his name through the mud without anything to back it up undermines the entirety of his comments." . . .